Information AboutKotnis |
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Along with the Canadian Dr. Norman Bethune , he continues to be revered by the Chinese people. In April 2005 both their graves were covered completely in flowers donated by the Chinese people on a day used by the Chinese to commemorate their ancestors. ORIGINS Dwarkanath Kotnis was born to a lower middle class family in Sholapur, Maharashtra, he had two brothers and five sisters. He studied medicine at the G.S. Medical College of the University Of Mumbai . INDIAN MEDICAL MISSION In 1937 , after the Japanese invasion of China, the communist general Zhu De asked Jawaharlal Nehru to send Indian physicians to China. The key element of this mission was it was from a nation itself struggling for freedom, to another nation also struggling for its freedom. The mission was reinforced with Nehru's visit to China in 1939. A medical team of five doctors (Drs. M. Atal, M. Cholkar, Kotnis, B.K. Basu and D. Mukerji) was dispatched as the Indian Medical Mission Team in 1938. All, except Dr. Kotnis, returned to India safely. Dr. Kotnis stayed in China for 5 years working in mobile clinics to treat wounded soldiers. Dr. Kotnis first arrived in China at the port of Hankou, Wuhan. He was sent to Yan'an, and was eventually to be posted as director of the Dr. Bethune International Peace Hospital there. In 1939, Kotnis finally joined the Eight Route Army (led by Mao Zedong) at the Jin-Cha-Ji border near the Wutai Mountain Area, after his efforts all across the northern China region. The hardships of suppressed military life, stresses that were especially relevant to the front-line doctors who often had to work over 72 hours at a stretch, finally began to tell on him. He died of Epilepsy on December 9, 1942 at age 32, and was buried in the Heroes Courtyard, Nanquan Village. It is rumoured that he joined the Communist Party of China just before his death. During his mission he was also a lecturer at the Dr. Bethune Hygiene School of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Area, and the first president of the Dr. Bethune International Peace Hospital, Yanan. TRIBUTES Mao Zedong mourned his death by observing that "The army has lost a helping hand, the nation has lost a friend. Let us always bear in mind his internationalist spirit.." Madam Sun Yatsen was to say to the Indian nation, concerning his role in the revolution, that "His memory belongs not only to your people and ours, but to the noble roll-call of fighters for the freedom and progress of all mankind. The future will honor him even more than the present, because it was for the future that he struggled." FAMILY During this time, he married a Chinese woman (Dr. Guo Qinglan-Kotnis) with whom he had a son named Yinhua ("Yin" for India; "Hua" for China). Yinhua died in 1967, while Kuo remarried (to a Chinese gentleman) and lives near Dalian, in Northeastern China. She was an honoured guest at the banquet Dalian Mayor Bo Xilai hosted for then Indian President K R Narayanan in June 2000, and during the visit of then Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee to Beijing during June 2003. MOVIES ON SUBJECT The story of his life was the subject of a , directed by V Shantaram , who also played Kotnis) as well as a Chinese movie ''"Kē Dì Huá Dài Fū"'' ( 1982 , ''"Dr. DS Kotnis"'', screenplay by Huang Zongjiang ). HONOURS Both China (1982 and 1992) and India (1993) have honored him with stamps. The Chinese government continues to honour his relatives in India during every high-level official trip. His relatives were visited in Mumbai by:
Dwarkanath Kotnis is commemorated together with Dr. Bethune, and Scottish missionary and athlete, Eric Liddell in the Martyrs' Memorial Park (Lieshi Lingyuan) in Shijiazhuang , Hebei province, China . The entire south side of the memorial is dedicated to Dr. Kotnis. A small museum there contains a handbook of vocabulary that Kotnis wrote on his passage from India to China, some of the instruments that the surgeons were forced to use in their medical fight for life, and various photos of the doctors, some with the Communist Party of China's most influential figures, including Mao. EXTERNAL LINKS REFERENCES
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