Who is Rukhmabai, today's Google Doodle

Google Doodle, the search giant on Wednesday celebrated the 153rd birth anniversary of Rukhmabai, one of the first practising woman doctors in colonial India. Rukhmabai was born in Bombay in 1864, to a woman who had herself suffered because of the custom of child marriage. She was married off at the age of eleven to a nineteen-year-old groom Dadaji Bhikaji Raut.

During those days, infant marriage was popular in the Hindu community and Rakhmabai had to face the same tragedy of child marriage. However, she fought against it and even refused to go to her husband's house when she grew up.

She preferred going behind the bars for six months rather than spend a horrible life in the house of her husband chosen by her parents when she was only seven.

The trial court had nullified the infant marriage of Rakhmabai and the verdict had added oil in the fire as it was against the Hindu tradition.

However, Rakhmabai wrote two brave articles under the pen name 'Hindu Lady' in Times of India 'Infant Marriage and Forced Widowhood' on June 26, 1885, and September 19, 1885, which were a shock for the Hindu community and their leaders.

Later, she went on to study medicine in London before becoming India's first practising lady doctor in 1894 in Mumbai's Cama Hospital.

Rukhmabai was one of the most important figures fighting for the cause of women's rights in colonial India. The story of Rukhmabai has been incorporated into novels and films.

OneIndia News