Hemchand Manjhi

Hemchand Manjhi is a traditional healer, or vaidyaraj, from Narayanpur district in Chhattisgarh who has offered low-cost care to villagers for more than fifty years. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2024 in the field of medicine, from Chhattisgarh ^[1].

Early life

He was born on 1 January 1953 into a poor family ^[2]. He went to school for just a day before household duties took over, and he spent his boyhood grazing cattle ^[2]. His father died when he was a child, and to support the family he took a job as a fire watcher in the forest department’s nursery ^[2].

Healer

According to his citation, during a long illness he turned to herbs from the forest and recovered, and he then began preparing the same herbs for others ^[2]. He left his job to devote himself to this work and has practised traditional herbal medicine since he was a teenager ^[2].

People travel from many parts of the country to consult him, and he employs about 20 people from nearby villages in the work ^[2]. His citation describes his service as selfless ^[2].