<p>The turmoil industrialisation brought in nineteenth-century Europe, with fundamental changes in the economy, society, and ecology, adversely affected human health. The prevailing medical knowledge system failed to address insanitary housing conditions, filth, and pollution in human ecology, causing havoc of communicable diseases and pandemics. Amidst these public health crises, scientific discoveries and evolving modern knowledge systems, with their advancing nature as innovative disciplines, was the hope. Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Social Medicine/Public Health/Community Health were such innovative disciplines that advocated for integrating medical and social sciences. Despite its initial movement for integrating the social sciences, Social Medicine has traditionally been taught in medical colleges in India as Preventive and Social Medicine with minimal social content. Deviating from the norm in India, the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health was established within the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University. This article attempts to trace the Centre's historical journey—from its initial ideas of a New Grammar of Public Health to its recent contribution of Critical Holism as a theory of public health, encompassing its role in framing the Alma-Ata Declaration and elucidating a critical public health perspective.</p>