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.
