"This flag is of Indian Independence! Behold, it is born! It has been made sacred by the blood of young Indians who sacrificed their lives. 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 support this flag." — B. Cama
An important figure in the Indian Independence Movement. Bhikaiji Cama was born in the year 1861 on the 24th of September to a well off Parsi Family. Her father, Sorabji Framji Patel, was a member of the Parsi Community, a lawyer by training and a merchant by profession.
By Denise Baptise / OneIndia
On August 3rd, 1885 she married Rustom Cama a wealthy British Lawyer with her desire into the politics world. Sadly, in the year, October 1896, the Bombay Presidency was hit by Bubonic plague and she contracted the plague herself and survived. She however went to Britain for medical care in the year 1901 and over there she had met Dadabhai Naoroji the then president of the British committee Of The Indian National Congress and worked as a private secretary too.
She had founded the Indian Home Rule Society in February in the year 1905 with the help of Dadabhai Naoroji and Singh Rewabhai Rana. She had later moved to Paris and together with Singh Rewaibhai Rana and Munchershah Burjorji Godrej , they founded the Paris Indian Society.
In literary terms , Cama distributed revolutionary literature for the movement. She had spread the “Flag of Indian Independence”in the appeal to Human Rights equality and for the autonomy from Great Britain. Her position towards women especially was secondary to her position on the Great independence. She had travelled all over the United States to tell Americans about the Indians struggling for Independence and she was called “Mother India’s First Cultural Representative To The USA”.
Until the year , 1935, Cama remained in exile, when she became gravely sick and was even paralysed by a stroke that she had suffered earlier that year. She petitioned the British government to be allowed to return home. In the same year with the help of Sir Cowasji Jehangir, she returned home in Mumbai and nine months later at the age of 74 years , this great lady had passed away at a Parsi General hospital on the 13th of August 1936.