Naturopath Mehta honored

The five-rupee postage stamp commemorating naturopath Dr Dinshaw Mehta (1903-1993) depicts the bearded visage of the doctor with Mahatma Gandhi. The impress was part of a series of 12 issued to commemorate practitioners of traditional Indian systems of medicine like unani, siddha and homeopathy.
Mehta was a close confidant of Gandhi who helped him set up the Nature Cure Clinic and Sanatorium in Poona. Mehta reportedly carried out "scientific studies in naturopathy, especially on fasting,” stated Mintage World, an "online museum” for coins, notes and stamps. The Clinic has now evolved into the National Institute of Naturopathy (NIN). Their website notes that the All India Nature Cure Foundation Trust was established by Mehta and Gandhi became its life-long chairman. The present complex was handed over to the union government in 1975 by Mehta for starting NIN.

Above (r): Dr Dinshaw Mehta honored with a stamp (inset) Photo: stampsofindia.com

Mehta "regretted not having been with Gandhiji at the time (of his death). He felt that he might have been able to ward off the assassination,” his grandniece Anahita Devitre had told The Times of India in January 2008 when Gandhi’s ashes were immersed in the sea off Bombay on his 60th death anniversary (see "The beloved patient,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, March 7, 2008).
Mehta’s nephew, thespian Firdausi Jussawalla had told Parsiana that his uncle Dinshaw was an "amazing man” and "charismatic.” A physical culturist in his younger days, he had a great body and posed to show off his musculature…While at his Clinic in Shivgarh near Poona where he housed a few patients, the villagers would often come with complaints of panthers carrying off their cattle, and he would come to their rescue by shooting the offending animal… Mehta’s Clinic at Todiwalla Road in Poona had been gifted to him by a princely family whose members had been his patients and financed by another grateful patient, Keki Bhiwandiwalla of Great Eastern Shipping Company (see "Remembering Dadaji,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, July 21, 2011).
The stamp honoring Mehta was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 30, 2019.