Hakim Ajmal Khan: Champion of Unani & Medical Reforms

Khan was a freedom fighter, an educator and a Unani doctor who brought innovation to traditional medicine in Delhi

In 1925, Hakim Ajmal Khan led a historic protest in Delhi against hiring amateur and ill-skilled doctors of indigenous medicine by the city’s municipality. But why should we know about Hakim Ajmal Khan and what is ‘indigenous’ medicine?

Indigenous medicine is the use of natural herbs, roots and plants for the treatment of various physical illnesses. Hakim Ajmal Khan was a freedom fighter, and educator and a leading Unani physician who was considered to be the father of Unani medicine. He took significant steps to promote Unani medicine and disliked doctors and ‘healers’ who did not educate themselves. However, the Delhi municipality favoured the latter and hired sub-par doctors. So, Ajmal Khan protested for better doctors and a better standard of medicine.

According to historian Barbara Metcalf, the aim of the protest was to remove “ill-educated hakims and vaids who claimed learning and recognition.”

Metcalfe said that Khan was a leader not just in medicine but in politics as well. She said that generations of Indians did not have properly-trained allopathic doctors. In many areas, missionaries (people who promote Christianity around the world) with basic or out-dated knowledge of medicine performed the role of healers—but their remedies were not always credible. Khan fought against such unreliable medicines. Even though he was an indigenous medicine practitioner, he wasn’t against allopathic medicine either. He believed that indigenous doctors could learn from Western in areas where the latter were superior. He demanded skilled practitioners of indigenous medicine to be hired and reminded the British rulers that if they fail to do so, it would put their rule in bad light, wound nationalist pride and cause public disaffection.

Khan belonged to a family of skilled Unani physicians. He was the son of Mahmud Khan, a prominent Unani doctor whose death moved the poet Altaf Hussain Hali to compose a verse that bemoaned the loss of “Jahanabad’s pride”.

Ajmal Khan was a social reformer and was friends with Hindus, Muslims and Christians, including the missionary-turned-nationalist CF Andrews. Before Independence, reforms in medicines were brought by creating new institutions. In 1889, Ajmal Khan’s brother—inspired by Sir Ahmed Khan’s college at Aligarh—opened a new school in Ballimaran in Delhi. He wanted to make Hakim’s family-based instruction formal. But the indigenous physician insisted that Unani practitioners must incorporate allopathic medicine. This did not sit well with orthodox Unani practitioners. Many denounced their endeavours as reprehensible (woah, big word alert!) and against Islamic doctrines.

So how did Ajmal Khan tackle these major issues? He launched a newspaper named Akmal ul-Akhbar along with his brother. It was aimed at defending and propagating measures to reform medicine. The brothers also founded a dawakhana (a pharmacy) that stored both Unani and Ayurvedic medicines. Historian Metcalfe said that dawakhana was important for two reasons. Firstly, it shared all family secrets as all the formulae for medical remedies were provided for all. Secondly, it normalized the standards for a reformed medicine. Known as the Hindustani Dawakhana, it was inaugurated in 1910 and within two decades, had expanded all over the country.

Just four years before the inauguration of the dawakhana, in 1906, Hakim Ajmal Khan formed the Tibbi Conference to bring Unani physicians together, share his knowledge and India’s urgent need to to reform medicine. He stressed the importance of innovation in indigenous systems and incorporate Ayurvedic systems of medicine for common illnesses.

In 1911, Ajmal Khan travelled around Europe which solidified his belief to establish modern institutions. Finally, the foundation stone of the Ayurvedic and Unani Tibbiya College was laid by Viceroy Lord Hardinge in 1916 and the institution was formally opened by Mahatma Gandhi in 1921.

So, were his efforts successful? It was a roaring success! His medical practices were backed by scientific principles and were increasingly secularized in modern India The remedies were available to all. CF Andrews, a Christian missionary who later became a social reformer, visited an Unani clinic and was pleasantly surprised to see people of all religions being treated equally. He said, “It brought home a shock to my opinion that Hindus and Muslims did not mix. Ajmal Khan treated all, Hindus and Muslims, rich and poor, alike.”

According to Metcalf, while Unani medicine was indeed a symbol of Muslim pride, it was outside the core religious subject and was open for all. Ajmal Khan’s beliefs were also rooted in Delhi’s cosmopolitan culture. During the 1919 riots against the Rowlatt Act (a law that punished people for their civil rights) in Delhi, Ajmal Khan, along with Arya Samaj leader Swami Shradhanand, helped maintain peace.

Ajmal Khan viewed medicine as key to freedom from the British rule. In 1920, he wrote, “If we want to take the administration of the government in our hands, we must correct all national things, including the indigenous system of medicine. Our progress depends on these things.”

The 1925 protests were successful in establishing a standard norm for hiring legitimate doctors in Delhi.

Ajmal Khan passed away two years after the protests. He leaves behind a legacy of Unani medicine, which is not just recognized but is also incorporated in modern medicine by the Ministry of Ayush.