The Pioneer Who Brought Neurology to the People: The Story of Dr. Ashok Panagariya

On 22 August 1950, in the village of Suwana in Bhilwara district of Rajasthan, a boy named Ashok Panagariya was born into a family of freedom fighters. His father, Balu Lal Panagariya, served as a civil servant. From those modest roots grew a doctor who would become one of India’s leading neurologists and a tireless champion of care for the rural poor.

Ashok studied at Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Medical College in Jaipur, earning his MBBS in 1972 with the S.S. Bhatnagar Gold Medal and his MD in Medicine in 1976. He then went to the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh for his DM in Neurology, becoming the first person from Rajasthan to acquire the superspecialty degree in the early 1980s. Later he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of England.

Returning to his home state, he built neurology almost from scratch. He headed the Department of Neurology at SMS Medical College, developed postgraduate training so that the college could offer DM Neurology from 1998–99 onward, and served as Principal and Controller of the institution from 2006 to 2010. He later became Vice-Chancellor of the Rajasthan University of Health Sciences. As a clinician he was known for sharp diagnosis and holistic management; his research series on neuromyotonia gained international recognition. He published more than a hundred papers and chapters and served as President of the Indian Academy of Neurology.

What set him apart was his deep commitment to the countryside. Once a month he travelled to rural epilepsy clinics, including one in Gulabpura in Ajmer district. Over about ten years the number of patients there grew from a handful to around ten thousand. He fought superstition and ignorance surrounding neurological illness and worked to make treatment accessible and affordable. He also served on the State Planning Board, advised the government on health, and was Honorary Neurologist to the Armed Forces of India.

In recognition of his clinical, academic and social work, he received the Dr. B.C. Roy Award—the highest honour for doctors in India—and in 2014 the Padma Shri. Other accolades included the UNESCO Award and lifetime achievement honours.

Dr. Ashok Panagariya passed away on 11 June 2021 in Jaipur from complications following COVID-19. He left behind his wife Meena, children, and a legacy that continues through the many neurologists he trained and the rural patients whose lives he transformed.

One afternoon, after returning from a rural clinic, a young colleague asked him, “Sir, you could stay only in the city with the big cases and the comfort. Why keep going to the villages every month?”

Dr. Ashok Panagariya smiled the quiet smile of a man who never forgot his own village beginnings.

“Because the brain does not know rich or poor,” he said. “A seizure in a village hut is the same as one in a city hospital. If we do not take knowledge and care to the people who need it most, then all our degrees and awards mean little. The real work is where the suffering is greatest.”

And so the boy from Bhilwara who became Rajasthan’s first DM neurologist is remembered not only for building a specialty and leading institutions, but for carrying hope on dusty roads to thousands who had nowhere else to turn.