Google on Wednesday marked the 151st birth anniversary of Cornelia Sorabji, India’s first female advocate, with a doodle. The tech giant honoured Sorabji with a doodle showing her in advocate’s attire with the Allahabad High Court building in the background.
In 1892, Sorabji became the first woman to graduate from law school in India. She then achieved the distinction of being the first Indian woman to attend a British university, when she began her law studies at Oxford, Google said.
Despite completing her education in 1894, Sorabji was not allowed to plead in courts in England or India. On her return to India, the lawyer became a legal adviser to the government for pardanashin women – women in veils who were forbidden by social custom from interacting with men outside their families.
Sorabji cleared the pleader examination at the Allahabad High Court in 1899, but was not acknowledged as a barrister. When courts in British India finally opened their doors to female advocates in 1923, she began to practice in Kolkata.
She died in London in 1954.
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