Amit Shah to release Hindi version of three medical textbooks on October 16

Nearly eight months after the announcement, the first set of three textbooks have been transliterated and will be inaugurated by Home Minister Amit Shah on October 16 at Bhopal’s Lal Parade ground.

The textbooks will be rolled out from current academic session. MP has a total of 4,080 medical seats and these textbooks, as a pilot project, will be rolled out in Government Medical College (GMC) and then expanded to 13 other colleges. Hindi textbooks for second year students will roll out from next year.

State Medical Education Minister Vishwas Sarang pointed out that technical words such as blood pressure, spine have not been translated but instead written in devnagri script.

“The entire transliteration of these books have been done through a thorough process. First, a task force was constituted to provide Hindi medical studies who conducted extensive research by talking to all stakeholders from faculties to students to specific subject experts. We also sought opinion of all through our government website,” Sarang said. He said the task force also studied the method adopted in other countries such as Germany and China where medical education is provided in their mother tongue.

Then the next step was to identify the publishers of these textbooks. Vikram Singh for anatomy, Indu Khurana for physiology and Dinesh Puri for biochemistry were zeroed down and their permission was sought, Sarang said. It was then that a meeting with medical education staffers was held and permission for voluntary appointments to the team for transliteration sought. “After the first round of meetings, 97 people were identified who were divided into three groups — one each for each of the three subjects — and they were provided with books roughly translated from English to Hindi, which was done using software,” said Sarang.

A war room called Mandara was created where each of the three teams headed by a coordinator transliterated each chapter.

Richa Gupta, an operator from physiology department who was also part of the team translating the books, said: “We had been working tirelessly for 8-9 hours a day for over the past six months. When there were reviews, we worked even on Sundays to finish the job. During the process, we also learned several new words and their meanings.”

Sarang said after the transliteration, the textbooks were screened by another validation committee comprising subject experts and teachers.

There will be separate batches for Hindi and English medium students but most things taught in classes are both in English and Hindi, which will continue.

Dr Sachet Saxena, former president of Junior Doctor Association, MP, who completed his MBBS from GMC in Bhopal and is now pursuing his super speciality course from Bangalore, said: “It is good that local language is being incorporated. It helps students with Hindi background but it may also become a hurdle. We need to work on the overall growth of students as at later stages during postgraduation and international medical journals, everything is in English.”