Largely at her bidding, in 1866, Captain Tulloch was assigned to prepare a comprehensive scheme for laying drains in Madras. When the Tulloch report was ready Florence Nightingale used it for all its worth to get Madras its sewage system. Viceroy Lord Ripon ordered the work to be commenced at once. The work so started progressed at snail's pace for the next 25 years. Miss Nightingale joked, "At Once! It was clearly measured in periods of Indian cosmogony". She said, "cleanliness of houses, of compounds and cattle stalls, removal of cattle out of houses, cleanliness of streets, but above all — protecting water from pollution and rain water should never mix with sewage".
It wasn't just Public Health which caught the attention of Miss Nightingale, she maintained correspondence with native Indian leaders and officials on current affairs, specifically Bengal Tenancy Act VIII, Arrears of Rent Realisation Bill 1878, Bengal Rent Law Commission etc. Prasanna Kumar Sen compiled and published 'Florence Nightigale's Indian Letters' in 1937 which provides a deep insight into Miss Nightingale's idea of India. In 1865 Lord Napier was appointed Governor of Madras. Through his wife Lady Napier, Florence Nightingale managed to introduce female nurses into Indian hospitals. In the same year, Nightingale drew up some detailed "Suggestions on a system of nursing for hospitals in India". Graduates were sent out from the Nightingale School of Nurses at St Thomas' Hospital, London to start similar schools in India. St Stephen's Hospital, Delhi in 1867 became the first one to begin training the Indian women as nurses.
In June 1877, when South and South Western India were being ravaged by a terrible famine that would ultimately kill millions, a letter to the editor was published in The Illustrated London News. The said letter outlined details of existing system of irrigation (including lengths of canals etc.), value of agricultural produce, and the urgent need for better and increased public expenditure and had half a million more acres been irrigated in each of these districts of Tangore, Godavari and Kistaah; had they been put in effective communication with rest of India by steamboat, canals, the famine would have been nothing comparatively. The letter with such intricate details about these rural southern districts was written by none other than Florence Nightingale who never in her life time visited India.
For most part of the last five decades her life, Nightingale was fixated with the problems of sanitation, water management and public health problems of India. Florence Nightingale's final crusade for the people of India began in 1891 when she was 71 years of age. She wrote to the Secretary for State for India, "The people are poor, without proper sanitation they would not have a good water supply. As they were not fit to work, how could they pay the extra taxation to provide the necessary work under the Bombay Sanitation Act". Even after the launch of Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, in 21st century, India sees it as an almost impossible task by all its bureaucratic, cultural, geographical, social and economical challenges. Such excuses never found favour with Ms Nightingale who lamented, "There is no country in the world for which so much might be done for India". There is not a country in the world for which there is so much hope, only let us do it!".
References
1. Florence Nightingale and Gerard Vallee. Introduction Florence Nightingale on Mysticism and Eastern Religions.' Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2003
2. Letter of Florence Nightingale to Rev J Murdoch secretary of the Christian Literature Society July 27 1886
3. Norman L Johnson, Samuel Kotz. Leading Personalities in Statistical Sciences. From the seventh century to the present 2011; No. 9/10
4. Nightingale. Florence life or death in India, A paper read at the meeting of the National Association for the promotion of social Science, 1873
5. Ramanna Mridula. Florence Nightingale and Bombay Presidency. Social Scientist Sep-Oct 2002; Vol 30 (No. 9/10)
6. Sanitation in India Letter from Miss Nightingale, London. Journal of the Public Health Society July 27 1888; IV: 63-65
7. Sen Priyanranjan. A Glimpse into the Agitation for Tenancy Reform Bengal'. Florence Nightingale's Indian Letters 1878-82. Sri Gouranga Press, 1937
8. Small Hugh. Florence Nightingale: Avenging Angel, St. Martin's Press, 1998; 1-19
9. Sriram V. How Florence Nightingale got madras its drains. The Hindu, 8 January 2013
10. Strachey Lytton. Eminent Victorians. London: Chatto and Windus, 1918
11. Swenson Kristine. Medical Women and Victorian Fiction, University of Missouri Press, 2005
12. Village Sanitation in India, A Paper for the Tropical Section of the 8th International Congress of Hygiene and Demography at Budapest. A pamphlet, pp 8, signed by Florence Nightingale, London August 20, 1894
Author: Mr. Rathish Nair & Mrs. Jyoti Sarin