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Following is a reproduction of a report published in the Indian Medical Gazette (May, 1913). It shows the condition of Indians in I.M.S.
NATIVES OF INDIA IN THE I.M.S.
This Gazette of India of 15th February 1913, notified that Colonel G. W. P. Dennis, I.M.S., Inspector-General of Hospitals in the Central Provinces, is granted leave, and Lieutenant-Colonel H. E. Banatvala is appointed to act in that office. This notification is of interest, as being the appointment of an Indian member of the I.M.S. to act in the administrative grade, and as Inspector-General of Hospitals in an Indian Province. No Indian has ever yet obtained permanent promotion to the rank of Colonel and Office of Inspector-General; but Lieutenant-Colonel E. P. Frenchman, C.l.E., officiated in the same post in Burma in 1909.
The East India Company always insisted strictly that all officers appointed to the I. M. S. should be of pure European extraction, until by the Indian Act of 1853, Acts XVI and XVII, Vict., cap. 95, admission by competitive examination, open to "all natural born subjects of Her Majesty," was introduced. The first competitive examination was held in January 1855, when the list of successful candidates was headed by S. C. G. Chuckerbutty, a Bengali Christian, who had been one of the Bengali students who had gone to England with Dr. H. H. Goodeve, to study there, ten years before. His four companions were over the age for admission to the examination in 1855. Chuckerbutty had taken the M.R.C.S., and the M.B. and M.D. of London in 1848 and 1849, and had served in the Uncovenanted Medical Service from 1850 to 1864.
Since 1855, a period of fifty-eight years, 104 officers, with pure Indian names, have gained admission to the l.M.S. by competition, 26 in Bengal, 14 in Madras, 15 in Bombay, and since 1896, 49 in the combined service or general list. Besides these 103, some twenty more, whose names are Portuguese or Armenian, have entered the service ; and a large number of Eurasians who cannot be identified by their names.
Curiously, considering that they are serving in their native country, a large proportion of the Indian members of the I M.S. have retired comparatively early, many of them at seventeen and twenty years service. Only ten - three in Bengal, five in Madras, and two in Bombay - have put in their full period of thirty years service; and of these ten only one appears to have had the opportunity of promotion in his turn, and to have been definitely passed over for promotion. Ten have risen to the rank of Brigade-Surgeon, or its present day equivalent, Lieutenant-Colonel on the selected list, six in Bengal and four in Madras.
One Bengal Officer obtained the " extra compensation pension" for not being promoted. More than half of the whole number have not yet served long enough for any question of promotion to have yet arisen in their cases. Several have held appointments of importance and distinction with credit and success.
Chuckerbutty became Professor of Materia Medica in the Calcutta Medical College and Second Physician of the Medical College Hospital in 1864, with less than ten years service. He held that post for ten years, dying in London, while on furlough, on 29th September 1874. His successor was R. C. Chandra, also a Bengali and a Christian, who retained the appointment for nearly twenty years, till his retirement on 18th October 1891. Lieutenant.-Colonel R. L. Dutt also acted for some time in the same post.
E. P. Frenchman was Inspector-General of Prisons in Burma, another Indian member of the I.M.S. held that post in Eastern Bengal and Assam, and now holds it in the New Province of Bihar and Orissa.
Lieutenant-Colonel Hormusjee Eduljee Banatvala was born on 20th October 1859. He was educated at the Grant Medical College, Bombay, where he took the L. M. and S. in 1881, and also at "Barts," taking the M. R. C. S., L. R. C. P. London, and L. S. A. in 1882. He entered the Bombay Medical Service as Surgeon on 1st April 1884, passing third, and a few months later was transferred to Bengal. He became Surgeon-Major on 1st April 1896, Lieutenant-Colonel on 1st April 1904, and was placed on the selected list on 1st January 1910. Up till March 1893 he was in military employ, serving in Burma in 1886-89, when he took part in the operation of the first Brigade, and in the pursuit of Hha Oo, and received the medal with two clasps ; also in the Lushai Expedition of 1892. For the last twenty years he has been in civil employ in the Central Provinces, where he now acts as Inspector-General.