On this day in 1861, Kadambini Ganguly was born in Bhagalpura British India, now Bangladesh. In 1883, Kadambini Ganguly and her peer Chandramukhi Basu became the first women to graduate college in Indian history.
WEB DESK
Rich Tributes are being paid to Kadambini Ganguly, one of India’s first lady doctors on Sunday, July 18 on her 160th birth anniversary.
Google Doodle honoured the countrys first woman doctor with a special graphic on her.
The doodle, a portrait of Ganguly with the image of the main building of Calcutta Medical College, now officially called the Kolkata Medical College and Hospital in the background, has been designed by Bengaluru-based artist Oddrija, and it was widely shared across the country.
While Joshi studied at Womans Medical College of Pennsylvania in the US, Ganguly pursued western medicine at Calcutta Medical College (CMC).
Born Kadimbini Bose in Bhagalpur, she was the daughter of well-known Brahmo Samaj reformer Braja Kishore Basu and was deeply influenced by the ongoing Bengal renaissance.
She fought a long battle to be admitted to the Calcutta Medical College before qualifying as a practicing doctor, after becoming along with Chandramukhi Basu, one of Calcutta Universitys first women graduates.
Politicians and common people from all walks of life also hailed Ganguly as a champion of womens rights in India.
A champion of womens rights, Ganguly was among the six members of the first all-women delegation to the 1889 Indian National Congress.
Among other movements, Kadimbini Devi as she was popularly called, worked to better the working conditions of female coal miners in the Eastern India.
When Lord Curzon announced the partition of Bengal in 1906, Kadambini Devi organized the Women’s Conference in Calcutta to protest the plan.
She also supported the Satyagraha movement and worked to supports families of imprisoned political workers.
She is reputed to have never turned down a call to treat or visit an ailing person while practicing medicine in Kolkata till her death in 1923.
After her marriage with Brahmo reformer Dwarkanath Ganguly, the couple battled CMCs prohibition on women studying there, and Kadambini joined the medical college on June 23, 1883 despite strong criticism from the colonial society.
She was awarded the Graduate of Medical College of Bengal (GMCB) degree in 1886, which even attracted the attention of Florence Nightingale who enquired about Ganguly from a friend in a letter in 1888.