Students Turn Away from Hindi Medium MBBS in Madhya Pradesh Over Career Concerns

Ankit Pandey still remembers the relief he felt when he joined the first Hindi-medium MBBS batch at Gandhi Medical College in Bhopal. He had studied in Hindi till Class 12. The new option looked like a practical way into medicine without the constant struggle with English. That was the 2022-23 academic year. By the second year he and nearly all his batchmates had switched to English.

“We thought it would make things simpler,” he said. The anatomy books came in Hindi, but the medical terms stayed in English. Preparing for NEET PG and the years after forced the change. The postgraduate entrance stays in English. So do most research papers, hospital records outside the state, and the wider professional world.

Madhya Pradesh became the first state to offer MBBS in Hindi under its ease-of-education drive. The move followed the National Education Policy’s stress on learning in Indian languages. In October 2022 Union Home Minister Amit Shah released the first Hindi textbooks for Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry. A team of 97 subject experts prepared the material in Bhopal. The reported cost was ₹10 crore. The books reached state medical colleges from the 2022-23 session. Students could write exams in a mix of Hindi and English. The final degree would not mention the medium.

The picture at Gandhi Medical College is clear. Roughly 1,000 students have joined MBBS there since 2022-23. Only 85 chose the Hindi option. The first batch of 22 students largely shifted after the first year. The college library has issued just ten Hindi MBBS books in four years. One publisher who printed several thousand sets received orders for about 1,800 sets in Madhya Pradesh and 700 in Rajasthan. More than 20,000 students took MBBS seats in the state during the same period.

Classes often put Hindi and English medium students together. Teachers move between both languages. Slides and diagrams stay in English. Students from the first Hindi batch found the specialised books less useful in that setting. Sandeep Puri, another student from the inaugural group, asked a simple question: when the classroom already runs in English, what extra value do the Hindi textbooks bring?

The language of the subject itself creates friction. Many technical terms appear in English even inside the Hindi books, written in Devanagari. Students say the result feels halfway. It softens the first shock for those from Hindi-medium schools but does not fully prepare them for an English-heavy exam system and workplace.

University records from earlier years showed that very few students wrote entire theory papers only in Hindi, even though the choice existed and some fee relief was offered. Teaching in many colleges remains bilingual. That helps some Hindi-background students gain early confidence. Still, the pattern holds. As the course moves forward, English becomes the safer choice.

For parents and students still deciding, the experience carries a clear message. A Hindi-medium school background is no longer an automatic barrier to entry. The longer road, however, still rewards comfort with English medical vocabulary and the language of national exams. Those who start in Hindi often treat the translated books as a temporary bridge rather than a complete path. Teachers in the state have watched this shift for years. Students who struggle at the beginning usually adapt by leaning more on English materials as the semesters pass.

Other states have studied the Madhya Pradesh model. Work continues on standard Hindi medical terms and a dedicated dictionary. For the moment the ground reality at places like Gandhi Medical College shows that textbooks and policy support alone have not been enough to keep students in the Hindi stream when postgraduate seats and career options hang in the balance.

Students keep making the practical call. The system after MBBS still runs largely in English, and they respond to that reality.