'Don’t call homeopaths quacks’: AYUSH body flags insults, govt blocks Liver Doc’s post

On the evening of June 8, the Board of Ethics and Registration for Homoeopathy (BERH) under the National Commission for Homoeopathy, a statutory body under the Ministry of AYUSH, issued a circular warning that calling registered homoeopathic practitioners “quacks” is defamatory and may be legally actionable.

The circular, signed by BERH president Dr Harcharan Jeet Kaur, declares that calling a registered homoeopathic practitioner a “quack” in any medium, including social media posts, press releases, or even FIRs, is “misleading, defamatory, and detrimental to their professional reputation.” It goes further, warning that such characterisation “may violate applicable statutory provisions and the constitutional rights of registered Homoeopathic practitioners.”

The second directive instructs “all practitioners, institutions, and stakeholders” to “exercise due diligence” while making public statements about homoeopathy, and to avoid language that may be “defamatory, misleading, or prejudicial.” The circular neither defines who may make that determination nor specifies what legal action may follow.

Within hours, the warning seems to have translated into state action.

Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, a hepatologist better known online as TheLiverDoc, posted on Instagram in direct response to the circular.

His post, captioned “I’m sorry I’m not sorry”, was a carousel of sardonic ‘apologies’ that included slides compiling a British Medical Association (BMA) call to ban homoeopathy from the NHS, an explainer in The Economist calling it “nonsense”, a TED talk titled “Homeopathy, quackery and fraud”, peer-reviewed research calling it pseudoscience, and a Reddit thread describing it as “a total fraud”, among other slides. Each slide was annotated with mocking “Sorry!” stickers. The final slide quoted Mahatma Gandhi: “Never apologise for being correct.”

Barely an hour or two later, the hepatologist’s post was blocked in India the same day. Instagram’s notification to Dr Philips read: “Your post is unavailable in India.” The platform cited legal requirements under India’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules. 

Under the latest amendments to these rules, notified in February 2026, social media platforms like Instagram are required to remove or restrict access to content flagged by the government within three hours of receiving an order.

Dr Philips confirmed in the comments that the block appeared to be “as per demand from the Government,” and asked followers outside India to share the post widely. A US-based commenter confirmed it was visible abroad.

Meanwhile, this morning, he issued a statement on his X account against the blocking order, noting that the “alternative medicine industry and its practitioners in India have been given immunity against criticism from the medical science community by the Government of India and AYUSH Ministry.”

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