Rukhmabai: doctor and social reformer

Abstract

Straddling a faultline between tradition and progressive education in 19th-century British India, Rukhmabai forced legislators to reconsider laws on the status of girls, and went on to forge her own career as a doctor—one of the first Indian women to practise in her country. All this time she had been learning English and pursuing studies in a wide range of subjects, using books borrowed from mission schools, and had set her heart on becoming a doctor. Pechey and others raised the funds to send Rukhmabai to the London School of Medicine for Women in the UK.