Benita Roy

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2024}} {{EngvarB|date=August 2024}} {{Infobox royalty | name = Benita Roy | title = Rani of Chakma Circle | succession = | reign = | coronation = | predecessor = | successor = | birth_name = Benita Sen | birth_date = {{birth date|1907|08|18|df=y}} | birth_place = Surrey, England | death_date =  | death_place = | burial_date = | burial_place = | consort = Yes | spouse = {{marriage|Nalinaksha Roy|1928|1951|end=d.}} | issue =Tridev Roy | full name = | father = Saral Chandra Sen | mother = | religion = Buddhism }} ''Rajmata'' '''Benita Roy''' (born 18 August 1907, date of death unknown) was a Bangladeshi aristocrat, litterateur, diplomat and minister. She was the forty-ninth Rani of the Chakma Circle in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Roy served as the Rajmata during the kingship of Tridev Roy and Debashish Roy. She was a member of Bangladesh's first delegation to the UN General Assembly in 1972, and a minister in the Bangladeshi government from 1975 to 1978.

==Family and the arts== Benita Sen was born on 18 August 1907 in Surrey, England to law student Saral Chandra Sen. Her paternal grandfather, Keshub Chandra Sen, was a Bengali Hindu reformer and Brahmo Samaj leader. Her mother's sister, Naina Devi, was a singer of Hindustani classical music. Benita attended Bethune College in Calcutta until age 18, when she married<ref name="Jhala2013">{{cite journal |last=Jhala |first=Angma D. |year=2013 |title=Daughters of the Hills: legacies of colonialism, nationalism and religious communalism in the Chakma Raj family, Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bengal c. 1900–1972 |journal=Jhala |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=114, 120 |doi=10.1080/19472498.2012.750460}}</ref> Raja Nalinaksha Roy and became the forty-ninth Rani of the Chakma Circle.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}} She was widowed in 1951.<ref name="Jhala2013" />

Benita was a close associate of Rabindranath Tagore,<ref name="Jhala2013" /> under whose patronage she launched{{citation needed|date=July 2020}} the first literary magazine in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Named ''Garika'', it was the first publication of its kind to feature Chakma language poetry.<ref name="Visweswaran2013">{{cite book |author=Kamala Visweswaran |year=2013 |title=Everyday Occupations: Experiencing Militarism in South Asia and the Middle East |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uTigo71xnroC&pg=PA268 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |page=268 |isbn=978-0-8122-4487-8 |quote=Chunilal Dewan ... wrote Chakma poetry and songs, many published in the literary magazine ''Garika'', the first magazine of its kind, flourishing in the CHT under the royal patronage of Rani Benita Roy. ''Garika'' was named by Tagore.}}</ref>

==Liberation War and government==

During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, Roy opened up the Rangamati Palace as a shelter for civilians.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}

In 1972, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman appointed her as a member of Bangladesh's first delegation to the UN General Assembly. The Pakistani government at the time sent a counter delegation led by her son Tridev Roy, who sided with the Pakistani establishment in the liberation war.{{citation needed|date=February 2016}}

During the political and constitutional crises of the mid-1970s, Roy served in the Bangladeshi government as Minister of Land Administration and Land Reforms (December 1975 - January 1976) and Minister of Relief and Rehabilitation (February 1976 - June 1978).<ref>{{cite book |author=Syedur Rahman |year=2010 |title=Historical Dictionary of Bangladesh |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bJfcCPUr0OoC&pg=PG314 |edition=4th |publisher=The Scarecrow Press |pages=314, 317 |isbn=978-0-8108-6766-6}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roy, Benita}} Category:1907 births Category:Year of death missing Category:Women government ministers of Bangladesh Category:Diplomats for Bangladesh Category:Bangladeshi women diplomats Category:Ministers of disaster management and relief of Bangladesh Category:Ministers of land of Bangladesh Category:Advisers of Sayem ministry Category:20th-century Bangladeshi women Category:Bangladeshi Buddhists