National Doctor’s Day is celebrated every year in India on July 1 to honour Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy whose death and birth anniversary fall on July 1. He was born on July 1, 1882, as one of the most prominent leaders of 20th-century India. Dr B.C Roy was a physician, a social activist and a freedom fighter of West Bengal. He also took over as the Chief Minister of West Bengal in 1948 till his death in 1962. 

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He became active in politics after coming back to India and became a successor of Subhash Chandra Bose as the Mayor of Calcutta in 1931. Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy expanded free education, free medical facilities and improved civic amenities in the city. 

A follower of Brahmo samaj, he was against the then social issues of India and encouraged women’s education, promoted women’s remarriage and was against child marriage. 

He proved to be an able Chief Minister of Bengal to restore order, law and administration within three years of the partition of 1947. Based on the report in the New York Times in 1962, Roy “commanded the respect of all Congress party leaders including Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. He was Mr Nehru’s trusted consultant on politics and health.”

Dr B.C Roy believed that “Swaraj” can only be achieved if people would be healthy and strong in mind as well as body. 

He was also the personal physician of Mahatma Gandhi and was a part of the Civil Disobedience Movement. 

His role and contribution in the establishment of the country’s most prestigious hospitals like Jadavpur T.B. Hospital, Chittaranjan Seva Sadan, Kamala Nehru Memorial Hospital, Victoria Institution (college), Chittaranjan Cancer Hospital and the Chittaranjan Seva Sadan for women and children are unparallel.  He also established the Indian Medical Association in 1928 with the Medical Council of India in 1933. 

He passed way on July 1, 1962.