MADAM BHIKAJI CAMA

The lady who unfurled Indian flag on foreign land

Madam Bhikaji Cama, the lady who hoisted the Indian Flag for the first time in a foreign country.  It was in Stuttgart, Germany, and on August 18, 1907 that she staged this bold performance, saying that she was doing it so only to bring the poverty, starvation, oppression and slavery, as also India's thirst for freedom to the attention of the international assembly of socialists there.

Bhikhaiji Rustom Cama was born Bhikai Sorab Patel on 24 September 1861 in Bombay (now Mumbai) into a large, well-off Parsi family. Her parents, Sorabji Framji Patel and Jaijibai Sorabji Patel, were well known in the city, where her father Sorabji—a lawyer by training and a merchant by profession—was an influential member of the Parsi community. On 3 August 1885, she married Rustom Cama, who was son of K. R. Cama. Her husband was a wealthy, pro-British lawyer who aspired to enter politics. It was not a happy marriage, and Bhikhaiji spent most of her time and energy in philanthropic activities and social work.

Right from her student days she was interested in the freedom movement. Her husband's pro-British stance and opposition to her anti-British activities created problems in their life and finally she left her home and became a full-time freedom fighter.

Those were days of the dreaded plague (1896 Bombay Presidency) which killed tens of thousands in India, and Madam Cama volunteered for help.  This ate into her health. Sent to Europe for better treatment (1902), she was in Germany and Scotland, and finally reached London where she had a surgical operation.

She worked as secretary for some time to Dadabhai Naoroji, the famous Indian leader in London. During her stay in London, she got a message that her return to India can take place subject to the promise that she would not participate in the Nationalist Movement. She refused to make such a promise and remained in exile in Europe.

She died in the Parsi General hospital in Bombay (now Mumbai) in the year 1936. When Bhikaji Cama was in Paris, she happened to come across a number of notable leaders of the Indian Nationalist Movement. In Holland, they secretly published and circulated the revolutionary literature for the Nationalist Movement.

During her stay in France, the British Raj authorities requested her extradition, but the French Government did not show their willingness and refused to cooperate. In return, the Britishers confiscated Madame Cama's legacy.

Bhikaji Cama has always been actively involved in fighting for gender equality.

Cama wrote, published (in Holland and Switzerland) and distributed revolutionary literature for the movement, including Bande Mataram (founded in response to the Crown ban on the poem Vande Mataram- from Paris begun in September 1909 by the Paris Indian Society) and later Madan's Talwar (in response to the execution of Madan Lal Dhingra - publication was established in 1909 in Paris).

Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department issued a commemorative stamp in her honour. In 1997, the Indian Coast Guard commissioned a Priyadarshini-class fast patrol vessel ICGS Bikhaiji Cama after Bikhaiji Cama.