NEW DELHI:

During his tenure as Viceroy General of India, Charles Hardinge, the 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst, came in touch with many practising hakims and vaidyas while opening medical colleges in India.

During the middle of the 18th Century, India had physicians from diverse backgrounds including vaidyas and hakims who practised Ayurveda and Unani respectively, and freely borrowed medicine recipes from each other. But, with the arrival of the British, both practices were sidelined.

During his tenure as Viceroy General of India, Charles Hardinge, the 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst, came in touch with many practising hakims and vaidyas while opening medical colleges in India. It was his friendship with Hakim Ajmal Khan, a practising Unani medical physician from the lineage of hakims of Mughal rulers, that made him lay the foundation stone of the Ayurvedic and Unani Tibbia College in 1916.

Prior to the college, currently situated in Karol Bagh, Hakim Ajmal Khan and his two elder brothers Hakim Abdul Majid Khan and Hakim Mohamed Wasal Khan worked under their father, Hakim Gulam Mehmood Khan, in their house, Sharif Manzil, in Chandni Chowk’s Ballimaran. Their father ran a small Unani school, named Unani Madrasa Tibbia, where they practised and taught Unani and Ayurvedic medicine to young scholars.

Hakim Ajmal Khan’s grandfather, Hakim Sharif Khan, was a physician to Mughal Emperor Shah Alam and had built Sharif Manzil, after which the family came to be known as “Sharifi”. Hakim Sharif Khan’s ancestors had come to India during the reign of Babar and were of imminent importance during Shah Jahan’s rule. They were then known as the aristocrats of Delhi and enjoyed a high social status.

Speaking with The Indian Express, the great grandson of Hakim Ajmal Khan, 80-year-old Masroor Ahmed Khan, said the Unani Madrasa Tibbia was opened in 1882. “We have 300 years of history and were known as royal hakims. When the Britishers came, they were bringing a new ordinance under which Allopathy medicine was going to be promoted more and Unani, Ayurveda were being sidelined. Until then, the education of Unani medicine was not institutionalised. Fearing that their practices will fade out, they started a college from Sharif Manzil,” he said.

Masroor added that he is the first in his family to not practise medicine.

He said the three brothers taught at Sharif Manzil and after the death of his two elder brothers, Hakim Ajmal Khan continued as the head of the college and raised the quality of the institution. “His popularity grew further, and he went on to become chief physician to the Nawab of Rampur. He was also a consultant for the royal families of Patiala, Jind, Gwalior, Gaikwad,” said Masroor.

The Unani Madrasa Tibbia was flourishing alongside Hakim Ajmal Khan’s popularity, and he then decided to buy land to build a new college for which a board of trustees was formed. With some influence and a promise that a wing of the hospital will be dedicated to Lady Hardinge, the trust received land from the British India government. The land in Karol Bagh was granted to the Anjuman-I-Tibbia on February 14, 1916, by the imperial Delhi Committee.

The foundation stone was laid on March 29, 1916, by Lord Hardinge after the board sent him a letter inviting him for the same.

Masroor said it was Hakim Ajmal Khan’s nationalistic approach because of which he named the college Ayurvedic and Unani Tibbia College, where 99% practitioners were of Unani medicine and only 2-3% of Ayurveda. “Hakim Ajmal Khan was also one of the founders of Jamia Millia Islamia and he was the only Muslim to chair a session of the Hindu Mahasabha. He was elected as president of the Indian National Congress from 1921-22 and also became president of the Muslim League and the All India Khilafat Committee,” said Masroor.

During his Khilafat movement days, Hakim Ajmal Khan had corresponded with Mahatma Gandhi to inaugurate the college, which the latter agreed to, and launched it on February 13, 1921.

Much before the Parliament, North and South avenues and India Gate, the college was an architectural marvel in the newly founded capital of India. The buildings represent a mix of Indian and Mughal architecture and house classrooms, laboratories, hospital pharmacies, hostels, office and staff quarters.

Hakim Ajmal Khan also helped in developing the college of more than 50 acres and also established a garden of herbs on the road across the college. The garden has now been named after him as ‘Ajmal Khan Park’ and is maintained by the MCD. The road has also been named after him – Ajmal Khan Road is now a popular shopping area of Delhi.

During the Partition, a majority of hakims of the family left for Pakistan and the college was taken over by Hakim Jamil Khan, son of Hakim Ajmal Khan, and while he was using the college as his own personal space, the then education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad decided to take over the college and run it as a government institution.

The matter reached the Supreme Court, which announced that the college will be a government run institution. The college is now being run by the Delhi government and admits students through the NEET exam.

According to college principal Mohammed Zubair, a total of 75 seats are through NEET. He said the college also provides courses in BUMS and BAMS and MD.

He added that post Covid, the perspective of students and patients in general has changed and a large number of students have opted for these courses. “We had students even before Covid but now a number of students who have done courses in physiotherapy and have done their BSc have come to study here.”

Not only this. Mohammed Zubair said a large number of patients too still believe in Unani and Ayurvedic medicine. “We have a footfall of 1,000 patients in our OPD. We also provide minor surgeries. The Delhi government had also established the Ayush Centre in our college where we admitted 989 Covid patients,” he said.

According to writer and historian Sohail Hashmi, there are a lot of people in smaller towns and remote places, where allopathy hasn’t reached or is not enough, who opt for traditional systems of medicines including Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha.

“Once we were colonised, it was then that our traditional systems were discarded. Colonisation colonised our minds. The Indian system of Ayurveda and Unani function on the basis of five groups of illnesses; so did Hippocrates’ four humors theory. There are a whole lot of commonalities in what Hippocrates discovered and it came to India from Greece via Iran and Arabia,” he said.

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Delhi / by Ankita Upadhyay / New Delhi – November 13th, 2022