R. Sivabhogam

#51/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

To adopt and conquer a profession, considered a male bastion in the times when women hardly had access to higher education, is a task of both immense courage and talent. R Sivabhogam lacked neither when she stepped out in pursuit of her dream.

R Sivabhogam, born on 23rd July, 1907 in India, was a professional accountant and the first woman Chartered Accountant of India. She had studied at the Lady Willingdon School in Triplicane where her thinking was deeply influenced by Sister R.S. Subbalakshmi, the pioneering reformer of widows’ lives. She then graduated from Queen Mary’s College and became an active freedom fighter, a satyagrahi. She was an active participant in the Youth League headed by Rukmini Lakshmipathy that served as a propaganda vehicle for the Congress in the 1920s. Later, when the women of Madras formed a Swadesi League, Sivabhogam became a member. The organisation, which was meant initially to teach Hindi, block printing on khadi and the popularising of nationalist songs soon became a vehicle for boycotting British goods and picketing of liquor shops. The members also sold swadesi products at public meetings. Sivabhogam took part in all of these activities. She, along with her compatriots that included formidable personalities like Krishnabai Nimbkar, Ambujammal and her aunt Janammal, the multi-faceted Vai Mu Kothainayaki and Margaret Cousins, were all sentenced to a year’s imprisonment at Vellore gaol. She was imprisoned in 1931 and it was while there that Sivabhogam decided on her career — she would become an auditor.

After her release Sivabhogam registered for Government Diploma in Accountancy (GDA). She was successful in the GDA exam, becoming in 1933 India’s first woman accountant. She enrolled as an articled assistant with C.S. Sastry an auditor, whose firm of Sastri & Shah still functions from Armenian Street. Having completed her tenure there she planned to set up an independent practice only to be thwarted by a legislation that disallowed those who had undergone a prison sentence from registering themselves as accountants. But Sivabhogam was not one to give up. She filed a writ questioning the logic behind such an Act and pursued the case tenaciously. The verdict was in her favour and she was allowed to set up her independent practice.

Shivabhogam started her independent practice in 1937 and was also a part-time assistant with M/s. Sastri and Shah. On the formation of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) in 1949 Sivabhogam was enrolled as a member and became a fellow on 17th June, 1950. Sivabhogam became the Chairperson of the Southern India Regional Council (SIRC) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (the then Madras Council). She is the only woman so far to have held this position, for a continuous period of three years from 1955 to 1958. It was during this period that she instituted an award for the best lady candidate in the CA examinations. The R. Sivabhogam Prize continues to be awarded year after year. She was also a senate member of the University of Madras.

Sivabhogam had been very active in social service and primarily for the cause of women’s education. She was a believer in Gandhian principles. Having been rejected from marriage proposals due to a physical disability, she decided not to get married at all. Remaining single, wearing only khadi and travelling everywhere by bus, Sivabhogam chose to take up the audit of several social welfare organisations in particular. This feisty lady passed away on 14th June, 1966. 

Women auditors are now in plenty but in many ways it was because of what Sivabhogam decided to do, while imprisoned in a cell in Vellore. 

Source: Google search and Wikipedia.