Bhikaiji Cama

This flag is of India’s independence. Behold, it is born. It is already sanctified by the blood of martyred Indian youth.

—Bhikaiji Cama

It was a cosmopolitan gathering at the International Socialist Congress in Germany. On 22 August 1907 there was a rustle of interest among the delegates when an Indian woman in a sari, with the pallav demurely covering her head, confidently walked up on stage. Then after a passionate speech she unfurled a flag before the gathering; it had horizontal stripes in green, yellow and red, with the words ‘Bande Mataram’ proudly emblazoned in the centre. It was the flag of a colonized and enslaved nation declaring to the world its determination to win freedom. When Bhikaiji Cama unfurled the first Indian flag to the world, she declared, ‘I appeal to lovers of freedom all over the world to cooperate with this flag in freeing one-fifth of the human race.’

Bhikaiji Cama was born on 24 September 1861 to Sorabji Framji Patel, a businessman, and his wife Jijibai, into a very affluent Parsi family in Bombay. Bhikaiji did her schooling from the Alexandra Native Girls’ English Institution. In 1885 she married Rustomji Cama, a barrister, but it was not a happy marriage as there was no meeting of minds between them. Rustomji was a conservative man who admired the British and believed British rule was beneficial to India while his wife was fired by nationalism and the struggle for women’s emancipation.

Cama was very excited by the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 as she felt that such an organization could spearhead India’s struggle for freedom. She also believed that if women showed some courage and stepped out to join the political movement, it would lead to their emancipation. Cama’s thinking was far ahead of her times; many women in nineteenth-century India lived in purdah, most of them were uneducated and they had no rights at all. Few of them would have had the courage to step out of their homes. Through her free-spirited life Cama would show Indian women what they could achieve if they wanted to.

Cama could have led a life of luxury and ease; instead she became involved in political activities, social service and also began to write political articles for the newspaper The Bombay Chronicle, brought out by Pherozeshah Mehta. In 1896 there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in Bombay and she personally nursed patients, working with the teams from the Grant Medical College. She contracted plague herself but survived. In 1902, still in fragile health, she left for London for medical treatment. Cama did not know that this was the be ginning of a long exile from her homeland. While she was in London she received an order from the government that she would not be allowed to return to India unless she gave an undertaking not to take part in the nationalist movement. She refused to do so and stayed back in London.

Cama began to work as the private secretary of Dadabhai Naoroji who was at that time contesting for a seat in the House of Commons. She also came into contact with a number of Indian revolutionaries who were living in exile in London. Among them were Shyamji Krishna Verma, Sardar Singh Rana, V.D. Savarkar and Lala Hardayal who formed the Ghadar party. So far Cama had been a follower of the moderate and liberal path of Naoroji, but now she became more influenced by the militant ideology of the Russian Revolution that inspired these men. With Lala Hardayal, she began to publish a newspaper Bande Mataram, inspired by the newspaper of the same name published by Aurobindo Ghose in Calcutta.

Cama became a popular speaker, giving fiery lectures at London’s Hyde Park and addressing meetings to build awareness of what British rule had really done to the Indian people. Like Naoroji, she often spoke of how India was being impoverished by the policies of the British government. Then in 1907 she attended the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart, Germany, where delegates from twenty-five countries were participating. Here, at the end of her speech, she unfurled a tricolour flag designed by her and Savarkar. She called it the ‘Flag of Indian Independence’ and later with some modifications, this would become the flag of independent India. She had instinctively understood the need for a symbol of our national struggle and one day Satyagrahis would lead processions defiantly holding a tricolour aloft above them.

Later she travelled across the United States, Europe and even North Africa on lecture tours and the flag was always displayed on stage. Everywhere she spoke on the two issues closest to her heart—India’s freedom and women’s emancipation. In 1910, looking at an all-male audience in Cairo, Egypt, she asked angrily, ‘I see here the representatives of only half the population of Egypt. May I ask where is the other half? Sons of Egypt, where are the daughters of Egypt? Where are your mothers and sisters? Your wives and daughters?’

The British government was very unhappy with her activities, and fearing that they would deport her, Cama shifted to Paris. Here, influenced by the political writings of Vladimir Lenin, Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, her political ideology took a turn towards leading a militant revolution in India. Her home became a centre for young revolutionaries and she encouraged them to train in the use of arms. She smuggled arms and revolutionary literature into India through the French colony of Pondicherry. The British government requested her extradition on ground of seditious activities but the French government refused. In retaliation, the Indian government seized her properties in Bombay.

In 1910 Savarkar was arrested in London and was to be sent to India by ship. Cama and her comrades planned to rescue him when his ship arrived in France. Savarkar managed to jump off the ship and swim ashore at the French port of Marseilles, but Cama, who was supposed to receive him, arrived late. Savarkar was arrested by the French police and the British government immediately demanded that he be handed over to them. Cama fought to get him asylum in France but failed, and Savarkar was sent back to India and imprisoned in the Andamans.

Cama was deeply influenced by the Socialist movement and the revolution in Russia and often wrote in Socialist newspapers. Lenin invited her to live in Russia and she corresponded with the Russian writer Maxim Gorky. During the First World War she was interned in France for three years. In 1935, at the age of seventy-five, Cama was finally allowed to return to India after thirty-four years in exile. By then she was seriously ill and died on 16 August 1936.

A fighter till the end, Bhikaiji Cama was one of the earliest women revolutionaries of India. A variation of the flag that she had designed was flown on 31 December 1929 at the Indian National Congress at Lahore. She did not live to see the tricolour rise on the dome of the Rashtrapati Bhawan on 15 August 1947 and then fly on the ramparts of the Red Fort.