[3][4] Identifying fake medical practitioners without qualifications, the Supreme Court of India stated in 2018 that "unqualified, untrained quacks are posing a great risk to the entire society and playing with the lives of people without having the requisite training and education in the science from approved institutions".
[3][4] Siddha practitioners believe that five basic elements[6] – earth, water, fire, air, sky – are in food, "humours" of the human body, and herbal, animal or inorganic chemical compounds, such as sulfur and mercury, used as therapies for treating diseases.
[15] According to ancient literature of Siddha, it is said that the system of this medicine originated from Hindu God Shiva who taught it to his consort Parvati.
[17] Siddha views disease as a condition caused when the normal equilibrium of the three humors (collectively called mukkuttram) – vaadham (airy), pittham (fiery) and kapam (watery) – is disturbed.
Practicing Siddha medicine and similar forms of rural alternative medicine in India was banned in the Travancore-Cochin Medical Practitioners' Act of 1953,[23] then reinforced in 2018 by the Supreme Court of India which stated that "A number of unqualified, untrained quacks are posing a great risk to the entire society and playing with the lives of people.
[3][24][5] Since 2014, the Supreme Court of India and Indian Medical Association have described Siddha medicine as quackery,[3][24][5] and there is no governmental recognition of siddhars as legitimate physicians.
[3] In 2018, licensed Indian physicians staged demonstrations and accused the government of sanctioning quackery by proposing to allow rural quacks to practice some aspects of clinical medicine without having complete medical training.