Book Excerpt: 'Daktarin Jamini Sen: The Extraordinary Life Of British India's First Woman Doctor'

It was after Jamini finished her medical studies and started work as a newly qualified doctor that she realized the societal hurdles that lay in her way. Patients were still uneasy with a woman doctor. They did not trust her capabilities. Most of them were completely unaccustomed to women doctors and that too Indian ones. It was only if a male doctor had seen them, and decided there was nothing more to be done that he would perhaps recommend a woman doctor. It worked out well for him if the patient was dying—the woman doctor would be blamed and called incompetent. Perhaps if he was fortunate enough, the patient’s family would say she had killed him and if only the daktar babu had been there, he could have saved the patient. In every way, it was a win–win for him.

There were some instances where a senior doctor, a man, would agree to take along a woman doctor with him, but she would actually be inconsequential and have no real role. Even where payment for services was concerned, there was an abysmal difference.

Frustrated and seething at the injustice of it, Jamini was determined not to let these conditions stop her work. Speaking about it with her sister one day, Jamini had asked Kamini, ‘Why are patients so afraid of women doctors? After all, a woman should be more comfortable being examined by a woman.’

Kamini, shaking her head, said, ‘they should be, but they are not. They have been taught to only trust men in positions of authority. Years of conditioning have taught them that. And if it must be a woman—only a white woman will do. Only a memsaab ranks at par with a native man, or maybe even outranks him! And when a woman is sick, who decides which doctor to call? Who calls the doctor? It’s almost always the man of the house, isn’t it? The family doctor has so far been a man. It is only now that we are seeing women in medicine. Imagine, if you will, a time when there are as many women doctors as there are men doctors. And go forward towards that.’

‘Our women need so much more,’ Jamini said. ‘They are the best part of the India that is going to be, and we cannot fail them. I will always work for them.’ [This conversation between the two sisters has been reimagined by the author, keeping in mind their personalities and views.]

In 1898, Jamini went to Solapur for a short while where she worked at the hospital there. But things remained unsatisfactory and Jamini became more determined than ever to break this stagnation in society that decreed women should forever remain inferior to men.

While Chandi Charan fought against the British rulers with his incendiary writings, and Kamini marched forward for the emancipation of women, Jamini looked ahead with a steely resolve and made plans. Her path would take her through many twists and turns, and she realized that first, she must gain experience and practice in her chosen profession.

It was in December 1899 that the wheel turned and Jamini received an offer to go to Nepal as the house physician of the royal family. Kadambini Ganguly (who, along with Anandibai Joshi are known as the first Indian female doctors of Western medicine), senior to Jamini in the Calcutta Medical College, had treated the Queen Mother a few years earlier and they now wanted a house physician, preferably a woman.

(Excerpted from 'Daktarin Jamini Sen: The Life of One of British India's First Women Doctors' by Deepta Roy Chakraverti, with permission from Penguin Random House India)

Author bio: Deepta Roy Chakraverti has worked in the corporate and legal arena for ten years. She now holds classes on the ancient world and its magical traditions for the Wiccan Brigade's Golden Ankh Study Circle