Bini used to be that stubborn child who preferred staying around in the playground of the village even in the dusky evening; who used to challenge the norms of the society and had the courage to question religious beliefs; who didn’t want to be a woman but dreamt of becoming a human at a very young age. Bini later known as Kadambini Basu is still a phenomenal character not only for her achievements but she is embraced for the spark she carried in her intellect. Back then in 1886 from becoming one of the First Female Practicing Doctors along with Anandi Gopal Joshi, she had taken a bold step to break every possible societal tradition.

In today’s era we see idols are created and some of those are popularized to be claimed among the tallest ones; media is flickering around some people who are worshipped next to God for apparent reasons and among all these we often fail to acknowledge the success story of humanity as a whole. In spite of Kadambini’s contributions, how many of us are aware of such courageous soul?! We often forget the pathway such warriors have covered to reach to the destination called women empowerment. Indeed “a warrior is not only who wins the war, but who fights for it”.

Kadambini has broken the vicious circle of female deprivation in education and her Father Braja Kishore Basu had played a key role in supporting his daughter for everything she had dreamt of. It is also to be mentioned though she was heavily criticized for her bold steps in education and medical career by the conservative society, her husband Dwarakanath Ganguly had been the sole support system for her. She appeared in quite a number of conferences organized by University of Calcutta to state her concerns that females were not allowed in Calcutta Medical College and finally she earned her candidature with her vibrant logical explanations and strong determination to become a doctor. On those days, contemporary newspapers like ‘Bangabashi’ regularly used to publish cartoons on her and her husband with extreme negative remarks to humiliate her whole family publicly. Both of them believed in Brahmo ideology and questioned the ancient rituals and built a very strong instance in organizing movements for female development and education. She secured her position among one of the five delegates of 5^th session in Indian National Congress in 1889. She was an expert in Western Medicines and since her last day she served patients and was devoted to her pledge as a doctor.

Now in recent times, we often argue that women have progressed significantly though how many leading positions across service sectors are secured by women even in today’s world?! Have we done away with the social taboos or still we are practicing those old thoughts even without realizing the notions. One fine evening while whole family was busy to worship Lord Krishna, Bini asked simple questions to her father about social practice of isolating a girl on her menstrual days and everyone was shocked by her astonishing audacity though her father acknowledged her concerns. He praised her to have such bold perceptions; how many daughters even today have the courage to talk about these and how many fathers act in such a responsive way?! Aren’t we still belong to the era of social ignorance?!

We do see a level shift of social development and it is still debatable that how much really women have progressed apart from the key parameters of the level shifts which society as a whole has experienced over the decades. The journey, women have covered to earn the basic rights should not be forgotten or remembered only on women’s day; the essence of the struggle should be well-understood and recognized by today’s society and women themselves are not an exception.

Our media is generally too busy to cater to the stories to take us back to an old debate which revolves around two specific religions in the context of our country and would always play as a role of catalyst to spread hate messages; as if since our ancient times we were in a state of war with each other. Our day is just not complete without hearing debate over NRC, NPR, CAA; and we get worried about our citizenship as our government is still struggling to convince the people with the explanations of these bills and the basic citizenship rights of India for its own residing citizens are at stake. Many self-proclaimed conscious citizens devote half of their productivity hours either in proving the benefits of these bills or getting panicked about what all other i-cards are required to proof citizenship identity. Todays leaders are having really tough time to balance this fiasco of what exactly todays India is fighting for. India is not bothered about poverty, unemployment, financial crisis, global warming or even make necessary arrangements to acknowledge the identity of third gender, the most deprived gender of the society. Todays struggle is an allusion and an eye wash to keep away the actual concerned factors from our thoughts and we are so fine with this!

Bini also had a struggle at her time and that was for existence too; but this struggle also included her thirst to be as a bold human being with a tremendous strong dedication to improve society. Her struggle was phenomenal to fight prejudice which were imposed by her surroundings. Her struggle was inclusive to the key enhancing indicators of development as a whole and indeed she became a strong pillar of identity for the society. Bini wanted a society where “In the future there will be no female leaders, there will just be leaders” (as quoted by Sheryl Sandberg)!