The shelves at Amar Jeet Singh Afridi’s shops in both Peshawar and Mardan are lined with jars that contain herbal medicines for most ailments, including arthritis, diabetes, sexually transmitted diseases and blood pressure. His clinics are busy with at least 20 people coming to see Singh every day, especially during Ramazan as all consultations are free and medicines are at half price.
Singh, 42, is the third generation of hakims in his family, with the Unani Tibb or Arabic medicine practice starting with his grandfather. Singh, a practising Sikh, has been treating people for the last 18 years and works tirelessly around the year in both Mardan and Peshawar.
“We set aside a special fund all year, almost like zakat if you will, to ensure that we can treat people for free in Ramazan,” he told Aaj TV. “During this month everyone tries to earn as many blessings as they can and I am no different.”
Traditionally associated with Islam, the Unani Tibb is widely practised in South East Asia and uses eight methods to diagnose ailments. These include monitoring the pulse, observing urine and stool, the appearance of the tongue, clarity in speech and speech, as well the appearance of a person.
An Unani hakim will also use the sense of touch to help arrive at a diagnosis. The practice itself began in the 1920s when Hakim Ajmal Khan pioneered his research in Unani medicine within the parameters of modern medicine.
“People should stop asking about religion. I do not discriminate on the basis of religion when I treat people. Hindus, Muslims and even Sikhs can walk into my clinic in Ramazan and they will get treated for free. I also advise other people to help without caring about the religion of the person afflicted.”
Singh’s dispensary, Unani Dawakhana, is registered with the National Council for Tibb, a corporate body formed in 1965 by the government for promoting Unani, Ayurvedic and Homoeopathic systems of medicine.
Before 2018, Singh would treat all his patients for free as he had a footfall of about 500 patients, which started to increase to a point where he has already seen at least 288 patients in just the first 15 days of Ramazan. Now owing to inflation, he can only run discount drives during Ramazan.
“We ensure that patients on regularly prescribed medication take as much advantage as they can of the Ramazan discount, as those medications are exceptionally expensive,” Singh added.Sikhs run a number of Unani Tibb dispensaries across Pakistan, with prominent ones also being in Lahore.
In October last year, Sardar Satnam Singh, an eminent member of the Sikh community, as well as a popular hakim was shot dead inside his shop in Peshawar. It was deemed a targeted killing, as he was shot four times.
Despite skyrocketing prices and the threat of being a minority in what is largely deemed a religious form of medicine, hakims like Amar Jeet Singh keep striving to provide some relief to patients largely forgotten by the government and unable to access modern medicine.
