Who was the woman leader who addressed the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress in 1890, becoming the first woman to speak from the Congress platform?

Kadambini Ganguly addressed the sixth session of the Indian National Congress, held at Calcutta in 1890; she is regarded as the first woman to speak from the Congress platform.

About Kadambini Ganguly:

• She was born on 18 July 1861 in Bihar, into a Brahmo family from Barisal (now in Bangladesh).
• She studied at the Bethune School, Calcutta, and was the first woman to pass the entrance examination of the University of Calcutta (1878).
• She and Chandramukhi Basu became the first women graduates of the University of Calcutta, and of the British Empire, in 1883.
• She then studied medicine at the Calcutta Medical College, despite strong opposition from some teachers.
• She became one of the first Indian women to practise Western medicine, along with Anandibai Joshi.
• She went to Britain in 1893, and obtained further medical qualifications at Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin.
• She practised as a doctor in Calcutta, and worked at the Lady Dufferin Hospital.

Social and political work:

• She married Dwarkanath Ganguly, a Brahmo reformer who worked for women's education and against the exploitation of tea garden labourers in Assam.
• She was among the six women delegates at the 1889 Bombay session of the Congress.
• She organised a women's conference in Calcutta in 1906, after the partition of Bengal.
• She supported the campaign of Gandhi in South Africa.
• She died on 3 October 1923.

Other early women in the Congress:

• Women began to attend the Congress sessions as delegates from 1889.
• Swarnakumari Devi, the sister of Rabindranath Tagore, was one of the early women delegates.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Annie Besant, Sarojini Naidu and Pandita Ramabai were associated with the Congress or women's movements, but they did not address this session.