Bhikhaiji Rustom Cama [ n 1 ] 24 September — 13 August or simply as, Madam Cama , was one of the prominent figures in the Indian independence movement.
She unfurled one of the earliest versions of flag of independent India on August 22, and she was the first person to hoist an Indian flag in a foreign nation, at the International Socialist Conference at Stuttgart. On 3 August , she married Rustom Cama, who was the son of K. It was not a happy marriage, and Bhikhaiji spent most of her time and energy in philanthropic activities and social work.
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In October , the Bombay Presidency was hit first by famine, and shortly thereafter by bubonic plague. Bhikhaiji joined one of the many teams working out of Grant Medical College which would subsequently become Haffkine's plague vaccine research centre , in an effort to provide care for the afflicted, and later to inoculate the healthy.
Cama subsequently contracted the plague herself but survived. As she was severely weakened, she was sent to Britain for medical care in She was preparing to return to India in when she came in contact with Shyamji Krishna Varma , who was well known in London's Indian community for fiery nationalist speeches he gave in Hyde Park. Through him, she met Dadabhai Naoroji , then president of the British Committee of the Indian National Congress , and for whom she came to work as private secretary.
In London , she was told that her return to India would be prevented unless she would sign a statement promising not to participate in nationalist activities. She refused. That same year Cama relocated to Paris, where—together with S. Together with other notable members of the movement for Indian sovereignty living in exile, Cama wrote, published in the Netherlands and Switzerland and distributed revolutionary literature for the movement, including Bande Mataram founded in response to the Crown ban on the poem Vande Mataram and later Madan's Talwar in response to the execution of Madan Lal Dhingra.
