THE SESQUICENTENARY Birth Celebration Committee for Kadambini Ganguly is now utterly confused in conferring honour on the first female physician of India and the differences were very clear in their recent meetings.

 

The installation of the statue of Ganguly in Calcutta Medical College is postponed as a result of the controversy raging among the organizers. There is no doubt about the fact that Ganguly was one of the first female physicians of India, nay, South Asia to be trained in European medicine. She joined the Calcutta Medical college in 1884 and because of male hostility, she could not pass her examination in due time. She did not get MB degree after four years of her study and was instead awarded the degree of GBSM (Graduate of Bengal Medical College) which is today’s MBBS. In the year 1880, Florence Nightingale wrote to a friend: “Do you know or could tell me anything about … Mrs.Ganguly, or give me any advice? (She) has already passed what is called the first licentiate in medicine and surgery examinations and is to go up for the final examination in March next.

 

Elsewhere in the letter, Nightingale wrote that she had been asked to recommend Kadambini to Lady Dufferin ‘for any posts about the female wards of Calcutta. In 1892, she sailed for England and obtained various qualifications from Edinburgh, Glassgow and Dublin. Her sister Bidhumukhi Basu became, along with Virginia Mary Mitra (Nandi) was one of the first woman medical graduates from Calcutta Medical College in 1890. Her sister Bindubasini Basu also graduated in medicine from CMC in 1891 and this too was before Ganguly. Anandi Gopal Joshi or Anandibai Joshi, a Marathi lady was the other Indian woman to obtain a medical degree through training in Western medicine. She graduated with an MD on March 11, 1886; the topic of her thesis was “Obstetrics among the Aryan Hindoos". On her graduation, Queen Victoria sent her a congratulatory message.

 

Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman doctor of the world and the first lady doctor of India graduated less than thirty years after her and all from Madras Medical College. The first of them to be admitted was an Englishwoman, Mary Ann Dacomb Scharlieb, who was admitted to MMC in 1875. She passed out in 1878 along with three other Anglo Indian women White, Beale and Mitchell. Mary Ann Scharlieb ranked second and Beale too got a first class in MBBS.

 

All these establish one very important fact that neither Ganguly nor Bidhumukhi Basu was the first Indian female doctor. They may be called the first Indian Hindu lady doctors to practice medicine. Regarding Ganguly, it can be said that she won the degree, which was equivalent to MBBS that time. Only for male hostility she could not get the normal degree. But she was eligible for medical practice and also for earning more diplomas from abroad. There is no mistake in calling Ganguly as the first Lady Hindu doctor of India as she practiced earlier than Bidhumukhi Basu. We should not forget the time when Kadambini got her degree and even Florence Nightingale too recognized her as a physician for a hospital.

 

It is really painful that some organizing members of the sesquicentennial committee are trying their best, on the pretext of accuracy of historical facts, to demolish the long staying myth regarding Ganguly. She was and she will be recognized also in future as the first Hindu lady doctor, the question of obtaining degree can be no impediment in installing her statue in the Calcutta Medical College. We may not give honour to a person if we do not want it. But we have no right to dishonour Ganguly by creating stalemate for keeping the statue in the CMC campus.