The pioneering lawyer who fought for women’s suffrage in India

Amid the pandemic gloom, it is easy to forget that the year 2020 marks an important anniversary for women's rights.

In the US, it has been 100 years since women cast their votes for the first time. A century ago in the United Kingdom, the first female law students were admitted to the Inns of Court.

At Lincoln's Inn in London, one of those students, Mithan Lam, was an Indian. In 1924, she became the first woman to be allowed to practise law in the Bombay High Court, shattering one of the thickest glass ceilings for professional women in the country.

But Lam's influence extended well beyond the bar: she left an indelible stamp on the female suffragist movement and the struggle for gender equality in India.

Lam was born in 1898 into a wealthy and progressive Parsi family. While on a holiday in Kashmir in 1911, she and her mother, Herabai Tata, had a chance meeting with Sophia Duleep Singh, an ardent feminist and suffragist in Britain.

Intrigued by a colourful badge Singh wore proclaiming "Votes for Women," Lam and Tata were quickly drawn into the cause of Indian female suffrage.