Indian acupuncture practitioners eye closer ties with TCM universities

Indian acupuncture practitioners and their institutes hope to expand educational programs, academic collaboration and research initiatives with leading Traditional Chinese Medicine universities in China to promote the treatment in India, citing China's remarkable progress in the field.

A five-member delegation of Indian acupuncture professionals, following a recent six-day visit beginning on Sept 16 to leading TCM universities and hospitals in China, observed a remarkable model of integrated healthcare in which TCM hospitals and modern medical facilities operate under the same roof.

The delegation noted that TCM physicians and modern medical specialists enjoy equal professional status and work collaboratively as part of an integrated healthcare system.

"This integrated approach was particularly noteworthy and showed how traditional and modern healthcare systems can work together," said Debasis Bakshi, the delegation's senior-most member.

Indian acupuncture practitioners, however, have been striving for decades to gain professional recognition and institutional acceptance within India's healthcare framework, Bakshi said.

Bakshi is an Indian acupuncturist and secretary of the Indian Research Institute for Integrated Medicine, or IRIIM, a leading acupuncture therapy, research, training and learning center in Kolkata, an eastern Indian city and state capital of West Bengal.

The acupuncture practitioners were amazed to see the efficacy of treatments administered by Chinese doctors and witnessed how TCM culture is continuously evolving in tangible ways.

The five-member team, invited by the office of the Chinese Consul-General in Kolkata, visited major institutions, including Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing Hospital of Chinese Medicine affiliated with Nanjing University, Hebei University of Chinese Medicine, Shaanxi Academy of TCM and Xi'an TCM Hospital of Encephalopathy.

Traditional acupuncture classrooms have been designed and equipped with new technology, and China is putting tremendous effort into elevating TCM from localized knowledge to universal medical wisdom, said Chandana Mitra, another member in the team.

Acupuncture therapy in India is closely linked to the story of the Indian Medical Mission, or IMM, a group of five doctors, dispatched to China in 1938 to provide medical assistance during the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45).

Among them was Dwarkanath Shantaram Kotnis, widely known in China as Dr Ke Dihua, who treated numerous Chinese patients and died in 1942 in China at the age of 32. Bejoy Kumar Basu, a colleague of Kotnis and a torchbearer of the IMM, stayed in China for nearly five years between 1938 and 1943. In 1978, Basu took four Indian students to Nanjing University for advanced training and research in acupuncture, hoping to provide them with deeper knowledge of the Chinese healing science. Bakshi, Mitra and Mrigendranath Gantait were the students.

After completing their training, Bakshi founded the IRIIM in 1981, while Gantait established the B.K. Basu Memorial Research and Training Institute of Acupuncture in Kolkata, two oldest and popular acupuncture centers in India and recognized by the government of West Bengal.

Gantait wishes the two neighbors would continue to collaborate on acupuncture. "It is not just a therapy but a friendship bridge between the people of India and China," he said.

Bakshi and Gantait, two veteran acupuncturists and activists in India, are also campaigning with the federal Indian government for recognition of acupuncture practitioners on par with modern medical practitioners.

Inderjeet Singh Dhingra, a medical superintendent of the Dr D.N. Kotnis Health and Education Centre, located in India's northern Indian state of Punjab, plans to invite a group of TCM experts from China and organize medical camps in Punjab in December this year to provide free consultation to patients and to train Indian acupuncture aspirants.

Dr D.N. Kotnis Health and Education Centre, another acupuncture training institute in India, signed a memorandum of cooperation with China's Guizhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 2019 to enhance cooperation in education and research in acupuncture, besides other academic and cultural areas.

Anish Gupta, national president of the Acupuncture Science Association of India, will deliver a lecture on advanced research on acupuncture in November at China Beijing International Acupuncture Training Center. Gupta was appointed as honorary professor at China Beijing International Acupuncture Training Center, under the Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences.

Gupta, practicing acupuncture since 1991 runs an acupuncture clinic in Kota, a city of northwestern Indian state Rajasthan. "Acupuncture is more than just a therapy — it is a bridge of healing between the two countries," Gupta said.

The office of the Chinese Consul General in Kolkata is ready to support exchanges, training, and research for acupuncture talents in India and can jointly organize seminars and exhibitions to commemorate the great contributions of IMM in China and to promote acupuncture in India, according to the Chinese Consul General in Kolkata Xu Wei.

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.