IT  WAS August  22,  1907.  Nearly a  thousand delegates from different countries had gathered at Stuttgart for the Second International Socialist Congress. In the course of its deliberations, a woman delegate rose to speak, a lovely lady, of fairish complexion and large dark eyes, dressed in an exotic flowing garment with an exquisite border of delicate embroidery, its edge draped demurely over her head.

But there was nothing demure or delicate about the lady or her speech as she hurled defiance at the mighty British empire. She had captivated the audience with her very presence and personality. She now held them spellbound by the logic, sincerity, and emotion of her fiery,  eloquent speech,  as she pointed out the iniquities and atrocities of British imperialism, described the sufferings, and the agony of her countrymen, and appealed to all those gathered there "to cooperate in freeing from slavery the one-fifth of the whole human race inhabiting that oppressed country". At the end of her brilliant  speech, in a dramatic  gesture, she unfurled a tricolour flag of  green, saffron, and  red, passionately  declaiming:

"This flag is of Indian independence. Behold it is born. It is already sanctioned by the blood of martyred Indian youths. I call upon you, gentlemen, to rise and salute this flag of  Indian independence. In the name of this flag, I appeal to lovers of freedom all over the world to cooperate with this flag in freeing one-fifth of the human race.”

That lady, who dared to defy the might of an empire, who made HISTORY by unfurling India’s first national flag on foreign soil and thus succeeded in focusing world attention on India’s plight and problems was an Indian—a Parsee Lady from Bombay, Bhikhaiji Rustom Cama.

The impact she made is vividly described in the words of Prof Weidmann about the press reactions to that momentous event. He states that the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart was severely attacked by European reactionaries and big press, but adds :

The appearance of Madame Cama, however, left its mark even on ultra-conservative circles as the following example shows. The ‘Leipziger Zeitung’ (German newspaper) regarded it as an undoubted culmination of the Congress when the exotic appearance of Indian Mrs. Kramas (Cama) dressed with shimmering silken garments entered the rostrum and appealed to the Congress to help the people oppressed by England and at last displayed a silken tricolour, the banner of the oppressed. Then the cheers of the International would not end.

The heroine of this episode, this valiant daughter of Mother India, was born on September 24, 1861, in an affluent Parsee family in Bombay. Her father.was Sorabji Framji Patel, a prosperous businessman, and her mother Jijabai. As they welcomed this fair, round-faced little girl into their already large family, little could the fond parents have foreseen that she would grow up to be a firebrand revolutionary in the cause of India’s freedom; go overseas, far from the confines of a well to do Parsee home in Bombay to spend nearly half her life in a small pension (boarding house) in Paris. And that the tricolour flag which she would be the first to hoist in a foreign land, would one day proudly flutter over the Sachivalaya, and in Bombay a road would be named after her, Madama Cama Road.

1861 must have been a particularly propitious year for India. In that year three children were born who were to work in their widely differing ways and spheres for the glory of their Motherland and were destined to leave their indelible mark on his history - Motilal Nehru in a Kashmiri Pandit family at Agra; Rabindranath Tagore in a cultured Bengali home in Calcutta and Bhikhaiji in a Parsee merchant’s mansion at Bombay.

Very little is known about this family that contributed to the first Indian woman revolutionary to fight for India’s freedom from British rule. But of their affluence, there is no doubt. British Intelligence Reports about Madame Cama, speak of Sorabji Patel having formed a Trust giving thirteen lakh rupees to each of his sons and one lakh rupees to each of his eight daughters. Enormous sums in those days. Obviously, Sorabji’s business ventures were flourishing. Her brother Ardeshir Patel seems to have inherited his father’s business acumen. He became very prosperous and endowed with charities and a Parsee agiyari (Fire Temple) in Bombay. A large share of the family jewellery was given by her doting mother Jijibai, to Bhikhaiji when in 1902 she had to go abroad for medical treatment— little realizing what use the precious family heirloom would be put to. For Bhikhaiji was dedicated and selfless, did not hesitate to sell even her personal jewellery to further the cause of her country’s freedom.

Fortunately for her, Bhikhaiji was born into a community that was progressive and forward-looking and in which women’s education and emancipation were espoused and encouraged. In 1848, under the leadership of the redoubtable Dadabhai Naoroji, a group of young Parsee reformers had started The Students Literary and Scientific Society’ which laid special and urgent emphasis on the hitherto neglected sphere of the education of young women. In this respect, the Parsees proved to be decades ahead of all other Indian communities. According to Eckehard Kulke, the Society’s nine schools for girls were attended in 1855 by 740 girls, 475 of them Parsees, 178 Marathi Hindus, and 87 Gujarati Hindus. Though initially, the emphasis was on teaching in Gujarati, English was added as a medium of instruction after the seventies. As a forerunner of this trend the Alexandra Native Girls Education Institution founded by the Parsee Maneckji Cursetjee in 1863, came into prominence.

Maneckji Cursetjee was the first Indian to enroll as a member of the Royal Asiatic Society of England. It was in his own house and with only thirteen girl students, that the Alexandra Girls Education Institution was first started and he remained at the helm of affairs of the school for nearly twenty-five years. From that humble beginning, it was to become one of the most prominent schools for girls in the country with students from all parts of India. It was in this school, recognized then, as now, as one of the best institutions for women’s education in India that Bhikhaiji had her education both primary and secondary and, as if foreseeing her future role in life, she devoted herself to the study of European languages and became proficient in them.

The Parsee community allowed, nay encouraged, free association of women with men at public, social and other gatherings. This no doubt contributed to Bhikhaiji’s unusual social and political awareness, her knowledge of and interest in public affairs. Even at a young age, she evinced a well-developed social outlook with well-defined and clear-cut political views. Bhikhaiji’s childhood was undoubtedly sheltered and uneventful, but certainly not cloistered. The ivory tower of her sheltered upbringing could not imprison that inquiring sharp mind and rebellious spirit. Those were days of fervour and ferment. She could not help but catch the fervour of the exciting happenings outside her home.

Though fluent in English and European languages, fashionable in dress, and mingling freely in society both native and English, there was no danger of Bhikhoo becoming a ‘parody’ of an Englishwoman. Young as she was, her individuality and passionate love for her Motherland, and pride in India’s culture, heritage, languages; and her awareness of what the English had done to her country, could never have permitted her to be anything but a true Indian at heart, unaffected by the outward trappings of westernization.

That she was self-willed, strong-headed, spirited, and unconventional even from her early years, there can be no doubt. Mr. Shiavux S. Cooper of Paris, whose brother was her contemporary and close friend recollects how. in her later years in Paris, she would relate that she was perhaps the first Parsee young lady to wear frocks and created a pretty scandal in her family circle. Though, she would add with a merry twinkle, that her teachers and fellow students had admired her. Well merited admiration it seems, judging by the photographs of her younger days she would display to her Paris friends. From these photographs, Mr. Cooper opines, “I must say she was indeed uncommonly good looking”. Another Parsee gentleman, B. Bharucha who knew her since her young days, recollected in a speech how he used to bowl while she did the batting and that she was reputedly good at it. Her unconventionality and high spirits extended even to the playing of cricket, at that time exclusively a man’s preserve.

In 1896, at the time of the plague epidemic in Bombay, she was to don a white apron and nurse the patients in a public hospital run by the Parsee Panchayat. It was unheard of thing, for a woman of her family background to nursing the sick in a public hospital. Both her own family and her in-laws were shocked and scandalized and, unlike the courageous Bhikhaiji, afraid perhaps for their own safety. For in those days the plague vaccine had not yet been discovered. To her, all this unusual, impulsive behaviour came naturally. She was to do many such unconventional, unheard-of things in the course of her adventurous eventful life. She assisted Phirozeshah Mehta when he started the 'Bombay Chronicle’ becoming thereby probably the first young Parsee woman to venture into the journalistic field. This experience was to stand her in good stead later when she helped in publishing much of the Indian revolutionary material from abroad.

Besides her social awareness, other characteristics apparent from her earlier days were her sharpness of intellect and growing interest in politics. Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, the famous English free-thinker who had met her in Bombay in 1889, was highly impressed by her knowledge of public affairs. The introductory paragraph to ‘An Indian Lady’s Appeal to her Countrymen’ in the June 1907 issue of the ‘Indian Sociologist’ refers to Madame Cama as “a lady of wide experience who has resided for five years in different parts of Europe and who has carefully studied many social and political questions of the day. For nearly twenty years she has interested herself in politics”.

The atmosphere in which this young woman was brought up was far from placid. She was born only four years after the Mutiny of 1857. In the years she grew up to young womanhood a new spirit of defiance and independence was in the air. Repression fanned the flames of revolutionary ardour and secret societies sprang up under the leadership of Tilak in Maharashtra and Aurobindo Ghosh in Bengal. For a young person of her spirit and temperament, this new upsurge of defiance and patriotic fervour found instant appeal and became a strong influence in moulding her future. It was to change, radically, the course of her life.

The social standing of her own family can be judged by the fact that her father was able to arrange a match for his favourite daughter with the scion of one of Bombay’s wealthiest and best-known Parsee families. Rustom Cama, only a year older than his prospective bride was all that any girl could have hoped for; good-looking, wealthy, educated, a barrister from a prominent and progressive family. Her father-in-law was the renowned orientalist Prof. Khurshedji Rustomji Cama. He was liberal-minded, an illustrious scholar, and affectionate in his personal relationships. She greatly admired him and always evinced great respect for his knowledge and scholarship. Khurshedji Cama had joined his family firm, travelled to China, and Europe then abandoned commerce and spent a year going abroad and studying the Avesta (scriptures of the Zoroastrians) under recognised western scholars like Mohl1 in Paris and Spiegel at Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany. His companion on this voyage to England happened to be Dadabhai Naoroji who belonged to a priestly family of Navsari and was able to enlighten him about many of the tenets of Zoroastrianism. With his penetrating intellect and strong memory, he learned enough in that short spell abroad to be able on his return to Bombay to pursue Avestan and Pahlavi (vernacular of Persia from 300 B.C. onwards) studies by himself on western lines. He gathered around him a small class of remarkably gifted young priests and the fame of his teaching spread. Even today the Cama Institute of Oriental Studies is a landmark in Bombay. The Cama group was also India’s fourth largest press concern in 1854 and it was they who made it financially possible for a newspaper ‘Rast-Goftar’ to be established by Dadabhai Naoroji.

The year 1885 was an important landmark in her life. It encompassed two important events; her marriage on August 3, and the first session of the Indian National Congress, presided over by Woomesh Chandra Bonnerji in December. For most women especially in those days marriage would have been the more significant event, perhaps the most important landmark in their lives. But for her, it was not destined to be so. The young bride keenly and enthusiastically followed the proceedings and deliberations of the Congress. It was indeed an epoch-making event and she was one of the first Indian women to have grasped its importance, its historic significance. To her, it was a movement that could awaken not only political consciousness but also social and economic awareness. From its beginning, Congress afforded the women of India a great opportunity to participate as equals in the task of nation-building. It would mean emancipation from the foreign yoke. It could also mean emancipation for women who had been oppressed for centuries. So she thought in 1885.

New horizons opened before her. The country beckoned her to service and her youthful mind reacted with idealistic ardour. At this call of her Motherland, she emerged out of the shell of complacency common to the affluent class to which she belonged. The needs of her country were too important, too imperative. No longer could she afford the luxury of the life of women of her social strata, whose aspirations were limited to proficiency at embroidery, music, and the social graces and for whom the ultimate honour was an invitation to the Governor’s garden party. Here was the noble cause to which she could, and she would give her all. Young though she was, she had found her mission in life.

She was married to an outstanding young man. Most girls in her position and in her days, could not have asked for a better match and would have been satisfied with their

housewifely duties and social obligations. But she was different. She was wedded to an ideal’ husband. But she was ‘wedded’ also, as she herself used to say, “to the uplift of my countrymen, both social and political.” Ultimately it was this side of her that gained the upper hand. She became a woman with a mission, with a vision, the vision of an Independent India free from the foreign yoke. At this stage, she must have faced a mental and emotional conflict. Brought up as she was in a home filled with beautiful things, in the warmth and love of a large family and circle of friends, she could not have escaped completely an attachment to the feminine and gracious aspects of life, the comforts, security, and even fun. But there was also within her a restlessness, a drive of energy that never left her completely at peace. The poverty and sufferings of her people, the sheer helplessness of the Indian masses under a despotic foreign rule, deeply affected her. She was a society lady, a newly married woman aware that delight, comfort, and beauty were life. But to her, it was not enough. For within her, was also a dedicated reformer committed to social work outside the home, leading her first to involvement in improving a lot of women and later to ceaseless political activity. In the end, it was this life, this work outside the home that was to claim her totally. Her home life and her duties as a young housewife gradually receded and in its place, a new Bhikhaiji began to emerge.

Impatient with her husband who held more conservative views, had little interest in public life and believed ‘benevolence’ of British rule, she gradually drifted away from him. The marriage, never a happy one, broke up, and within a few years, they were separated, though never actually divorced. She however was fair-minded and realistic enough to recognise and acknowledge that it was more her fault and she never spoke ill of her husband. He outlived her and was so embittered perhaps, that when she died, he refused even to attend her last rites.

The viewpoints of husband and wife were poles apart and her fiery temper led to violent quarrels between them. ‘Four Fighting Decades’ by Homi D. Mistry mentions one such occurrence as narrated by the late Shiavux Jhabwala, a well-known social worker, labour leader, and revolutionary. It seems with the help of her husband, she used to run a journal devoted to social work and reforms. The premises once occupied by ‘Blitz’ were used, decades before, by the Daftar Askara Press, a pioneer press of India which printed this journal edited by the Camas. In the very room, which was much later to be occupied by the Deputy Editor of Blitz, husband and wife used to quarrel violently over editorial matters; and Mr. Jhabwala was hesitant to face her when he had to go in with contributions for their journal. Incidentally, Mr. Jhabwala himself was a revolutionary who had figured quite prominently in the Meerut Conspiracy Case, but, it appears even a brave man like him was afraid to face the fury of this firebrand.

At the time of the severe epidemic of plague in Bombay, she had thrown herself, heart and soul, into relief work, actually nursing the sick and dying, without thought of the danger she was exposing herself to. Fortunately, she escaped the disease and lived to a ripe age. But her work amongst the plague victims, her awareness of the ravages of famine and economic depression that had ruined this once great .and prosperous land, and her witnessing with her own eyes, the sufferings of her countrymen during those closing years of the nineteenth century left an indelible mark on her sensitive heart. Realizing with her clarity of mind, how much these were due to the oppressive and self-aggrandizing policies of a foreign government, she decided to fight to end this alien rule.

As the saga of the life of this unusual woman unfolds, it is fascinating to watch Madame Cama’s evolution from social service, through a short spell of political work inspired by the ideals of the Conservative Congress to radical revolutionary activity and militant nationalism.

All her life, her indomitable spirit was willing; quite often, the flesh was weak. Ill health was to dodge her footsteps all through life. In 1902 gravely ill, she had to go abroad for treatment and an operation. Little could she have realized, as the ship sailed away from her native shores, that it was the beginning of an exile that was to last thirty-five years, during the course of which she was to carve for herself an honoured niche in the annals of her country’s struggle for freedom.

Source: 

Builders of Modern India - Madam Bhikhaiji Rustom Cama, PUBLICATIONS DIVISION - Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Government of India