[1] Dwarakanath Kotnis was born to a middle-class Marathi Deshastha Rigvedi Brahmin family[2] in Solapur, Maharashtra, he had two brothers and five sisters.

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, the President of the Indian National Congress, made an appeal to the people through a press statement on 30 June 1938.

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose also wrote an article in Modern Review on Japan's role in the Far East and announced the assault on China.

Dwarkanath Kotnis, born in a middle class Maharashtrian family from Sholapur on 10 October 1910, had then graduated from the Seth G S Medical College, Bombay and was preparing for post-graduation.

We only knew that people used to come and sell Chinese silk," While his father Shantaram encouraged young Dwarkanath to venture out, his mother was very sad because he was going that far and worse, in a war zone.

They were then sent to Yan'an, the revolutionary base at the time in 1939, where they were warmly welcomed by Mao Zedong, Zhu De and other top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as they were the first medical team to come from another Asian country.

In 1939, Dr. Kotnis joined the Eighth Route Army (led by Mao Zedong) at the Jin-Cha-Ji border near the Wutai Mountain Area, after his efforts all across the northern China region.

Let us always bear in mind his internationalist spirit.Madame Sun Yat-sen said, concerning his role in the revolution, that "His memory belongs not only to your people and ours, but to the noble roll-call of fighters for the freedom and progress of all mankind.

A small museum there has a handbook of vocabulary that Kotnis wrote on his passage from India to China; some of the instruments that the surgeons used in their medical fight for life, and various photos of the doctors, some with the Chinese Communist Party's most influential figures, including Mao.

The memorial, at his old residence, has been built by Solapur Municipal Corporation with efforts of Sushilkumar Shinde, who was Union Power Minister during the installation ceremony.

[7] In November 1941, about a year before his death, Kotnis married Guo Qinglan, (Chinese: 郭庆兰; pinyin: Guō Qìnglán, born 15 September 1916 in Fenyang County, Shanxi Province) a nurse at the Bethune International Peace Hospital.

At the suggestion of Nie Rongzhen they named the boy "Yinhua" combining the Chinese characters for "Yin" (印) for India and "Hua" (华) for China.

[9] Guo Qinglan has been an honoured guest at many high-level diplomatic functions between China and India, such as the banquet Dalian Mayor Bo Xilai hosted for then Indian President K.R.

His relatives (primarily sisters) were visited in Mumbai by: Dwarkanath Kotnis is commemorated together with Dr. Bethune, and Scottish missionary and athlete, Eric Liddell in the Martyrs' Memorial Park (Lieshi Lingyuan) in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, China.

In 2017, China presented University of Mumbai a restored handwritten condolence note written by Mao Zedong to Dr. Kotnis' family in 1950 upon his death.