Madhya Pradesh BUMS Hindi Textbooks: BUMS Studies to be Offered in Hindi; MP to Become the First State

Madhya Pradesh is taking a major step towards making Unani medical education more accessible. The state is poised to become the first in the country to provide textbooks for the Bachelor of Unani Medicine and Surgery (BUMS) course in Hindi. Until now, these books were available only in Urdu, causing significant difficulties for students unfamiliar with the language.

To address this issue, the state government has decided to have these books translated into Hindi. This initiative is being undertaken for the state's only Government Unani Medical College, located in Bhopal, which has seen a steady rise in the number of students who do not know Urdu in recent years.

The primary reason behind this move is the increasing number of non-Urdu speaking students at the Bhopal college who struggle to study from books written in Urdu. In the 2025-26 academic session, 15 out of the total 75 seats were filled by students who do not know Urdu. It is evident that the number of non-Urdu speaking students is rising annually, prompting the government to recognize the need for Hindi textbooks.

A significant factor contributing to this increase is a change in the central government's admission rules. Following the 2022-23 academic session, the regulations were amended to remove the mandatory requirement of having studied Urdu in Class 10 for admission to the Unani medical course. Previously, this condition was compulsory, preventing many interested students from enrolling in the course.

According to officials from the AYUSH Department, this decision is also expected to boost the participation of students from Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC). The department states that numerous posts for Unani doctors remain vacant in the state, primarily because qualified candidates from these sections are often unavailable. Notably, a large number of the new non-Urdu-speaking students enrolling in this course belong to these very communities. Consequently, the availability of Hindi textbooks will facilitate their studies, potentially helping to fill the vacant doctor positions in the future.

Previously, a traditional course like Unani medicine was considered accessible only to students proficient in Urdu. This meant that many meritorious students stayed away from the field solely due to the language barrier. Now, with the introduction of Hindi textbooks, this obstacle will be removed, opening up Unani medical education to students from all backgrounds and linguistic groups.