Why does the Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasise Hindi as the language of medical education more?
The introduction of medical education in Hindi, according to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will result in a significant improvement for the nation. He said that thousands of kids will be able to learn in their own language and that numerous new opportunities would become available to them.
The Prime Minister was responding to the introduction of such a programme in Bhopal by Home Minister Amit Shah. As part of the ambitious mission of the Madhya Pradesh government to provide medical education in Hindi medium language, Shah on Sunday presented textbooks for three subjects for MBBS students. Shah described it as a significant historical day and said that Madhya Pradesh is now the first state in the nation to offer the MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) programme in Hindi.
Additionally, Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Saturday that beginning in the upcoming academic year, students will be able to enrol in medical and engineering programmes in Hindi as their language of learning at all of the state’s institutions and universities. He said that some textbooks for engineering and medicine courses in the state had already been translated into Hindi. According to him, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new National Education Policy, which places a strong focus on using Indian languages to educate all curricula, including those for engineering and medicine, will solidify India’s position as the “Vishwa Guru.”
One of the key reasons Prime Minister Narendra Modi is stressing the importance of medical education in Hindi is to take decisive action to continue the legacy of Charak Samhita.
Medical textbooks in Hindi
Amit Shah, the Home Minister, will soon release three medical textbooks. The fact that these textbooks will be available in Hindi is noteworthy. Anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology books have been translated into Hindi with blood and sweat. On October 16, Home Minister Shah will dedicate them at Bhopal’s Lal Parade ground.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivaraj Singh Chauhan first announced the project in February of this year. The problem was that simple translation into hindi would not work because the words in medical textbooks are highly technical in nature. Maintaining precision and avoiding tampering were also required. A task force was formed to address the issue.
Not a simple task
This task force consulted with lecturers and senior professionals. Public opinions were also sought after through government portals. Additionally, it also looked into the methodologies of translation adoption in countries such as Germany and China. Towards the end of this process, the task force understood that a plane translation would not do. Instead, transliteration also became part of the process. Technical words such as blood pressure, spine, femur, angioplasty, DNA, stomach and many others were simply written in Devnagri script, without tinkering with them.
The three publishers of these publications are Vikram Singh for anatomy, Indu Khurana for physiology, and Dinesh Puri for biochemistry. Meetings with medical education staff members were convened to form a team for transliteration after receiving approval from these three dignitaries. “After the initial round of meetings, 97 people were identified and put into three groups, one for each of the three disciplines, and they were given texts that had been approximately translated from English to Hindi using software,” said Vishwas Sarang, state minister for medical education.
After transliteration, the work was sent to a validation committee. The committee comprising subject matter experts and teachers passed it. According to the plan, separate batches for Hindi and English medium students will be organised. Initially, these textbooks will only be available to students of Government medical Colleges and then expanded to 13 other colleges. It is pertinent to note that the move is in accordance with the National Education Policy, 2020.
Mixed responses
The medical fraternity has mixed reactions about the project. While 2,500 students will be flocking from Indore to Bhopal for the inauguration, there are concerns regarding job prospects. Members of Federation of the All-India Medical Associations (FAIMA), a body of postgraduate medical students and doctors have said that the move will handicap people as medical education is available in English language. Others said that it only makes entry easier for experts of vernacular language, but ultimately, they will have to learn to comprehend in English.
Will restore conventional medical education in India
Local medicinal literature including the Charak Sanhita, Sushruta Samhita, and Kashyap Samhita, among others, lost their traction as a result. These texts become unavailable to most people with the introduction of the English language. Along with them, Indians’ traditional approaches to living a healthy lifestyle, like Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, and Siddha, were neglected for a considerable amount of time.
Though the Modi administration’s emphasis on AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) education has resulted in some positive advances, a fundamental reform was needed to make them accessible to the general public. The first of these steps is the inclusion of Hindi in medical education.
