Women Students in Madras Medical College

Walking through the campus of Madras Medical College today, you are likely to see a number of young students in white lab coats, rushing from the lecture halls to the anatomy theaters in quest of the coveted MBBS degree. Today, over half of these students are women. When the institution first came into being in 1835, this was hardly deemed possible by the global medical community. The story of how women came to be an integral part of the life of MMC is a story of Madras at large – a city which set the standard for women’s participation in the medical profession in India as well as healthcare at large in the Indian Ocean World. 

Madras Medical College began as a medical school in 1835 in a small campus consisting of four rooms, and was accorded the status of a college in 1851. In 1853, Indian men were permitted the privilege of studying medicine alongside British men. It was affiliated with the University of Madras in 1857 – just one short week after Calcutta Medical College received a similar affiliation. Thus far, the medical history of Madras grew in tandem with that of other Presidency capitals, Calcutta and Bombay. In 1875, however, it diverged from the pattern and forged ahead to admit the first women medical students in India. This development was the result of a rather extraordinary story involving a reluctant Surgeon General, an intrepid Englishwoman, and an acerbic professor of medicine. While Calcutta Medical College and Grant Medical College (Bombay) went on to admit women students some years later, these developments were the result of organizing and advocacy by Indian and (some) English men rather than women. In this regard, MMC stood alone.

MMC enjoyed a reputation for excellence in all fields of medical education, as several review commissions noted through the early twentieth century. What is particularly noteworthy is that every single one of these commissions made especial note of MMC’s stellar training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology – a field largely occupied by women practitioners. Students from medical colleges in Lucknow and Lahore (amongst others) came to undertake training at MMC, especially in obstetrics and gynaecology, as a result of this reputation. The committee of 1923, headed by Dr. Norman Walker, found the facilities at most other colleges in India inferior to those at MMC. As the Education and Health department confirmed at the time, “his conclusions … are to the effect that provision for midwifery training in Indian Medical Colleges is inadequate except perhaps in Madras.”  MMC’s reputation for excellence in education, particularly in the field of midwifery, obstetrics, and gynaecology, was established well before it was confirmed by Dr. Walker in 1923. This drew many women doctors, beginning with the first one in 1875, to the college – one Mary Scharlieb.  

Mary Scharlieb came to Madras in 1866 with her barrister husband, William Scharlieb. Mr. Scharlieb was an ‘old India hand’, having been raised in India where his father was a member of the Civil Service. Mary and William met in England when he travelled there to take the bar exam, and returned to India together soon after their wedding. They took a house in Santhome, and settled down to raise a family. Mary Scharlieb joined a number of Englishwomen who lived as memsahibs – producing British colonial power in domestic spaces in the colonies. However, Mary Scharlieb was no doubt aware of another group of European and American women who were slowly but surely making their way across the Indian subcontinent: missionary women doctors, who were motivated by a desire to bring healthcare to Indian women in zenana seclusion. Dr Clara Swain, for instance, began her practice in Bareilly in 1869. Dr Elizabeth Bielby travelled from London to Lucknow in 1876, and set up a mission clinic for women. The immediate cause of Mary Scharlieb’s interest in medicine was therefore both professional and philanthropic. As she assisted her husband in his legal work, she began to hear stories from his Indian clerks about the lack of access to medical care Indian women faced. These tales were echoed by her Indian servants at home. Stories of women dying in childbirth as a result of their reluctance to consult a male doctor or their husbands forbidding them to do so dominated Scharlieb’s conversations with her domestic servants and her husband’s professional staff. Deeply moved by these stories, and inspired by her reading, Scharlieb prevailed on her friend, an Anglo-Indian doctor named John Shortt, to introduce her to the Surgeon-General of Madras Presidency. Scharlieb approached this gentleman, Dr Balfour, with a request to be allowed to embark on a medical education in order to provide biomedical (or western) healthcare to women in pregnancy and childbirth. Dr Balfour was sympathetic to her ideals, and offered to introduce her to the Superintendent of the Lying-In hospital (maternity hospital). The Superintendent, Dr Cockerill, was less sympathetic. He was unwilling to allow Scharlieb to take on any medical training in the hospital, but was persuaded when she agreed to attend a patient in the throes of smallpox. 

In this encounter, Dr Cockerill and Dr Balfour seemingly stood at opposite ends of an existing debate in Madras. In 1872, the Madras Medical Journal ran two articles discussing the viability of allowing women to access medical education. The editors lauded the decision taken by the Madras Government as “most benevolent and beneficial” to permit and even encourage women to undergo training (though not a full course) at either the Lying-In hospital or the General Hospital in the city. While men had to pay fees for this training, women were granted a stipend of Rs 15 per month (European and Anglo-Indian) or Rs 10 per month (Indians) for this training. Though the opinions of the editors seem to have been progressive, on closer examination it is clear that they saw only middle class and elite women as fit for medical education, disparaging maruthavachis as “aged women, to whom age had taught neither sobriety, honesty nor the power of governing their tongue.” Dr Balfour, despite his support for women in MMC, was opposed in general to women in the medical profession. It was only in the so-called special circumstances of Indian society that he supported Scharlieb’s request. These special circumstances were clear: Scharlieb was an educated elite Englishwoman, and she intended only to work in cases of childbirth – i.e., she would work in spaces where men such as Dr Balfour would not be welcome in any case. She would not be encroaching on his earnings or his practice in any way. Thus, though Dr Balfour and Dr Cockerill seemed to hold different opinions on the subject of medical women, it was clear that they both had serious reservations on the issue in actual practice. 

Male objections to women medical students were often couched in the language of fears about modesty and respectability. Men doctors suggested that learning anatomy and midwifery in particular alongside male students would offend female “delicacy of feeling” because of the nature of these subjects – they required demonstrations involving bodies, usually in a state of undress. These fears were not unfounded. In 1855, students from the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania attended an anatomy lecture with male students from local colleges in Pennsylvania Hospital. The male professor at the Hospital, David Hayes, was furious at this female invasion of his lecture theatre and chose to demonstrate his work on a male patient who was fully disrobed in order to try and embarrass the women students in the audience. This caused the male students in the audience to jeer and make lewd comments at their fellow medical students. In the age of print news being disseminated around the world quickly on steamships, this incident doubtless preyed upon the minds of male doctors around the British Empire. Nevertheless, some suggested that this fear was exaggerated in the colonies, especially in India. Dr Balfour was one such man – despite his staunch opposition to women taking up medical education in England. The difference, he felt, was that “the question of women doctors in Europe has reference to the rights of woman to enter on a field already occupied by medical men; and has to relation to the position taken up in India where women doctors are needed for attendance on women who have never had any skilled medical care.” Dr Balfour was thus in favor of medical women in Madras because of the ‘peculiar’ circumstances in India – i.e., the reluctance of Indian women to consult male doctors. These circumstances led Balfour in Madras to take the step of allowing women to undergo training in the Lying-In Hospital, and in 1875, to allow Mary Scharlieb and three Anglo-Indian women – Miss D’Abreau, Miss White, and Miss Mitchell – to join MMC. All of them graduated with a Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery (LMS). The LMS was a four-year course and qualified them to practice both medicine and surgery, but did not have as extensive a practical component as the MBBS degree. What was perhaps unique about MMC was the enormous financial support given to these early women students. They received fee-waivers as well as stipends, a trend that would continue to characterize women’s medical education in Madras for decades to come, setting it apart from other Presidencies. By comparison, in 1875 men paid Rs. 455 to obtain the LMS degree.

When these four women entered the hallowed space of the Medical College, they had expected a fully co-educational experience. Their expectation was only partially met: while lecture hours were shared with male students, clinical hours were vastly different. Male students were able to stroll quickly to the nearby General Hospital to learn the practical aspects of surgery and medicine, while women students scrambled into other forms of transport and made their way to the Lying-In Hospital and the Women’s Hospital (Egmore) to gain their experience in midwifery (as it was called then). After all, ministering to purdahnashin women in childbirth was the raison d’etre of medical education for women. It was at the women’s hospital at these students met with the best-known example of male exclusion: Surgeon Arthur M Branfoot, the Superintendent. Surgeon Branfoot had obtained his MB in London in 1872, and achieved high honours in Obstetrics. Like Surgeon-General Balfour, he was opposed to women in the medical profession in general. Unlike Balfour, he did not see India as an exception to this view. Dr Branfoot made his displeasure clear – educating women in medicine was the “utmost folly,” he did not want them in his hospital, and was being forced by the Government of Madras to tolerate their presence. He had no intention of actually teaching them anything. Despite this unpromising beginning and rather hostile work environment, all four women graduated with flying colours. Scharlieb in particular had a stellar career of public service, as she was instrumental in setting up the Victoria Caste and Gosha Hospital in 1885 for purdah women, and served as its first Superintendent. The Victoria hospital continued to treat women in maternity cases for decades, and was staffed entirely by women doctors.

This was only the beginning. The first Indian woman to graduate from MMC, Annie Jagannathan, obtained her LMS in 1888. She was followed in quick succession by many more women – Indian and European – who wanted to enter the medical profession to help other women. As they slowly made their way into the co-educational clinical experience of the General Hospital wards, they discovered (as observers noted) that the Madras Medical College was not only renowned for its excellent education, the clinical experience at GH was one of the best in India. When efforts began to open up medical colleges to women students in other Presidencies, Madras was usually cited as exemplary. Mr. Kitteridge, who began a fund to organize medical women for Bombay in the 1880s, noted, “in Madras…much more had been done…for the benefit of women. Surgeon General Balfour had obtained the sanction of the Government for the education of women in medicine at the Medical College of Madras; and…they promised to be of immense service to their sex.” Drs. Margaret Balfour and Ruth Young, leaders of the Women’s Medical Service and founding members of the Countess of Dufferin Fund, wrote in 1929 that medical education received an impetus in Madras before the other presidencies because it was “the most educationally advanced” province in India. Even later, in 1963, Dr. V R Khanolkar noted in an address to the Indian Science Congress Association that “Madras was the pioneer in medical education of women”. 

What made Madras so different from the rest of British India? Kitteridge credited IMS Surgeon-General to the Government of Madras, Dr. Balfour, as being instrumental by opening the doors of MMC to women. While Dr Balfour’s advocacy was clearly crucial, we cannot underrate the dynamism of aspiring women doctors in the province, who benefitted from growing up in an educationally ‘advanced’ province (as one observer in 1930 put it). In 1930, a British woman, A R Caton, undertook a comprehensive survey of the conditions and status of women in India in which she noted: “The outstanding characteristics of Madras are absence of purdah and a much wider diffusion of Christianity than in any other province. This has given women, especially of the lower castes, greater opportunity here than elsewhere in India. It is in Madras that mass movements towards Christianity have taken place, and wherever Christianity spreads, women have a better chance…. Madras leads both in the number of women’s colleges and women students.” Caton clearly saw the activity of Christian missionary doctors as instrumental in opening the doors of medical colleges and schools for women in Madras. However, Caton went on to note critically that “Madras has been supine as regards indigenous efforts, and has done little for girls except under missionary or government stimulus. Less here than in any part of India have Madras men endowed schools where distinctively Indian ideas could be tried out.” Caton believed that compared to Bombay in particular, Indian men had failed to take the lead in opening up medical spaces for women in the Presidency, making women doctors from Europe the crucial factor in MMC opening its doors to women as early as 1875.  

As the century turned, these women began to embark onto both LMS and MBBS courses, and learned side by side with their male classmates. Perhaps the most challenging subject in these courses was Anatomy – which was taught in the much vaunted ‘Red Fort’ building, abutting the playing fields in what is today the ‘old campus’ across the road from the Southern Railways Headquarters building. Constructed in 1897, this building conforms to the Indo-Saracenic school of architecture which characterizes much of British Madras. Red Fort was not the first building used by MMC, but it is the oldest one still standing. There were many interesting features about the Red Fort, including the dissection and demonstration theatre. A small scrub room in one corner was the first stop before anatomy class. Before electricity became easily available, medical students relied on sunlight to perform their dissections in the anatomy block. Gurneys were placed below massive glass sunroofs embedded in the high ceilings, and a group of students clustered around each gurney to perform their dissections together as a group. The women students generally worked in one group together. The room is massive and airy, surrounded by a veranda on all sides. As senior students worked on the cadavers, juniors could gather on the upstairs gallery to observe.

Across the landing from the main anatomy theatre was a smaller one, used only for demonstrations. Professors presided over demonstrators (i.e., assistants who performed demonstrations on cadavers) as they explained how each aspect of the human body worked. Each gurney represented a different part of the body being dissected, and students observed from the gallery which ran around the room. For instance, if a student was scheduled to learn about ‘Head and Neck’, he/she would stand in the part of the gallery marked thus in order to observe and study the demonstration below. Even here, gender segregation became patently obvious in a supposedly co-educational space. It is unclear who voiced any concern within the medical college (the travails of the women in the Pennsylvania Medical College come to mind). What is clear is that by 1926, the Surgeon-General and the Principal of MMC instituted a new post: lady demonstrator. Male students received instruction from male demonstrators, and women students received instruction from the lady demonstrator in the science of dissection and anatomy. The Principal justified this on the grounds of “the rather special circumstances of the Indian society,” referring to the custom of purdah. On days where there was no practical demonstration, students could examine mannequins with the circulatory system, nervous system, etc., inscribed upon them by thoughtful anatomical artists. They could also work with skeletons in order to obtain a thorough understanding of the human body as well as the skeletal systems of a variety of primates and other animals.

In addition to these practical lessons, students attended lectures in a gallery-style classroom. Students sat in rising rows facing the lecturer on a dais. Their eyes were likely drawn inescapably to a large carving of Sir Charles Bell, the great Scottish anatomist, above the blackboard. Women students usually clustered together and remained aloof from the male students in this class. Despite generous scholarships and stipends to women students from the Government of Madras (or perhaps because of them), male professors and students continued to resent the presence of women in the medical classroom. Women students were unlikely to be deterred by this. Many Indian women who joined medical colleges had usually already fought extensive battles to get there – against child marriage, unsupportive families, or male schoolmates who were resentful at being academically bested by them. It was not an easy path to medical college. 

Dr Muthulakshmi Reddi, the first woman to get an MBBS (then MBCM) from MMC, is perhaps the best-known example of this narrative which blends adversity and triumph. She overcame pressure for an early marriage several times from her mother and various other relatives, and was hamstrung by the fact that there was no secondary school for girls in Pudukottai, where she hailed from. She fought determinedly until she received special permission to attend the boys’ school from the Maharaja of the province. This early experience of being the only girl amongst over a hundred boys clearly made an impact on her educational focus. She realized that her classmates were disgruntled at being bested by a girl, and were spreading rumors suggesting that the teachers were “lenient to a girl”. Some boys even “wrote anonymous letters and threw them into my room over the wall”, she recalled. Aspiring medical women saw MMC as a Valhalla which would be free from gender discrimination. After all, the government was now providing stipends of upto Rs 20 per month and additional scholarships to purchase books and other educational material. This seemed to be proof positive that the government of Madras was interested in promoting medical education for women. Member of the Madras Legislative Assembly, Mr. Abdul Hameed Khan noted in 1938 that “…in the (Madras) Medical College girl students sit side by side with boy students and receive education.” The very next day, Dr. T S S Rajan, the Minister for Public Health in the Madras Legislative Assembly, agreed. He added, “I believe that women are entitled to the same quality of knowledge in the medical profession as men (re coed). After all they have got to treat human beings and in certain respects women have got to be better equipped than men. Nowadays women are coming in large numbers to seek medical education. People may ask: where are such girls?  I can tell them that today in the MMC where there is a mixed education for boys and girls, we have got more than 90 girls studying there.” Even The Medical Practitioner, a journal published by medical men in south India, opined that “…in local lay press, much was made of an imaginary fear that medical education for women would be at stake if the girls were taught alongside boys. How and why nobody expressed. It is most regrettable that those who advocate equal partnership between women and men in social, public and political life misconstrue their own ideals in this case. If men and women should mix with each other freely in the afterlife, why not in schools and colleges?” 

Women students can be forgiven for their optimism, in the face of such strong governmental support. They were in for a rude awakening however, as Dr Muthulakshmi herself discovered when she went with her father to sign up for the MBCM class. The British Principal in 1907 suggested that this degree was too arduous for women, and suggested she take up the LMS instead. However, she refused to relinquish her plans, and entered the more rigorous course. Once admitted, nothing changed very much. Male students and even professors continued to emphasize how difficult the exams were, and reiterated the story that no lady (European or Indian) had thus far succeeded in obtaining the coveted MBCM pass. Colonel Giffard, the Senior Professor of Obstetrics, did not permit women to attend his lectures – they were left to the tender mercies of an assistant. Dr Muthulakshmi’s success was extraordinary in these adverse circumstances. She regularly topped exams, both written and oral, and scored a hundred percent in the dreaded surgery exam in her third year. She won a plethora of medals, including one in Obstetrics which led Colonel Giffard to permit women students to attend his lectures. She paved the way for other Indian women to be able to participate fully in the life of MMC. 

Despite this, Dr Muthulakshmi herself was very shy. She did not socialize with male students, and only seldom with her women classmates. She was isolated by being the only woman student in her batch to successfully complete the MBCM on her first attempt – others either fell back on the LMS or wrote the exam year after year. In general, women students in MMC banded together in the early twentieth century. They were drawn together by their experiences of being excluded within the classroom and the clinical rounds; as well as the lack of infrastructure in terms of living arrangements. While there was a men’s hostel within walking distance of MMC, the question of the women’s hostel was raised time and again in the Legislative Assembly and Council with no resolution. When Dr Muthulakshmi was in college, the only hostel available for women students was run by the YMCA, which catered only to Christian women. By the 1920s, the Government of Madras began to lease houses and buildings in Egmore to serve as ad hoc women’s hostels for students to accommodate the rising number of women students. 

The rising number of women students in medical college was testament to a convergence of factors: missionary women doctors advocating for a cadre of Indian women doctors to provide healthcare to their fellow countrywomen; the creation and funding of the Women’s Medical Service in Delhi under the aegis of the Vicereine in 1913; and the support of the Government of Madras in the interests of improving maternal and child health in the province. The Government of Madras continued to put its money behind its resolve through the rest of the colonial era. Women students had received fee waivers, stipends, and scholarships from 1875, and continued to do so without serious questioning in the Assembly and Council until the end of the First World War in 1919. Even then, in the face of retrenchment committees, the Government of Madras celebrated its decision to continue this practice. In response to a question in Council in 1920, Surgeon-General Giffard noted with pride that Madras “liberally subsidized” women’s medical education. Not only was an MMC education exempt of fees, the Government also granted large subsidies to the Women’s Medical Colleges in the province – including the Mission Medical College in Vellore. On top of a fee waiver at MMC for all women, a certain number (changing each year) were awarded scholarships of Rs 50 (MBBS) or Rs 35 (LMS). In 1920, a total of 75 women students were in receipt of this annual scholarship. Surgeon-General Giffard supported continued fee concessions as he felt the number of women doctors in Madras fell short of that necessary to minister to maternal healthcare. It seems he had come quite a long way since 1907, when he prevented women students from attending his lectures. In 1920, he went so far as to write glowing recommendations for Dr Muthulakshmi Reddi as well as another woman doctor: one A Pichamuthu, who graduated with an MBBS in 1919 from MMC. He described Dr Pichamuthu as “exceptionally brilliant.” The brilliance of individual women doctors combined with the general narrative that women practitioners were crucial for the health of the Presidency led the Government to continue the practice of fee waivers and stipends for women students even in the face of heated debate after retrenchment in 1922. Only one caveat was added: where previously, stipends and fee waivers were open to women regardless of their province/nation of origin, they were now restricted to women from Madras. Women from neighbouring provinces still had to pay a fee. This did not deter women from applying to MMC, drawn to its excellent instruction. 

The question of levying fees was raised yet again in the Government in 1931, when the global recession led to a round of retrenchments. This conversation continued through the 1930s. In 1932, the stipends were abolished, but the system of fee waivers to all “Madrasees” was continued. In 1936, the Surgeon General reiterated that the “supply of women doctors in this Presidency was inadequate,” and shut down yet another attempt to charge fees to women medical students. The Principal of MMC agreed, noting that in 1936 only 27 women had applied to the college for the MBBS degree, of which 18 were accepted (in a class of 100). He added, “if any fee is levied, I am afraid that even the present number will show a sudden decrease.” Though the Finance department demurred, they were eventually convinced to let the fee waivers continue when the Education and Public Health Department insisted that even if in the future these concessions should cease, it should be done “gradually” so as not to discourage the promising trend of more women joining the medical profession. By 1940, 30 out of 120 seats were reserved for women students each year, and in actuality 40 women were admitted into the incoming class. All ‘Madrasee’ women students received tuition waivers, a practice which set Madras apart from Bombay and Calcutta.

Attempts were made over the next few years to reduce these concessions in budgetary interests, but the Second World War was raging – the supply of male applicants to medical college was doubtful every year, with increasing numbers of men being seconded for war duties. The Government continued to push this decision down the line, noting that the circumstances were “exceptional” due to the war. The war continued to have an impact on decisions made on funding for women medical students in Madras. When the subject came up once again in 1944, the Surgeon-General stated explicitly that women doctors had contributed enormously to the war effort, and there could be no question of charging them for medical education. He went even further, suggesting that the increased number of women doctors in Madras Presidency during the war years had allowed Madras to spare more male doctors to be sent overseas to aid the war effort. 

This debate around payment of fees was ostensibly about the role of medical women in India. However, as the urgency of war wore off, it became clear that this was not the case. In 1946, even as the All-India Bhore Commission was lamenting the low number of qualified women doctors in the country (1000 according to their enumeration), quite a different debate was raging in Madras. As soon as the exigencies of wartime faded, various finance departments began to clamp down on the demands of other branches of government. In Madras, even as the Public Health Department and the Surgeon-General continued their demands for free medical education for women to remain in place, the finance department had other ideas. Pointing out that elite, dominant caste women could easily afford the cost of medical education, they added that the end of the war meant that more male doctors were returning from the front to take their place in hospitals and medical colleges. As the Surgeon-General and the Public Health department continued to press their points, the finance department began to frame their argument along the lines of caste and class disadvantage rather than reiterating that the demand for women doctors was high enough in Madras to warrant charging women for medical education. 

This re-articulation of the lines of debate began in the late 1930s, which coincided with the implementation of the 1935 Government of India Act defining the category of ‘Scheduled Caste’ for the first time. Prior to this, certain communities in India were officially identified as ‘depressed classes’ by the government. Though the category of Scheduled Caste was intended for electoral purposes in 1935 (implemented for the first time in the 1937 elections), it was used for administrative purposes very quickly. The finance department in Madras seized on this new category to suggest a way to bow to the demands of retrenchment without diminishing the stature of women doctors in official discourse. By latching onto the new and more narrowly defined ‘Scheduled Caste’ (SC) category, they suggested two measures in 1945 that marked an official change in the terms of the discussion by noting that the category of ‘woman medical student’ was not a homogenous one. The department suggested, firstly, that all women students who did not belong to Scheduled Caste or Tribe (ST) communities should be charged half the fee that male students were charged. Secondly, those students belonging to SC or ST communities would still be eligible for free education, as would Muslim women. However, even here the Surgeon-General and the Public Health department had some caveats to add – namely, the provision of 6 free studentships to ‘deserving’ women who came from financially disadvantaged families not belonging to SC or ST communities. From 1949 onwards, only women students from ST communities were exempt from payment of fees at medical colleges. Muslim women and those belonging to SC communities paid half the fees, and others were now required to pay the full fees. This categorization of groups based on their status within Indian society for official purposes in the 1930s and 1940s was based mostly on the anti-caste movement lobbying for equal rights and access to education for lower caste communities. Though the movement in Madras, led by E V Ramasamy, did not emphasize state intervention to end this inequality, Dr B R Ambedkar was at the forefront of official demands to include affirmative action measures for SC and ST communities in electoral representation and access to education (both arenas were dominated by a dominant caste/Brahmin presence). 

What were the implications of these differential fee scales? On a practical level, the Finance Department was proved right – it did not affect the rate of application to medical college among women, which continued to climb through the 1940s, as seen in the table below:

Thus far, it seems as though Indian women were given a great deal of importance in medical college in terms of governmental support – fee waivers, scholarships, stipends – which continued for decades. By 1912, even fearsome male professors seemed to have accepted women students as occupying a justified place in their classrooms. Young women might be forgiven for hoping that the space of the medical college itself would be as welcoming, particularly at MMC where the Obstetrics department was rated the best in India and perhaps in Asia. The famed Egmore Maternity Hospital became the first in the country to offer post-graduate courses, and it was upgraded to the status of an Institute in 1952, increasing the presence of students. Madras played host to the first All-India Conference of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1936. These were attractive factors to women students, who were drawn to the institution with the goal of helping to serve their fellow countrywomen. 

How did male students react to this intrusion? We saw that Dr Muthulakshmi was not particularly social in her time at MMC. Yet, male and female students shared lecture halls, anatomy theatres, and libraries. Most male students, once they graduated and joined some form of government service, repeated the policy line emphasizing the importance of women doctors for India’s future. However, a closer look at the Madras Medical College Journal, a student run magazine, sheds some light on the sexism experienced by women students. Though women students never explicitly acknowledged any discrimination – indeed, various women doctors went out of their way to comment on the “good feeling between men and women medical students in India” – their everyday experience of exclusion was apparent from the male editorial voices in the Journal. 

Consider the following limerick from 1947: 

A damsel at Madras named Breeze
Weighed down with B.Litts and MDs
Collapsed from the strain
Said her doctor, “it’s plain,
You are killing yourself – by degrees

This seemingly harmless limerick was likely to have brought a smile to the faces of many professors and students at MMC. What is interesting is it hints at something more than just silly fun: by suggesting that an educated woman was burdened by the weight of her degrees (i.e. formal education), the author of the poem was reflecting an ever-present attitude that undercut the state’s stated objective to include more women doctors in its healthcare systems. This attitude was the idea that women were not physically strong enough to stand the rigors of medicine and surgery. Though it was rarely expressed in state discourse, it came up when the question of women entering previously male spaces arose (such as the government general hospital rather than the women’s only hospitals). There was a tacit understanding that even as the members of the Legislative Assemblies and Councils demanded more women doctors for India, this push could not come at the expense of male doctors’ employment. The expression of this attitude was frowned upon in official bodies, but did not prevent it from occurring on a handful of occasions. However, these sly jokes and digs at women in medical college journals reveal the underlying attitude that women were unfit to truly take their place alongside men in a strenuous profession such as medicine. This attitude is also revealed in the fact that medical colleges explicitly encouraged women to specialize in obstetrics, gynecology, and pediatrics (i.e. care for women) and actively discouraged women doctors from becoming surgeons (deemed a physically exhausting discipline). 

These journals reveal the underlying sexism in medical schools that many women brushed under the carpet. For example, the image below, published in the Journal in 1947 by one A Manoharan (assumed to be a student at MMC) is captioned: “‘Lady Students’ are never ladylike. They fight in the Hostel. They are a nuisance in the classroom.” 

Jokes and cartoon were thus a way for male students to express their displeasure and discomfort at sharing their educational space with women students. In some cases, these comments portrayed women students as conservative and shy (and therefore backward), unwilling to mix with male students. As one report on a meeting of the MMC Association in 1925 noted, “seven lady students also attended (the meeting), a rather unusual thing in the history of the association.” The author of this report was clearly surprised that women students were bold enough to enter mixed environments when not required to do so by the necessity.  

Some of these were slightly less obvious expressions of resentment, jokes under the heading “In a Lighter Vein”, as seen from a sub-section in the ‘jokes’ page of the Journal of the Stanley Medical College in 1954, which was entitled “For Men Only”. The implication here was that some jokes could be too difficult for the sensitive female eye, but this did not stop them from being published in the medical college journal. In this particular section, three ‘poems’ were published, which were as follows:

1. Though girls are tasteless, hard, and selfish
   Boys think them sweet, and soft, and elfish
2. Give a woman food and dresses
   (chiefly when her trouble presses)
   Give her gems and all things nice
   Do not ask for her advice
3. I left my family for her 
   I gave her half my life
   She leaves me now without a thought
   What man can trust his wife?

The first two poems are anonymous and were written by male students of Stanley Medical College, and the third one is credited as a translation from the Panchatantra, a set of Sanskrit stories composed in the 3^rd century (approximately) for instructive purposes on how to conduct oneself in daily life. These three poems make it clear that though men students may have behaved respectfully with their female counterparts (as reported by women doctors at conferences), they did not fully accept them as equals professionally.

_{Figure 1: Cartoon from the MMC Student-Run Journal, 1947}

While the voices of female students are less visible in the archives of medical colleges, some evidence does exist documenting their own perception of the space. Most of this evidence is in the form of letters or articles noting the importance of women medical practitioners in providing healthcare to Indian women, impressing on readers the seriousness with which female medical students approached their work in colleges. In fact, women medical students at the Lady Willingdon Medical School for women were keen to note in 1931 that “at the beginning (of the school) we were very backward in games, as we thought of nothing but anatomy, pathology, surgery, and medicine.” It was only on the insistence of the staff that these keen medical students took to the field and court to play sport because “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” This attitude was particularly well reflected in an article by a fourth-year student at MMC, written in 1940, titled “Women Not The Weaker Sex.” Miss S Ambika, the author of this article, took great care to impress upon the readers (her fellow medical students) that women were not the weaker sex, but the “nobler sex.” She went on to add, “the future is with women…the world shall see in all its wonder and glory when woman has secured an equal opportunity for herself with man and fully developed her powers of mutual aid and combination.” Even as Miss Ambika exhorted women to take their rightful place in Indian society on an equal footing with men, her appeal acknowledged that women were “more superstitious”. She justified this “slowness to change” on the grounds that even if women were as conservative as men claimed they are, this only meant that they were “slow to give up all that is pure and noble in life” – that is, the essence of ‘Indian culture’ as represented by “self-renunciation, nobility, endurance and courage.” What is unusual about Miss Ambika’s article is that she placed the blame for this unequal society squarely on the shoulders of men, noting that “of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking and so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity (women).” This is a rare instance of a female Indian voice raised in critique of Indian men, positioning the latter as being responsible for the oppression of Indian women. This had been the bedrock of arguments in favor of continued British occupation of India through the 19^th and 20^th century, but very rarely raised by and Indian female voice. It is important to note that whatever the argument these women students made, they were keen to emphasize the seriousness of their role in promoting women’s education and professional development until they stood on equal terms with Indian men.  

Among this jumble of male voices, I found one poem ascribed to “a lady student” and titled “False Alarms” at MMC in 1925, as follows: 

The maiden hard and stern of mien
Her weapon poised; its edge so keen
Flashed in the sunlight, as between
The rows of Freshers down she passed
On her they looks of terror cast
‘What means the Amazon! Oh, why
Doth she thus grasp yon fearful blade?
Cruel her eye is, tho’ arrayed
In woman’s garb,’ not unafraid
They marked her progress to that room
Whose portals wore an air of gloom
‘Were it well the ruling Gods to call?’
One has forthwith left the hall!
‘Ware of the danger, yet impelled
Like bird by serpent, fast they swelled
About the entrance; tense they held
Their breath Horror and rage upswelled
Within their breasts as mute they gazed 
Upon the wretch – Her knife she raised,
Then on the corpse with trained precision
She made an excellent incision!

This poem both conforms to and challenges the narrative of the jokes and comments produced by male students. Even as it notes that women are out of place in medical college by drawing attention to the surprise and horror of the first year students at a female with a scalpel, characterizing her as ‘cruel’; the surprise ending to the poem reveals that the protagonist is a demonstrator or lecturer in Anatomy – a person in a position of authority over them. However, even this seemingly feminist twist to the poem reveals the poet’s own biases, shared by many in the medical field, i.e., that it took a particularly strong and noble woman to enter into the field of medicine. This is clear from the way that protagonist is described as an ‘Amazon’ who is ‘stern of mien’. A woman like this would certainly make an ‘excellent’ incision, something a lesser woman could not do. A masculine countenance and bearing was seen as an important tool in the female doctor’s box. The message was clear: lesser women were not welcome in medical college. 

It is likely that these casual ‘jokes’ and misogynist japes did have an effect on the morale of women medical students. However, many of them chose to brush these feelings under the carpet in order to carry out their larger mission to serve the nation by providing healthcare to Indians, as well as achieve their own personal goals for increased independence. What did affect their ability to achieve these goals was the intervention of a much larger force than the casual sexism in classrooms: the state healthcare systems, which encouraged them to take up specializations that men typically were not able to do (obstetrics, gynaecology, paediatrics). More importantly, college professors and state officials actively discouraged women from taking up ‘masculine’ specializations like surgery and general medicine, thus ensuring that women doctors did not threaten the jobs of male doctors. These gender differences in specialization affected the way women doctors participated in nation-building and development. The initiative to actively exclude women from surgery not only enabled male doctors to feel more secure for their own jobs, but also allowed the state to divert women doctors towards obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatrics. In this way, the government and various non-governmental actors were able to create and expand a cadre of highly trained professionals to implement their population control agenda among the targeted audience – Indian women.

Today, over half of the students in Madras Medical College are women. In 1875, the battle to open the doors of MMC to women depended on the goodwill of men in governance. In 1907, the battle for the seemingly frail Muthulakshmi Reddi to be admitted was contingent on her determination and the Principal’s ultimate acquiescence. Even later, as women became a larger part of the life of the college, they were still treated as foreign objects – witness the jokes and casual misogyny in the college magazine. Male students even caviled at women choosing to mark freedom at midnight in their own hostel in 1947, noting that “a foolish three” lady students voted not to hoist the flag together. The blame for observing variations of purdah ‘superstition’ was thus laid exclusively at the feet of the women students. MMC and various policymakers continue to hail the excellence of the institution (and by extension the region) for its bold step in creating generations of women doctors far ahead of most other provinces. However, it is clear that statistics and numbers do not tell the whole story.

_{Figure 2: Lecture Hall in 'Red Fort' Anatomy Block}

_{Figure 3: Anatomy Theater in Red Fort}

_{Figure 4: Skylights in Anatomy Theater}