# Amitabh Mitra

Sir Amitabh Mitra is an Indian-born South African physician, poet and artist.

## Education and career

Mitra studied medicine and did postgraduate studies in orthopaedic surgery at the Gajara Raja Medical College, Gwalior, India. He further specialised in aerospace medicine and family medicine at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
A practitioner of orthopaedic surgery and trauma surgery, currently working at the Accident and Emergency unit of Cecilia Makiwane Hospital, Mdantsane, South Africa, he has published twelve volumes of poetry and exhibited his poetry art. He represented South Africa at the World Literature Festival in Oslo 2008. Amitabh Mitra is listed in 78 Notable Alumni of University of Pretoria. On 30 November 2022, Amitabh Mitra received the South African Police Service Provincial Commissioner's Ambassador Award Eastern Cape Excellence Awards at Port Elizabeth. Amitabh Mitra received the Discovery Foundation Award for research in the rural category in 2017. His scholarship amounted to R 100,000 for his research work titled 'Epidemiology of Interpersonal Violence at a regional hospital Emergency Unit in the Eastern Cape South Africa'.
Recently, he asked to make the Cecilia Makiwane hospital a heritage site taking into consideration that the hospital was named after Cecilia Makiwane, the first black nurse to have been registered in apartheid South Africa and is situated in the second biggest black township of Mdantsane. The Daily Dispatch premier newspaper of Eastern Cape delved into his thirty years of challenging work in trauma, violence and gender based sexual offenses. It showcased his work on visual arts too. The legacy of Cecilia Makiwane continues to attract doctors and nurses from far corners of the globe.
He was honoured on 30 June 2024 at Johannesburg by the Bengali Association of South Africa in presence of the Indian High Commissioner for his continuous work of more than thirty years in Mdantsane. A special mention was made of his contribution to Poetry and Visual Art during this period. He narrated his work with the African National Congress in 1979 to 1983 with Moosa Moolla, Chief Representative of the African National Congress to India at Delhi On the 2nd February 2025, the Department of Orthopaedics held a National Congress of Reunion of all specialist doctors who passed out of JA Group of Hospital, Gwalior, India. Dr Amitabh Mitra was declared as the Star of the Orthopaedic Department.

## As a forensic expert

Mitra headed the Thuthuzela Department for aiding and examining, collecting evidence from victims of rape and sexual assaults. Such centres form a chain of twenty-four-hour stand-alone places throughout South Africa assisted by police personnel, national persecution authority and forensic experts. Mitra created a national statistic of two thousand eight hundred life sentences through a fast track court. The Thutuzela system has been accepted by many African and South Asian countries. Mitra reiterates that such vital centres should not be attached to the Department of Emergency Medicine but kept as a separate entity for quicker and better functioning. The Thuthuzela Centres for assisting victims of Rape and Sexual Assaults have gone in a crisis mode after President Donald Trump cutting of the USAID in South Africa. The stand alone 24 hour examination centres cannot now work. Dr Mitra has mentioned that the counsellors who were being paid through USAID, now are facing unemployment

## As a surgeon

Mitra's work in trauma surgery took him to Bhutan, where he worked at high-altitude hospitals of Chukha, Tsimalakha, Chimakothi and Thimphu under severe conditions. During these times he wrote poems about Bhutan, some of which were translated into French. He wrote about his adventures in his search for the utopian Shangri La. Khushwant Singh, the former editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India visited him to his hospital in Bhutan and wrote about him in his weekly columns, "With Malice Towards One and All" in the Times of India during the 1980s. Mitra later went to Arunachal Pradesh, where he joined as an orthopaedic surgeon at Along. He joined as an orthopaedic surgeon at Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, in 1993. He lived in Bulawayo's Mzilikazi township and narrated his experiences during the time of political turmoil. His close interest in Sports Medicine have assisted boxers in Mdantsane. Mdantsane, the second biggest black township is known for producing world boxing champions. Among them is Zolani Tete who held the WBO Bantamweight title from 2017 to 2019. Mitra is the Medical Advisor and Surgeon to Zolani Tete and gave him the medical clearance needed to fight the Commonwealth Championship in UK March 2022.

## As an artist

His present art is about the black township of Mdantsane, where he works at the Cecilia Makiwane Hospital. Mdantsane Breathing is his book on the art and poetry of Mdantsane.
On 15 December 2018, Mitra received the Provincial Eastern Cape Minister of Art and Culture's Special Award in the category of Fine Arts for his continued dedication to South African Arts.
Mitra gifted the charcoal portrait done by him of Neil Aggett on 21 March 2019 at the 13th Annual Neil Aggett Memorial Lecture at Kingswood College, Grahamstown.
The University of Cape Town honours and commemorates woman heroes of anti-apartheid struggle which includes Cecilia Makiwane. A charcoal portrait of Cecilia Makiwane done by Mitra was exhibited at the Molly Blackburn Hall, University of Cape Town campus, on 19 September 2019.
Mitra lectures on aesthetic values of art in medicine and pushes actively to add art as a subject in the graduate curriculum of medicine and surgery in universities worldwide. He enjoys taking junior medical doctors on a tour to local galleries and allows a vibrant conversation between them and fellow artists. His core interests are on burnt out Accident and Emergency doctors and rejuvenating them through art. Mitra in an interview to Medbrief Africa mentioned, "Unfortunately, nobody's yet quantified the number of emergency healthcare workers who've succumbed to or suffered from burnout, but it's serious and way overdue -particularly among our youngsters."
The 2021 National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa honoured Mitra by making a short film on his visual art and reasons for fusing Arts with Medicine.

## As a poet

He translated the Bengali poetry of the late Prabhatkiran Bose, well known children's author in Bengal during the 1950s.
Mitra's art and poetry on the township of Mdantsane, South Africa, was exhibited at the 2011 International Symposium for Poetry and Medicine and Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine Awards on Saturday, 7 May 2011, entitled Poems from Cecilia Makiwane Hospital.
Splinters of a Mirage Dawn, An Anthology of Migrant Poetry of South Africa (co-edited with Naomi Nkealah) was short listed for the National Humanities and Social Sciences Award, South Africa, 2016. Mitra's latest poetry book, Anarchy and the Sea encompassing COVID-19 feelings, violence and trauma he encounters in Emergency Medicine and impasto seascapes of violent storms he paints are reflected in this coffee table book. This book will be launched in the prestigious National Art Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa on 14 July 2021.
Three of Amitabh Mitra's Poetry Films were selected and screened on 12 October 2021 at Durban International Film Festival and Poetry Africa followed by a discussion. Visualizing Poetry: Illuminating the Words
Amitabh Mitra was selected, and he performed at the Madibaland @ Bookbedonnerd World Literary Festival on 3 November 2022 09 am onwards
Amitabh Mitra and Zena Velloo John edited a book of poems titled, Anthology of Women Poets of India and South Africa, Feminism, Reflections in Contemporary Politics. The book was launched at the Jaipur Literature and Arts Conclave, Gwalior, India on 19 December 2022.
Amitabh Mitra was chosen for the first time as an English Poet for an award that was bestowed on him in the memory of Indian National People's Poet, Mukut Bihari Saroj at Gwalior on the 24th December 2022. This award has been given in the past to Hindi young poets with a left inclination.

## Artistic influences

A major section of Mitra's work on art and poetry is devoted to Gwalior, where he grew up. His close friendship with the Maratha royal families resulted in his drawing a series of watercolour involving poetry which he exhibited in South Africa and India. A Slow Train to Gwalior is a coffee-table book of his art and poetry; a compact disc of his recitation with a backdrop of African traditional music was released by the Premier of Eastern Cape, Nosimo Balindlela, and a short documentary film on his Gwalior poetry was shown at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival in 2009. In 2007 he was invited by the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, where he presented his work to a poetry-loving audience.

## In politics

Amitabh Mitra was the National Secretary General of South African Foreign Qualified Doctor's Association, consisting of 3,800 foreign qualified specialists and doctors who after the fusion of former Bantustans into the new republic of South Africa were not given due recognition. Mitra fought a legal battle for the rightful acceptance and registration they deserved. Such doctors and their families suffered a professional and social trauma and most of them decided to leave for the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada where they were welcomed and given the dignity they deserved. The Mail and Guardian, South Africa's prominent newspaper mentioned that in spite of highly qualified doctors remaining within the country. Out of the three thousand eight hundred foreign qualified doctors in 1996, today only 50 of such doctors remain in South Africa, still not recognized and on a limited registration. In the present Covid Pandemic, the Government has showed a step child treatment, registering Cuban Doctors within 72 hours as compared to years and beyond for Foreign Qualified Doctors. From 2022 onwards, medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists and physiotherapists having passed out from medical schools were not absorbed in government run hospitals. They give the reason that money has been spent during the Covid crisis and they only have unfunded posts. There are close to 2000 doctors who are facing now unemployment. Dr Aron Motsoaldi, the national minister of health has commented there is no guarantee given for absorption of all doctors in the public funded hospitals.