Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c14.s3.t10.6

v2.c14.s3.t10.6

Finally, the Congress decided upon the members of the medical mission to be sent to China. Subhas Chandra Bose presided over a mass send-off rally in Calcutta. He himself went to the Howrah station to see the doctors off to Bombay from where they were to start for China. After fulfilling all the essential requirements and formalities, at the end of August, 1938, the members of the medical mission gathered in Bombay. The mission comprised of five members, namely, Dr Madan Mohanlal Atal from Allahabad, Dr M. Ramchandra Cholkar from Nagpur, Dr Deben Mukherji and Dr Bejoy Kumar Basu from Calcutta and Dr Dwarkanath Shantaram Kotnis from Sholapur. Dr M Atal was the leader of the mission and Dr M Cholkar, the deputy leader of the mission. Both of them were veterans in medical profession. The remaining three doctors were young men, all below the age of 30. On the afternoon of August 31, 1938, the Chinese residents in Bombay held a farewell banquet in their honour at the Taj Mahal Hotel. In the evening the same day, the Bombay Provincial Congress Committee and the local labour organisation held a mass rally in Jennah Hall to send them off. The chairman of the rally referred to the doctors as the unofficial ambassadors and as the ambassadors of the Indian people to China. On September 1, 1938, the mission having S S Rajputana left Bombay for China boarding the P&O Liner. Madam Sarojini Naidu, one of the most popular leaders of the Indian National Congress, came to see the medical mission off to the ship at Pallard Pier, Bombay. The mission had carried along with it 54 boxes of medicine and one bulletproof ambulance to China. On September 17, the mission reached the Chinese territory at the Guandong Province (Canton).