18/12/2025
JLN Medical College, Ajmer – As I Saw It!
An ex-student
I distinctly remember frequenting a narrow street between Victoria Hospital and Agrawal Higher Secondary School in Ajmer during my early teens. This street had a single lamp post that, after dusk, emitted a dim, fading light—illuminating more a cowshed on its right than the road itself. It was on this not-very-large parcel of land that a building was constructed in the mid-1960s. In the history of the PWD, Rajasthan, this was the first RCC multistorey construction in the state—albeit only four floors.
The first four batches of JLN Medical College studied in the annexes of the TB Demonstration Centre on Jaipur Road or in a lecture theatre behind the erstwhile Victoria Hospital. When we reached II MBBS in January 1970, regular teaching from the IV semester onward began in the new building. No sooner had the building started functioning than it was realized that the scorching sun inundated the front-facing laboratories and halls on the eastern side. This led to early renovations with the installation of sun-breakers, which eventually became the iconic architectural feature of JLN Medical College.
Concurrently, the transformation of Victoria Hospital into JLN Hospital began—civil works that, one suspects, may still not be entirely complete. Until we passed out in early 1973, the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department remained perched on the hills near Delhi Gate, popularly known as Longia Hospital. What a pleasure it was to squeeze into the running blue van for ward postings to this not-so-distant location, arms braced against those of fellow students!
In its first fifteen years, JLN saw three Principals and Controllers (P&C), one of whom served for more than a decade. Their leadership decisively shaped the academic and social culture of the institution. Ajmer, being a small town in those days, gave medical students ample space to exercise their clout—particularly in the town’s five cinema halls. Watching a movie on the first day, first show, was a matter of prestige. The services of the boys’ hostel peon at midnight—procured to fetch poppy-seed-flavored hot tea from the railway station—were a privilege reserved for those adept at the card game ‘Paplu’.
The location of the College, with its small campus despite repeated efforts to add buildings on limited land, continues to challenge its sanity, serenity, and grace. My couple of visits to the campus between its golden jubilee and the forthcoming diamond jubilee were disappointing: a shabbily postered golden jubilee gate watched over by robust rodents from the sewer opposite, and an ungainly metallic structure atop the College porch standing guard over a building we once loved dearly.
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The most exciting phase in the life of a medical teacher is teaching at one’s alma mater. Beyond my five-and-a-half years as an undergraduate, I had the pleasure of serving on the faculty of this College as a Lecturer (before redesignation to Assistant Professor) and later as Associate Professor from 1981 to 1994. This was an era when political and bureaucratic interference in the day-to-day functioning of medical colleges was hardly visible. Principals were truly “Controllers” in every sense.
During my thirteen years of teaching at JLN, I served under four P&Cs, each steering the College in a distinct manner. The Mobile Surgical Unit of the College did remarkable work, delivering curative services to hundreds of villagers across Ajmer district.
Unlike SMS Medical College, Jaipur—and to a considerable extent the medical colleges at Bikaner and Udaipur—faculty turnover at JLN remained high. Over time, this diluted a sense of institutional ownership.
The number of medical colleges in India remained almost static at around 106 until the early 1990s. Consequently, JLN could not gather enough momentum to compete with long-established institutions. Rajasthan’s polity, which often kept Ajmer on the back stage, further deprived the College of timely resources. Faculty members, struggling to keep pace with technological advances, were often compelled to compromise on their potential.
Super-specialties began arriving in medical colleges from the 1980s, and JLN Ajmer lagged behind in this race as well. Their introduction significantly impacted undergraduate education. Cultural change in medical education accelerated with affiliation to Universities of Health Sciences and the rapid pace of privatization. Much of this transformation has been positive, though the mechanisms of regulation have continued to puzzle stakeholders. It is reassuring to see that JLN, Ajmer, has largely managed to stay above board.
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As a Public Health Specialist, I have visited twenty-two countries across six continents and globally acclaimed health-sector institutions for various academic purposes. Introducing myself to esteemed health professionals on international platforms often carried the modest caveat of being a graduate from a relatively unknown institute—yet it also strengthened my hope of carving an identity for my alma mater.
Graduates from the earlier batches dispersed quickly. Postgraduate courses commenced here only in 1977, and for most of us in those years it was not feasible to withstand the rigors of the co-guide system and the twice-yearly journeys to RNT Medical College, Udaipur, to fulfil MD/MS requirements. Even so, more than fifty years after passing out, most of us from the early batches are happy to witness the College’s growth—though it still has miles to go.
Let us hope that the current custodians of JLN Medical College grasp its historical perspective and provide it the momentum required to match the best institutions by the time we arrive at the vision of a “Viksit Bharat.”
Shiv Chandra Mathur MD
Retired as Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine
SMS Medical College, Jaipur
Earlier Director SIHFW, Rajasthan, Jaipur
+91 9414055607
Beginning my career in 1975 from the then Rural Health Training Center at village Naila… · Experience: Health Systems strngthening · Education: Karolinska institutet · Location: Jaipur · 500+ connections on LinkedIn. View Shiv Chandra Mathur’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional community of...
