130. Kadambini Ganguly (18th July1861 – 3 October 1923).

Kadambini Ganguly (left) born on 18th July was an Asian women to be trained in European Medicine. She was also actively involved in social movement to improve the working conditions for female coal miners. She was one of the six women delegate in the Fifth session of Indian National Congress in 1861. She was among the first woman to graduate in British India from University of Calcutta along with Chandramukhi Basu (right). She also became the first Indian female physician in 1886 from Bengal and was awarded GBMC (Graduate of Bengal Medical College) degree from Calcutta Medical College. The first medical Phsycian was Anandi Gopal Rao Joshi (left). (Anandi Gopal Joshi A (or Anandibai Joshi) (आनंदीबाई जोशी) (Marathi)(March 31, 1865 - February 26, 1887) was the first Indian woman to obtain a medical degree through training in Western medicine. (Kadambini Ganguly earned a medical degree the same year, 1886, after Anandibai.) She was also the first Hindu woman to do so, Anandibai began her medical education at age 19. In America, her declining health worsened because of the cold weather and unfamiliar diet. She contracted tuberculosis. Nevertheless, she graduated with an M.D. on March 11, 1886, the topic of her thesis having been "Obstetrics among the Aryan Hindoos". On her graduation, Queen Victoria sent her a congratulatory message. )


(Dr.). Kadambini Ganguli – Born in 1861 ( alternative opinion1862), Kadambini Bose was the daughter of Babu Brajakisore Bose.The daughter of Brahmo reformer Braja Kishore Basu, she was born 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. Along with Chandramukhi Bose, she graduated from Bethune College in 1883 and became one of the two first lady graduates of India. The same year she was married to (Dr.) Dwarakanath Ganguly.

Dwarkanath Ganguly
Born	(1844-04-20)20 April 1844 Magurkhanda, Bikrampur now in Bangladesh
Died	27 June 1898(1898-06-27) (aged 54) Kolkata
Occupation	Social Reformer
Spouse(s)	Kadambini Ganguly

Dwarkanath Ganguly (also spelt as Dwarka Nath Gangopadhyay) (Bengali: দ্বারকানাথ গাঙ্গুলী Darkanath Gangguli) (20 April 1844 - 27 June 1898) was a Brahmo reformer in Bengal of British India. He contributed substantially towards the enlightenment of society and the emancipation of women.)

 Kadambini Ganguly  was encouraged by her husband to study medicine. After much trouble and threat of recourse of legal action, Calcutta Medical College allowed her to be admitted as a medical student. She took a full course of medical education, but in the final examination failed to secure the degree. Undaunted, she decided to complete her education by going to England which she did in 1892. After returning from England, she was attached to Lady Dufferin Hospital for a long time. She was a dedicated and efficient physician

Mrs. Ganguli also exhibited unusual social and political awareness. She participated in the fifth session of the Indian National Congress at Tivoli Gardens, Calcutta, in 1890. She became the President of Transvaal Indian Association which was formed after the imprisonment of Mahatma Gandhi in the Transvaal. She worked untiringly in the interest of the Indians in Transvaal. She also played a prominent role in the Ladies Conference held in 1907. She spoke eloquently in the Medical Conference of 1915 against Calcutta Medical College’s practice of not admitting female candidates in its medical course. As a result of her lecture, Calcutta Medical College revised her policies and the doors of this prestigious institutions were opened for female students. Kadambini Ganguli was an enthusiastic supporter of female suffrage. After her husband’s death in 1898, who was her friend, philosopher and guide, she had largely withdrawn from public life and it had taken a big toll on her health also. Even after that she worked untiringly in the interest of the women. Just one year before her death, she visited Bihar and Orissa with Mrs. K. N. Ray in the interests of women mining laborers there.
She died on 7th October, 1923, within fifteen minutes after returning from her regular medical calls and before any medical aid could be furnished.

Kadambini Ganguli is the epitome of unflinching courage, unfazed determination along with a tender, sensitive heart which nursed the poor and the sick and fought for the injustice directed towards them, In the history of female education of India, the name of Kadambinin Ganguli will remain written in golden letters. Bethune College is proud of such an alumna.

Indian women took big strides towards not only educating themselves but their sisters as well. In 1877, when no British university had granted degrees to women, Kadambini Basu (later Ganguly) and Sarala Das sat for the entrance examination for the University of Calcutta. Kadambini later became the first woman doctor of the British Indian Empire, starting a trend in professional education for women. - See more at: http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=2418#sthash.NJQj0mAR.dpuf.

Kadambini Ganguly- (1861 – 3 October 1923). The first female physician of South Asia to be trained in European medicine and daughter of Brahmo reformer Braja Kishore Basu who started the movement for women's emancipation at Bhagalpur, establishing the women's organisation Bhagalpur Mahila Samiti in 1863, the first in India. In 1878, she became the first woman to pass the University of Calcutta entrance examination. In 1886, she was awarded a GBMC (Graduate of Bengal Medical College) degree, which gave her the right to practise. She thus became the first Indian woman doctor qualified to practice Western medicine.

Kadambini went to the United Kingdom in 1892 and returned to India after qualifying as LRCP (Edinburgh), LRCS (Glasgow), and GFPS (Dublin) and was actively involved in female emancipation and social movements to improve work conditions of female coal miners in eastern India. She was one of the six female delegates to the fifth session of the Indian National Congress in 1889, and even organized the Women's Conference in Calcutta in 1906 in the aftermath of the partition of Bengal. A mother of eight children.

Kadambini overcame some opposition from the teaching staff, and orthodox sections of society. She went to the United Kingdom in 1892 and returned to India after qualifying as LRCP (Edinburgh), LRCS (Glasgow), and GFPS (Dublin). After working for a short period in Lady Dufferin Hospital, she started her own private

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In this spring of hope and winter of despair Kadambini Basu, Prafulla Chandra Roy, Nilratan Sarkar and Rabindranath Tagore were born in the prodigal year 1861. Eventually practice of people has compelled time only to remember the birth of the poet keeping aside all the other glories associated with this year.

If we lay aside the issue of posterity Kadambini was placed as an elite and an outcast being a Bramho in her own time. While Chandramukhi Bose, who received her graduation degree along with Kadambini from the same school, was treated differently being a Christion from distant Derahdoon. Social placement and accommodation was not same for Kadambini and Chandramukhi. Belonging to Christian community of colonial India made certain things easier for Chandramukhi.

Even after being awarded her graduation degree Kadambini was supposed to put an end to her journey towards erudition. But to the unprecedented awe of her surrounding she preferred to study medical science unlike her fellow scholar Chandramukhi who had chosen humanities at her post graduation level. Her decision was as bitter as Cinchona for Bhadraloks around her, even her Bramho ambience found no appropriate expression to react. But her associates had hardly noticed that a love story of unfamiliar plot was to follow. Abalabandhab Dwarakanath Ganguly had did something more than merely serving as a dedicated teacher of Kadambini at Banga Mahila Vidyalaya and Kadambini reciprocated her teacher’s appeal appropriately accepting the man in him who was twenty years older at the time of their engagement. They loved each other.Dwarakanath had found the future of the era in Kadambini and his admiration towards her drove him to stand alone against everything ‘acceptable’. He was the architect of the decision to enroll his wife as a regular student. Reaction was evident and took its effect immediately. No one from the Bramho community dared to accept the invitation of their wedding feast and finally Dwarakanath and Kadambini got married in an open but unknown island right there in Calcutta.

Dwarakanath’s confrontation with the authorities of Calcutta Medical College led to an amendment of University’s constitution.

Qualifying as a graduate underlined her social coordinate more towards an unprecedented otherness; it was no wonder that Maheschandra Pal, the editor of the popular periodical Bangabasi, called her a courtesan. But unlike other educated women suffering from seclusion Kadambini had her own Knight Dwarakanath Gangopadhyay, the famous enlightenment activist whom she got as her teacher and as her beloved husband in immediate future.

He appeared like a vanguard before the editor and made him swallow the piece of paper where that comment was printed. When a pioneer reformer like Keshab Chandra Sen was negotiating marriage of his underage daughter, Dwarakanath was incessantly campaigning to accommodate and enroll female students in Calcutta Medical College 

• KADAMBINI BASU GANGULY

  Scent of Sepoy Mutiny was still in the air and the publication of the English translation of Dinabandhu Mitra’s play ‘Nil Darpan’ , tr...

BIDHUMUKHI

"SHE WAS THE MIDWIFE WHEN SATYAJIT ROY WAS BORN. SATYAJIT'S GRANDFATHER, UPENDRAKISHOR WAS MARRIED TO BIDHUMUKHI,THE ONLY GIRL CHILD DWARAKANATH GANGULY HAD FROM HIS FIRST WIFE.

KADAMBINI GANGULY (BASU) ATTENDED

THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS

SESSION (FIFTH) IN 1889 AT MUMBAI
AND DESIGNATEDTO CONVEY A VOTE OF
THANKS.SHE IS THE FIRST INDIAN WOMEN
TO SPEAK FROM THE STAGE OF
INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS

• ATTEND THE EXHIBITION ON DR. KADAMBINI GANGULY AT LADY DUFFERIN VICTORIA HOSPITAL

  PLEASE ATTEND THE EXHIBITION ON DR. KADAMBINI GANGULY AT LADY DUFFERIN VICTORIA HOSPITAL

  

  • Dr. Kadambini Ganguly: Voice of History

    Dr. Kadambini Ganguly's signature The Medical reporter: a record of medicine, surgery, public health and of general medica...

Jayanti Ganguli (Barman): Youngest daughter of Kadambini Ganguli, she was married to L. M. Barman, private secretary of Pramethesh Barua. She acted as the private tutor of Pramathesh Barua. She was a student of both Bethune Collegiate School and Bethune College. She lived in Moradabad for 4 years and used to teach conservative Muslims girls and established a school for them from Class VI to Class VII which was later elevated to Middle School and then to College.

Jyotirmoyee Ganguli: Teacher, social and political worker, second daughter of Kadambini Ganguli, principal of several women’s college in India. This includes one College in Sri Lanka took. She was also the first woman-councilor of the Corporation of Calcutta.