Many firsts to her credit

V.R. DEVIKA

Apart from being the prime mover of the Act that abolished the Devadasi system, Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi was a part of many social movements of her time.

Tough act: Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi.

“A mere girl has got 100 per cent in surgery…” This was Madras Medical College, in 1912, a time when some professors did not even allow women to sit in their class. They would ask junior lecturers to take classes for girls separately.

Muthulakshmi Ammal had earlier been advised not to appear for the very difficult M.B and C.M. course but she had prevailed and shocked everyone by getting the 100 per cent result in surgery and most of the merit medals and prizes of that year.

To top it she became the first woman doctor in India. Muthulakshmi was a timid girl and kept to herself. In her hearing other students would comment that a plain and frail girl like her would not pass the difficult exam.

Achievements

The timid girl also was a tough one. She was also the first woman to be nominated to the Madras Legislative Council, where she was elected Deputy Chairperson. She was the founder-president of the Indian Women’s Association and became the first Alderwoman (advisor to the Mayor) of the Madras municipal corporation. She was the prime mover behind the legislation that abolished the system of dedicating young girls to temples (devadasi) and played a role in raising the minimum marriage age for women. She founded the Cancer Institute (WIA) in Madras and Avvai Home, the first institute in Madras to admit and educate poor and destitute girls with no caste bias.

Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi’s son, Dr. Krishnamurthy (now chairman of the Cancer Institute), recalls that she rehearsed arguments for the abolition of the Devadasi system at home with her husband and uncle as opponents. He was then 10 years old. While he was playing in their house, two young girls had come to see his mother. They had run away from being dedicated to the temple and wanted to know if there were any alternatives. She kept them in her house and told her sons, Ram Mohan and Krishnamurthy, to call them akka (elder sister). Muthulakshmi tried to admit the girls in schools nearby but they were refused admission because they were from the Devadasi community and could not officially furnish their father’s names. Avvai Home then became a school for poor and destitute girls. Krishnamurthy recalls that one of them became a doctor and the other a teacher.

Against the devadasi system

Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi’s strong arguments against the system of dedication of girls lay in her personal history. This is seen not from her own autobiography but from another source. In his autobiography, yesteryear actor Gemini Ganesan wrote about how his grandfather Narayanaswamy married Chandramma from a backward (Devadasi?) community after losing his wife and two children. The orthodox Brahmin relatives of Narayanaswamy ostracised him but he gained respect as the principal of Maharaja’s College of Pudukkottai. Narayanaswamy educated his eldest daughter Muthulakshmi, the only girl in Pudukottai to study English and to play badminton. He also supported Muthulakshmi’s decision not to get married, despite her mother’s pleas and protest. But her resolve was broken when, impressed with her academic excellence, Dr. Sundar Reddi, a well-known surgeon and the first Indian doctor to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Civil Surgeons (FRCS), approached Narayanaswamy for his daughter’s hand. He soon persuaded his daughter to marry Dr. Reddi in 1914. Muthulakshmi consented but not without a fight. She demanded that she be treated as an equal and be given the freedom to do what she wanted.

For women and children

In1936, Muthulakshmi Reddi leased land in Adyar village from the Arunachaleswarar temple of Tiruvannamalai for the Avvai Home. She trained many young girls including those from the Devadasi community as midwives and nurses.

With prohibition being introduced in 1948, Muthulakshmi Reddi got the toddy tappers of Adyar loans to buy buffalos and petty shops as alternate livelihoods. They were also encouraged to learn spinning and weaving. Muthulakshmi Reddi worked on raising the age for marriage of girls.

Having seen her young sister die of cancer, she was determined to make cancer treatment available in Madras. She went to England for her post-graduation and studied cancer treatment as well as gynaecology. Her son, Krishnamurthy, became a cancer specialist. She founded the Cancer Institute (WIA) now well known all over India.

Muthulakshmi wrote in her autobiography that her best pastime was looking after little children. Even while studying medicine, a neighbour’s child would be found in her lap.

This great passion for children found full expression in Avvai Home where many young women have found the means for formal education.

(The Hindu, 09:09:2007)

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