Bhikaji Cama was an Indian revolutionary freedom fighter. He is best known for hoisting the Indian national flag in Stuttgart, Germany on 22 August 1907.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Bhikaji Cama was born on Tuesday, 24 September 1861 (age 74 at death) in Navsari, Bombay Presidency, British India. His zodiac sign was Libra. Bhikhaiji Cama took admission in Alexandra Girls English Institution for her studies.
Physical Appearance
Hair Color: Black
Eye colour: black
Family
Bhikaji Cama belonged to a Parsi Parsi family.
parents and siblings
His father’s name was Sorabji Framji Patel. He was a lawyer and businessman. His mother’s name was Jaijibai Sorabji Patel. He was a well-known member of the Parsi community in Bombay (now renamed Mumbai).
husband and children
On 3 August 1885, she was married to Rustam Cama. Rustam was the son of KR Cama, a Parsi scholar and reformer from Bombay. Rustam was from a rich family. He was a British lawyer.
Religion
Parsi religion
Participation in freedom struggle movements
Bhikaji Cama was actively involved in helping and serving the patients of the bubonic plague that broke out in Bombay in 1896. During this voluntary service, she also contracted this disease and soon recovered from it. However, the illness left him physically weak. Doctors advised him to go to Europe for better treatment and recovery from the deadly disease. In 1902, she moved to London with the intention of staying there forever. In London he met Dadabhai Naoroji who was fighting against colonial rule. At that time he was the President of the British Committee of the Indian National Congress. Soon, she also joined the Indian National Congress and secretly worked as Dadabhai Naoroji’s personal secretary. As a member of the Congress Party, he gave several speeches in London’s Hyde Park along with prominent Indian freedom fighters Lala Har Dayal and Shyamji Krishna Varma.
Lala Har Dayal, Dadabhai Naoroji, Shyamji Krishna Verma
In February 1905, Bhikaji Cama, along with Naoroji and Singh Revabhai Rana, actively joined Varma’s Indian Home Rule Society. Later due to his active participation in anti-British activities the British ordered him to leave London. The British allowed her to stay in England on the promise that she would not participate in any nationalist activities. However, she refused and left London for Paris. Soon, Cama, along with SR Rana and Munchershah Burjorji Godrej, founded the Paris Indian Society in Paris, France. During his period in exile, he wrote, published and distributed revolutionary literature for the Indian freedom struggle movement. The names of the books published by him in Netherlands and Switzerland were Bande Mataram and Madan Talwar. The French colony of Pondicherry secretly exported and disseminated these books in India under the leadership of Bhikaji Cama. Bhikaji Cama helped the Indian revolutionaries to disseminate these books with all the money, material or ideas. On 22 August 1907, Bhikaji Cama spoke at the Second Socialist Congress in Stuttgart, Germany about the devastating effects of famine affecting the Indian subcontinent and he appealed for equal human rights and autonomy for the poor Indian people of Great Britain. During the conference, he also hoisted a flag which he called the ‘Flag of Indian Independence’.
Madam Cama hoisting the Indian flag in Stuttgart, Germany
This flag resembled the flag of Calcutta as it was modified by him along with Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Later, this flag served as a model for the actual Indian flag. In 1909, the famous Indian freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was arrested in Great Britain by the Secretary of State for India, William Hutt Curzon Wyllie. The following year, he was deported to India on a ship. During transit, he jumped into the sea through a window at the port of Marseille, a city in France, and escaped police arrest. On the shore, he did not find Cama and the others, who he had been told would wait for him there, as they were late. Soon, he is caught by the French police. In custody, he was unable to communicate with the French authorities in that difficult situation without Cama’s help, and thus, he was again sent to British custody. Subsequently, the British government assured the French government of Cama’s surrender, but the French refused to cooperate. Later, at the request of the French government, the British government confiscated all the properties of Bhikaji Cama in England. When he was exiled from France, Vladimir Lenin invited him to live in the Soviet Union. However, she declined the offer. During that time, Bhikaji Cama was inspired by Christabel Pankhurst and the Suffragette movements, which inspired her to fight for gender equality issues. In 1910, he spoke at a general public meeting in Cairo, Egypt and asked,
I see representatives of only half the Egyptian population here. May I ask where the other half is? Where are the sons of Egypt, the daughters of Egypt? Where are your mothers and sisters? Your wives and daughters?”
Death
In 1914, France and Britain began supporting each other during World War I. During that time, the revolutionaries of Paris India Society, except Cama and Singh Revabhai Rana, left France. A fellow missionary named Jean Longuet advised him to go to Spain with MP Tirumal Acharya. When Cama was asked to leave France by the French government he took refuge in the house of the Rana’s wife in Arcachon, near Bordeaux. However, in October 1914, he was arrested along with Rana during an agitation in which he participated along with the soldiers of the Punjab Regiment who were in Marseilles at that time for some agitation activities. In January 1915, Rana and his family were exiled by the French government to the Caribbean island of Martinique. Soon, Bhikaji Cama was arrested by the French government. In November 1917, he was released due to his deteriorating health in prison, but was ordered to report weekly to a nearby police station. His exile in Europe continued until 1935 where he suffered paralysis and serious illness. On 24 June 1935, she wrote a letter to the British Government through Sir Cowasji Jahangir from Paris and confirmed to the British Government that she was no longer involved in any seditious activities and wished to return to India. She returned to India in November 1935. He died on 13 August 1936 in the Parsi General Hospital, Mumbai, at the age of 74.
legacy
Bhikaji Cama’s personal property was handed over to the Avabai Petit Orphanage for girls. This orphanage has now been transformed into a school named Bai Avabai Framji Petit Girls High School, Mumbai. Amount of Rs. 54,000 were handed over to his family. Many famous roads and places were named after Madam Cama. An Indian postage stamp of 15 paise was issued in his honor by the Indian Post and Telegraph Department on 26 January 1962, India’s 11th Republic Day.
Bhikaji Cama’s picture on Indian postage stamp
The ship, named “Priyadarshini class fast patrol ship ICGS Bhikhaiji Cama”, was named after Bhikaji Cama by the Indian Coast Guard Commission in 1997. In South Delhi, an office complex at a high-end location is named after Bhikaji Cama, which houses major Indian government offices and companies including EPFO (www.epfindia.gov.in), Jindal Group, SAIL, GAIL and EIL. Are included.
Facts/General Knowledge
- She is also known as Madam Cama.
- Bhikaiji was a nationalist at heart and was active in socio-political activities which led to differences of opinion between Bhikaiji and her husband. Rustam was a British follower. His belief was that the British had done a lot for the upliftment of India; However, Bhikaji believed that the British ruthlessly exploited India for their own benefits and purposes. Bhikaji Cama was involved in philanthropic activities and social work as her married life was not happy.
- Various African American writers and intellectuals wrote many novels and books on Bhikaji Cama, keeping the moment of hoisting the Indian flag in Stuttgart, Germany as an inspiration. For example, in 1928 W.E.B. Du Bois wrote the novel Dark Princess.
- On 22 August 1907, he designed and hoisted the “Flag of Indian Independence” at the International Socialist Conference in Stuttgart, Germany. This flag was designed as a copy of the Calcutta flag which was depicted in the colors green, yellow and red. The green color represents Islam, the yellow color represents Hinduism, and the red color represents Buddhism in India. The eight lotuses represented the eight provinces of British India. Vande Mataram was written in the middle in Devanagari script which meant “[We] Mother I salute thee [India], Vande Mataram was the slogan of the Indian National Congress. The sun and moon in the last row represented Islam and Hinduism of India. In 1914, this design of the Indian flag was accepted by the Berlin Committee, which was later renamed the Indian Independence Committee. The original flag hoisted by Bhikaji Cama was declared a historical masterpiece and displayed at the Maratha and Kesari Library in Pune for the general public.
Photograph of the Indian flag hoisted by Bhikaji Cama
- In Indian history, Bhikaji Cama is remembered as the ‘Mother of the Indian Revolution’.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn