Kamala Sohonie fought “no” and fed India

Kamala Sohonie – In 1933, Kamala Bhagvat was denied admission to the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru because she was a woman. She refused to accept rejection, drew inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi, and eventually became the first Indian woman to earn a PhD in biochemis

In the early 1930s. Kamala Bhagvat arrived at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore with the kind of confidence only a top student can summon. In 1933, she had graduated from college in Bombay—now Mumbai—with top honors in physics and chemistry. She had already set her sights on an advanced degree in biochemistry at the prestigious institute. in part because her father and uncle had both studied there before her.

The reply, delivered in a letter, was blunt. Her admission had been denied.

For Kamala. it was the first time a door slammed shut because of her gender—and it would not be the last. The family was disturbed and surprised, believing it might be a miscommunication. They boarded a train to Bangalore to meet the institute’s director, physicist and Nobel laureate C.V. Raman, carrying Kamala’s diploma and academic records.

But Raman’s answer offered no rescue: there was no miscommunication. As Kamala’s biographer recounts through documentary testimony, Raman told them that girls could not be admitted. As of then, there was no provision.

That “no” should have ended her story there. It didn’t.

The turning point came when Kamala chose to push in the same spirit that Gandhi was pushing against British rule across India. She drew inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance and adopted the tactic of satyagraha—sitting in until the person in charge was forced to face the demand. She went to Raman’s office. sat down in front of it. and would not leave until she received. as she put it. a “good explanation” for the rejection.

The confrontation was direct. Raman had said he was denying her because she was a woman. Kamala pressed him to say what she “didn’t have in” herself. She was, by all accounts, relentless. And after that pressure, Raman grudgingly agreed to admit her—on conditions.

Those conditions were specific. She would spend one year on probation. Only if Raman was satisfied with her work and believed she was truly dedicated to science would she be enrolled as a full student. The second condition was harsher in its logic: she could not be a distraction to her male colleagues.

Kamala accepted anyway. She entered not just as a student trying to earn a degree, but as someone trying to prove a point—about women’s capacity for research, and about whether institutional “rules” were truly about merit.

Her professors noticed quickly. In 1935, she published her first paper: “Non-Protein Nitrogen of Pulses.” The probation was abandoned, and she was accommodated. Even Raman, by later accounts, did a full reversal—starting to accept women scientists into his own lab after she proved she belonged.

Kamala’s scientific rise accelerated across borders. After graduating from the IISc, she applied in 1937 for two scholarships to travel to England—and won both. In December 1937, at age 26, she arrived in Cambridge.

Her first experiences there carried the weight of a dream she had once described plainly: she had spent two hours every day in the library reading eminent biochemists, wrote to them, and received encouraging replies, deciding that someday she would go abroad to work in their laboratories.

At Cambridge, she visited the laboratory of Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, the co-discoverer of vitamins. Hopkins showed that animals couldn’t thrive on diets of pure protein. fat. and carbohydrates. leading to his concept of tiny “accessory factors” that add nutritional value to food—micronutrients later known as vitamins. Kamala was mesmerized by the scientific figure she had wanted to meet.

Then a practical obstacle arrived: she applied to Hopkins’ lab, but it was full. It was so late in the year that finding an open bench was difficult.

The resolution, she wrote, was “unexpected.” A kind scientist already working in the laboratory offered her daytime use of his bench while he worked at night. Professor Hopkins accepted the arrangement.

Kamala was admitted to that laboratory on 18 December 1937—“the happiest and proudest day” of her life, as she later recalled. Her PhD thesis would grow out of research on how plants generate energy. At the time. scientists knew that animal cells generate energy by transferring electrons from one molecule to another in oxidation-reduction reactions. but they did not know how the process worked in plants.

Kamala studied cells in certain vegetables and discovered and isolated an enzyme associated with cytochrome c—an oxidation-reduction key player. Cytochrome c had been found in humans and other mammals, but until then, it had not been seen in plants. She found the protein in something decidedly not a mammal: potatoes.

Her findings deepened understanding of photosynthesis, the process by which plants make their own food using sunlight, water, and CO2 from the atmosphere. In 1939, she presented her dissertation—40 pages—that was accepted. It was a first for Indian women.

At that moment, career offers were expected to pull her forward. Her son Anil Sohonie later wrote that she was offered the best jobs by leading pharma companies in the USA and Europe. But family ties held her steady in India—and the historical moment tightened the choice.

In late 1939. just months after her PhD. she boarded a ship back to India and chose to turn down the Western pharmaceutical offers. War had begun in Europe in September 1939. In Kamala’s case. the record of her thoughts is missing. so no one can know how much she weighed global alarm versus personal patriotism. What is clear is her outcome: she returned home.

The consequences were immediate. In her essay, she wrote that on her return she found it difficult to find suitable employment. Biochemistry. she said. was taught only in medical colleges in India at the time. and soon she found she “did not fit” there because there was no scope for her research qualifications.

She joined a medical college in New Delhi as a biochemist. but the mismatch between her training and the available research ecosystem grew into frustration. Filmmaker Sameer Sahasrabudhe. who researched her story through documentary work. described hearing again and again that equipment availability and machines for research would not exist the way they had in the UK—and that without money. it was hard to do research.

So Kamala redirected her skills. The line that echoes through the interviews is that she “focused entirely on Indian problems.” She used what she knew about vitamins and plant food content to address something she saw as urgent: malnutrition.

In the 1940s. malnutrition in India was described as huge—child undernutrition and undernutrition among women. with outcomes severe enough to contribute to child mortality. Her son Anil wrote that she wanted to make the population aware of the nutritional value of food. especially simple. everyday foods.

In 1942, she left the medical college in New Delhi to work at a small Nutrition Research Laboratory in Coonoor, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

The shift—from Cambridge to a small laboratory among tea estates—was not just professional; it was emotional. In her own words. she said working in the laboratory was “a funny experience.” She was mostly left to herself because colleagues were not accustomed to women. and they were shy of her. She put that isolation to good use by reading in the library and studying nutrition for the first time.

At Coonoor, her research moved from theory to direct relevance. She studied how enzymes could support nutritional needs and examined “anti-vitamin” factors—substances that block the body from using vitamins properly. She also analyzed the biochemical composition of Indian staple foods, identifying potential to meet daily nutrient needs for vulnerable populations. Her work aimed to introduce more protein into a largely vegetarian. cereal-heavy diet. focusing on two locally available protein sources: beans and fish.

She also taught. Yet leadership disappointment returned. When the post of director fell vacant, she wrote that a man with inferior qualifications was appointed. In 1947, she decided to resign and return home to Bombay.

Her personal life moved alongside her career. By the age of 36, she had remained unmarried, a social pressure that weighed on the story even in later retellings. During her time in Coonoor she met Madhav Sohonie, a London-trained business professional. Kamala mentioned him in her essay but was “coy” about details. Anil’s account describes how his father read about her in the papers. visited her in Coonoor. and they “clicked.” Madhav supported her research and encouraged her to seek another position after her resignation; Anil said they were not a typical Indian couple and that Madhav was broad-minded and progressive.

Kamala and Madhav married in 1947 and settled in Mumbai. That same year, on August 15, India gained full independence from British rule. The British left in a hurry. lines on a map separated majority Muslim and Hindu areas. and violence erupted between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi’s calls for peace were followed by upheaval, and the next year Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist.

Even as the nation mourned, Kamala pressed forward on malnutrition. To filmmaker Sameer Sahasrabudhe, the idea was straightforward: even if India were free, being malnourished and unable to survive would not serve society.

In 1949, she joined the new department of Biochemistry at the Institute of Science in Bombay, diving back into research on the nutritional value of Indian staple foods. Her work then reached a powerful desk.

In the transitional government after independence, Dr. Rajendra Prasad—the first president of the Republic of India elected in 1950—had been named Minister for Food and Agriculture. He focused on how to feed India, and he contacted Kamala with a request. Could she study the nutritive properties of neera?.

Neera is a drink made from the sap of a type of palm tree found across the Indian subcontinent. Prasad’s logic was that it might be a solution. It was locally produced, nutritious, and non-alcoholic. People had long intuited it offered health benefits, but it had not been studied properly.

Historian Darinee Alagirisamy explained that Prasad, following Gandhi, wanted to continue a crusade to keep India alcohol-free. Prohibition was tied to the struggle against colonialism. Neera, in theory, supported rural uplift too, because it was available in almost any part of India.

Kamala isolated and analyzed neera’s micronutrients using the same approach she used for other staples. She found high levels of vitamins B and C plus iron in stable forms. Rajendra Prasad approved, and she received the presidential Rashtrapati Award.

But the plan ran into a problem as old as heat: fermentation. In India’s tropical climate, fermentation could happen within hours, turning neera into a popular alcoholic drink called toddy. Darinee Alagirisamy described how this tension played out even in Gandhi’s story. A group of toddy producers once came to Gandhi to argue for revisiting his prohibition stand. Gandhi opened what he believed was non-alcoholic neera and offered it to guests—only for it to become evident that it had turned into toddy between collection and serving.

In the post-independence era, the technology and investment to ensure refrigeration to halt fermentation simply weren’t in place. Neera as a mass health drink, the account says, quietly disappeared. Kamala returned to research and teaching.

Whether she regretted giving up the protein cytochrome c work that had made her visible in England is unknowable. and her son Anil said she never expressed regrets. He wrote that her career suffered. but she stayed steadfast in working in India and only wanted to serve her country with her knowledge.

Her influence, though, widened in a different direction.

After her retirement. Kamala joined the Consumer Guidance Society of India (CGSI). described as India’s first consumer rights organization. and was later elected its president. At the time, quality control in food sold in markets across India was limited. Vendors were known to cheat consumers by adulterating food—adding brick powder to spices or white powders to milk. Those consumers were often women, the people cooking for families.

Kamala designed a simple kit so housewives could check for signs of adulteration. She also wrote numerous articles on consumer safety for CGSI’s magazine. Keemat. distributed to thousands of members and aimed at the broader public. The group still publishes a yearly food adulteration testing manual available online for free.

This was her bridge from laboratory to household: nutrition research translated into everyday decision-making.

The last chapter of the story came with recognition. In 1964, she was named director of research at the Royal Institute of Science in Mumbai. In reflecting on being passed over earlier in her career to run an institute in favor of a less qualified man. she wrote: “I took up the Directorship as a challenge. to show that a woman could run the institute as well. if not better. than a man.” She ran the institute until retirement. mentoring countless students.

In 1998, Kamala Sohonie collapsed onstage at an event organized in her honor by the Indian Council of Medical Research. She died shortly afterwards at age 87.

Nearly half of all science graduates in India are women today, a slow revolution described as one that Kamala helped start with a single refusal: she would not take no for an answer.

Her story doesn’t read like an abstract triumph. It reads like a series of closed doors—first at an institute in 1933. then across employment prospects. then through the practical failure of neera in a tropical climate. then through the social constraints of the era. What made it science. and what made it matter. was that she kept returning to a single goal: feeding people with knowledge that could reach them where they lived.

Kamala Sohonie Kamala Bhagvat biochemistry malnutrition neera C.V. Raman Institute of Science Mumbai cytochrome c vitamins India independence consumer rights CGSI