THE FIRST TWO FEMALE DOCTORS IN INDIA

They Fought Against the Orthodoxy

Anandibai Gopalrao Joshi was the first female Indian physician. She was also the first woman in India to complete her studies in western medicine from the United States. Anandibai has a rich legacy and inspired many women to pursue the field of of medicine in India and in the United States.

Anandibai also became the first woman from Bombay presidency of India to study and graduate with a two-year degree in western medicine from a foreign country.

On March 31, 1865, in Pune, a girl child was born to Gangabai and Ganpatrao Joshi — their fifth child, whom they named Yamuna. On her ninth birthday, March 31, 1874, she was married to Gopalrao Joshee, a widower of about 26, employed as a postmaster at Thane.

Anandibai was born with the name 'Yamuna' but was later given the name anandi by her husband Gopalrao Joshi. She was born in a family of landlords and due to parental pressure, she got married at the young age of nine.

Anandibai bore her first child at the age of 14 but due to lack of medical care, the child passed away after ten days. This incident was a turning point in Anandibai's life and she chose to pursue medicine, with the support of her husband.

Anandibai Joshi

Gopalrao, who was a progressive thinker and supported education for women, enrolled her in a missionary school, and later moved to Calcutta with her, where she learnt how to speak Sanskrit and English.

In the 1800's, it was very unusual for husbands to focus on their wives' education. Gopalrao was obsessed with the idea of Anandibai's education and wanted her to learn medicine and create her own identity in the world.

One day, Gopalrao walked into the kitchen and threw a fit of rage when he saw Anandibai cooking instead of studying. This made her even more focussed on her education.

Gopalrao took the decision of sending Anandibai to America to study medicine in utmost detail with a missionary from Philadelphia named Royal Wilder.In 1880 he sent a letter to Royal Wilder, stating his wife's interest in studying medicine in the United States and inquiring about a suitable post in the US for himself. Wilder published the correspondence in his Princeton's Missionary Review. Theodicia Carpenter, a resident of Roselle, New Jersey, happened to read it while waiting to see her dentist. Impressed by both Anandibai's desire to study medicine, and Gopalrao's support for his wife, she wrote to Anandibai. Carpenter and Anandibai developed a close friendship and came to refer to each other as "aunt" and "niece." Later, Carpenter would host Anandibai in Rochelle during Joshi's stay in the U S.

While the Joshi couple was in Calcutta, Anandibai's health was declining. She suffered from weakness, constant headaches, occasional fever, and sometimes breathlessness. Theodicia sent her medicines from America, without results. In 1883, Gopalrao was transferred to Serampore, and he decided to send Anandibai by herself to America for her medical studies despite her poor health. Though apprehensive, Gopalrao convinced her to set an example for other women by pursuing higher education.

A physician couple named Thorborn suggested that Anandibai apply to the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. On learning of Anandibai's plans to pursue higher education in the West, orthodox Indian society censured her very strongly.

Anandibai addressed the community at Serampore College Hall in 1883, explaining her decision to go to America and obtain a medical degree. She discussed the persecution she and her husband had endured. She stressed the need for female doctors in India, emphasizing that Hindu women could better serve as physicians to Hindu women. She said,"I volunteer myself as one", in the gathering. Her speech received publicity, and financial contributions started pouring in from all over India. 

She had also expressed her views on how midwifery was not sufficient in any case of medical emergency and how the instructors who taught women had conservative views.

In the speech, “Why do I go to America?”, she addressed six questions that were posed to her often. She stated: “In my humble opinion there is a growing need for Hindu lady doctors in India, and I volunteer to qualify myself for one.” To the question “Are there no means to study in India?” she replied thus: “[T]he instructors who teach these classes are conservative and to some extent jealous... That is characteristic of the male sex. We must put up with this inconvenience until we have a class of educated ladies to relieve these men.”

This is a bold indictment of the gender question in education, at a time when women’s education was not a priority.

After her motivating speech in the public gathering, she expressed her views on studying medicine in America. She also stressed the need of female doctors in India and stated that Hindu women can be better doctors for other Hindu women.

Anandibai's health had started to decline but Gopalrao had urged her to go to America so that she can set an example for other women in the country.

Anandibai was urged to apply to the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania but learning about her plan to pursue higher education, the Hindu society of India decided to censure her very strongly.Anandibai travelled to New York from Kolkata  by ship, chaperoned by two female English missionary acquaintances of the Thorborns. In New York, Theodicia Carpenter received her in June 1883.

Anandibai was enrolled in the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania and completed her two-year course in medicine at the age of 19. She graduated with an MD in 1886 with the topic of her thesis being 'Obstetrics among the Aryan Hindoos'.

She highlighted the environment she lived in and how she dealt with it in a letter written to her husband after reaching America. She was full of reasoning and entreaty: “Don’t misunderstand and make me suffer so. It is very difficult to decide whether your treatment of me was good or bad. If you ask me I would say it was both... Hitting me with broken pieces of wood at the tender age of ten, flinging chairs and books at me and threatening to leave me when I was twelve, and inflicting other strange punishments on me when I was fourteen — all these were too severe for the age, body and mind at each respective stage...”

In her thesis, she covered information form Ayurvedic texts and American textbooks. On her graduation, Queen Victoria sent her a message, expressing her delight.

Anandibai passed away due to tubercolosis at the age of 21, on 26 February 1887.

She had accepted an offer to take charge of the Edward Albert Memorial Hospital in Kolhapur, which unfortunately never materialised. In many ways, her life was similar to that of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887 -1920) who shook the world of mathematics, but died young of tuberculosis aggravated by malnourishment and lack of care. Certainly, her achievements ought to be celebrated as no less a feat.

It was against all odds that Anandibai became the first Indian woman doctor. Ironically, when she was dying, the healing power of this very trade was denied her, as the book reveals.

In India, Kesari and The Mahratta, run by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, were quick to take up stories on the Joshis who were portrayed as social reformers. Pandita Ramabai, on the other hand, who had travelled to England for her education and converted to Christianity there, was strongly criticised by this section, even though she was doing well. Ramabai was invited by Anandibai’s mentor, Dean Bodley, for the latter’s graduation ceremony, and Ramabai travelled to America just for this. Anandibai wrote of Ramabai thus: “...her courage has outweighed that of the sternest and bravest warrior.”

Even after her death, several writers and researchers continued to write about her to raise awareness about the importance of educating women in India.

Doordarshan also based a television series on her life and American feminist writer Caroline Wells Healey Dall penned down her biography in 1888:The Life of Dr. Anandabai Joshee, a Kinswoman of the Pundita Ramabai.Dall was acquainted with Joshi and admired her greatly. However, certain points in the biography, particularly its harsh treatment of Gopalrao Joshi, sparked controversy among Joshi's friends.

The Institute of Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (IRDS), Lucknow has been awarding the Anandibai Joshi Award in Medicine in honour of her contributions towards the advancements of medical sciences in India.

The book Fragmented Feminism chronicles the time from which Yamuna became Anandibai until the day she died. The book reveals Anandibai as she was — through her own letters and in her own voice, with helpful annotations by the author Meera Kosambi and three editors — Ram Ramaswamy, Madhavi Kolhatkar and Aban Mukherji. It reveals her flowering individuality, determination and agency in the face of a strongly patriarchal culture, a domineering, volatile husband and the travails of living in an unfamiliar land so far from home.

There is a major confusion between Anandibai Joshi and Kadambini Ganguly, with regards to who was the first female doctor of India. Anandibai got her degree in western medicine from Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania while Kadambini completed her education in India.

Tragically, Anandibai passed away due to tubercolosis at the age of 22, before she got a chance to practice medicine.

Thus, Kadambini Ganguly was the first female doctor to practice medicine while Anandibai Joshi was the first female doctor who got her degree in western medicine from the United States.

Kadambini

Kadambini Ganguly ( 1861 – 3 October 1923) along with Anandibai Joshi was one of the first two female physicians from India as well as from the entire British Empire. Kadambini, herself, was also the first Indian as well as South Asian female physician, trained in western medicine, to graduate in South Asia.

The daughter of Brahmo reformer Braja Kishore Basu, Kadambini was born on 18 July 1861 at Bhagalpur, Bihar in British India. The family was from Chandsi, in Barisal which is now in Bangladesh. Her father was headmaster of Bhagalpur School. He and Abhay Charan Mallick started the movement for women's emancipation at Bhagalpur, establishing the women's organisation Bhagalpur Mahila Samiti in 1863, the first in India.

Kadambini started her education at Banga Mahila Vidyalaya and while at Bethune School (established by Bethune) in 1878 became the first woman to pass the University of Calcutta entrance examination. It was partly in recognition of her efforts that Bethune College first introduced FA (First Arts), and then graduation courses in 1883. She and Chandramukhi Basu became the first graduates from Bethune College, and in the process became the first female graduates in the country and in the entire British Empire.

Kadambini joined the medical college in 1883 despite strong criticism from the society opposing women liberation. In 1886, she was awarded GBMC and became the first woman physician with a Western medical degree in the whole of South Asia. In 1893, she travelled to Edinburgh and qualified as LRCP (Edinburgh), LRCS (Glasgow) and GFPS (Dublin).

As the mother of eight children ( children from her husband's first marriage too) , she had to devote considerable time to her household affairs. She was deft in needlework.

The noted American historian David Kopf has written, "Ganguli's wife, Kadambini, was appropriately enough the most accomplished and liberated Brahmo woman of her time. From all accounts, their relationship was most unusual in being founded on mutual love, sensitivity and intelligence… Mrs. Ganguli's case was hardly typical even among the more emancipated Brahmo and Christian women in contemporary Bengali society. Her ability to rise above circumstances and to realize her potential as a human being made her a prize attraction to Sadharan Brahmos dedicated ideologically to the liberation of Bengal's women."

She was heavily criticised by the then conservative society opposing women liberation. After returning to India and campaigning for women's rights ceaselessly, she was indirectly called a 'whore' in the magazine 'Bangabashi', but that could not deter her determination. Her husband, Dwarkanath Ganguly, took the case up to the court and eventually won with a jail sentence of 6 months meted out to the editor Mahesh Pal.

Dwarakanath

Dwarkanath Ganguly ( 1844 –  1898) was a Brahmo reformer and novelist in Bengal of British India. He made substantial contribution towards the enlightenment of society and the emancipation of women. He dedicated his whole life for the cause of women emancipation and encouraged them to participate in every walk of life be it politics, social services etc and even helped them to form organizations of their own.

Ganguly was born at Magurkhanda village, Bikrampur, Dhaka (now in Bangladesh) on 20 April 1844. His father, Krishnapran Gangopadhyay, was a compassionate and humble man while his mother, Udaytara, belonged to a rich family, and was a strong willed woman. He was deeply influenced by his mother from childhood, who instilled into him love for truth and justice.

While studying in school he became strongly influenced by the writings of Akshay Kumar Dutta's 'Dharma Niti' that elaborated on the then prevalent social problems as polygamy, child marriage, inter-caste marriage and widow remarriage. He was deeply touched by the plight of the Bengali woman, and was influenced by Dutta‟s main thesis that “the first vital step to social regeneration is liberating woman from her bondage”. He began attempting to propagate Datta's ideas along with his socially conscious school friends. His reformist activities resulted in him failing to pass the Entrance Examination as he was unable to spend enough time on school curriculum. He turned out to be self taught thereafter.

In those days, it was customary for  Brahmin men to practice polygamy, which formed a way to earn money in way of gifts presented to the groom by the bride's father. When Dwarkanath was 17 years old, he heard about the honor killing of a girl,who had strayed from her course, by poisoning her. On realizing that it was common practice in orthodox upper caste families, he vowed not to go in for polygamous marriage. This incident also pained Dwarkanath to such an extent that he began to empathize towards the condition of women in society. His failure in the Entrance Examination combined with increasing disagreement with his relatives and the local people over his progressive ideas of social reform, made him leave home in search of an independent livelihood. His vow to monogamy and work to the cause of improving women‟s position in society, made him grow steadily in stature as a social reformer. He started his teaching career and worked at Sonarang, Olpur in Faridpur and in the minor school at Lonsingh (now all are in Bangladesh).

A number of years after the death of his first wife, he re-married, in 1883, Kadambini Ganguly nee Bose, one of the first woman graduates in the British Empire. Dwarkanath fought for her admission into Calcutta Medical College and secured it. 

He had eight children from both his marriages. His eldest daughter, Bidhumukhi, from his first alliance was married to Upendra Kishore Ray Chaudhuri.

© Ramachandran