{{Short description|Indian educator, feminist and social worker (1861–1946)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}} {{Use Indian English|date=September 2024}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = | name = Sarala Roy |native_name = | image = | image_size = | caption = | birth_date = 1861 | birth_place = Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India | death_date = 1946 | death_place = Kolkata, India | occupation = Social worker | known_for = Feminist movement |organization = All India Women's Conference (elected president in 1932) | spouse = Prasanna Kumar Roy }}
'''Sarala Roy''' (1861-1946) was an Indian educator, feminist, and social activist. She was one of the first women to matriculate from Calcutta University, and was the first woman to be a member of the University Senate. She founded a school for girls and several women's educational charities, and was a founding member and later, the President of the All India Women's Conference. As President of the All India Women's Conference in 1932, she played a key role in organizing efforts towards women's suffrage, and against child marriage. She was also a strong supporter of educational rights for women and girls.
== Early life and education == She was the daughter of Durga Mohan Das, a prominent social reformer, and her sister, Abala Bose, was also a noted educator.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Basu|first=Aparna|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0P9ahUa7wrgC&pg=PA87|title=G.L. Mehta, a Many Splendoured Man|date=2001|publisher=Concept Publishing Company|isbn=978-81-7022-891-2|language=en}}</ref> Along with physician Kadambini Ganguly, Roy was one of the first women to be allowed sit the Matriculation exams to graduate from Calcutta University,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gGUFAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Sarala+Ray%22+India+women|title=Women in India|date=1996|publisher=Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary|language=en}}</ref> and she later became the first woman to be a member of the Calcutta University Senate.<ref name=":0"/><ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last1=Basu|first1=Aparna|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=foK0AAAAIAAJ&q=All+India+Women's+Conference|title=Women's Struggle: A History of the All India Women's Conference, 1927-2002|last2=Ray|first2=Bharati|date=2003|publisher=Manohar|isbn=978-81-7304-476-2|pages=187|language=en}}</ref>
== Notable work == Roy was active in the 1920s in efforts to improve access for education for women and girls.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Sinha|first=Mrinalini|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xI2LClkTrFIC&pg=PA217|title=Specters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring of an Empire|date=2006-07-12|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0-8223-3795-9|language=en}}</ref>
In 1905, she established a local women's organisation in Bengal named the ''Mahila Samiti''. and in 1914, created a second organisation called the Indian Women's Education Society, which was dedicated to funding scholarships for women to study in the United Kingdom.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Shukla|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NMocKFODKxkC&pg=PA16|title=Women Chief Ministers in Contemporary India|date=2007|publisher=APH Publishing|isbn=978-81-313-0151-7|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2" /> She established the Gokhale Memorial Girls' School in Kolkata in 1920, which was named after Indian independence movement leader Gopalkrishna Gokhale, with whom she maintained a close friendship.<ref name=":0"/> Roy trained the teachers at the school herself, and the school made many innovative developments in curriculum, including instructing all their students in three languages: Bengali, Hindi and English.<ref name=":0" /> She had also established a range of extra-curricular educational activities in the school, that encompassed sports, music, and theater, and it was common to perform music and songs composed by the writer and Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, with whom Roy was acquainted.<ref name=":0"/> She was also closely involved with the Sakhi Samiti, an organisation founded by poet, novelist and social worker, Swarnakumari Devi which promoted Indian handicrafts and published several magazines and literary journals in Bengali and English.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Deb|first=Chitra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HvU6CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT61|title=Women of The Tagore Household|date=2010-04-06|publisher=Penguin UK|isbn=978-93-5214-187-6|language=en}}</ref> Her friendship with the Tagore family is reflected in the fact that Rabindranath Tagore dedicated his play, ''Mayar Khela'', to Roy.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Chakravarty|first1=Chandrava|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7xpBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT30|title=Tagore′s Ideas of the New Woman: The Making and Unmaking of Female Subjectivity|last2=Chaudhuri|first2=Sneha Kar|date=2017-05-22|publisher=SAGE Publishing India|isbn=978-93-81345-28-3|language=en}}</ref>
Along with Rokeya Sekhawat Hussain, the Bengali science fiction writer and activist, Sarala Roy and her sister, the teacher Abala Bose, worked with the Bengal Women's Education League in the 1920s, to improve access to education for women and children. In 1927, they organised the Bengal Education Conference from 16 to 19 April, and during this conference, Roy, Bose and Hussain made speeches calling for changes to school curriculum, with a particular focus on increasing awareness of the personal rights of women.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rani|first=K. Suneetha|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8RpBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT66|title=Influence of English on Indian Women Writers: Voices from Regional Languages|date=2017-09-25|publisher=SAGE Publishing India|isbn=978-93-81345-34-4|language=en}}</ref> The All India Women's Conference was created in the same year, and Roy, along with Sarojini Naidu, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Muthulakshmi Reddy and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, was a founding member of this significant and powerful women's rights organisation in colonial India.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Sandell|first=Marie|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J9SLDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT200|title=The Rise of Women's Transnational Activism: Identity and Sisterhood Between the World Wars|date=2015-01-26|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-0-85773-730-4|language=en}}</ref>
In 1932, Sarala Roy became the President of the All Indian Women's Conference.<ref>{{Cite web|title=AIWC : All India Women's Conference|url=http://aiwc.org.in/past_president.html|access-date=2022-01-25|website=aiwc.org.in}}</ref> Roy became president at a time when there was significant momentum towards social reform around the extension of franchise to Indian women.<ref name=":1" /> There were wide differences in opinion on the development of efforts towards achieving franchise for women, and along with Dorothy Jinarajadasa, Radhabai Subbarayan and Begum Shah Nawaz, Roy was instrumental in collecting statements and opinions from women on the subject.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Forbes|first1=Geraldine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hjilIrVt9hUC&pg=PA110|title=Women in Modern India|last2=Forbes|first2=Geraldine Hancock|date=1999-04-28|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-65377-0|pages=110|language=en}}</ref> During her Presidential Address, Ray gave a speech arguing that the key to reforms was to strengthen education for girls, and that this would be critical in efforts to end the prevalent practice of child marriage.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Sen|first1=Samita|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v6wREAAAQBAJ&pg=PT79|title=Love, Labour and Law: Early and Child Marriage in India|last2=Ghosh|first2=Anindita|date=2020-12-14|publisher=SAGE Publishing India|isbn=978-93-81345-59-7|language=en}}</ref>
== Personal life == Sarala Roy was the daughter of Brahmo Samaj leader and social reformer Durga Mohan Das. She married Prasanna Kumar Roy, an educator and the first principal of Presidency College in Kolkata, and they had a son, Saral Roy, who died early.<ref name=":0" /> Saral Ray had a son, Sunil Roy (IFS and ardent environmentalist). Sunil Roy was the Indian Ambassador to Poland and Mexico, High Commissioner to Nigeria and the Indian Consul General in New York City.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Sunil Roy : New York Times Obituary |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/01/obituaries/sunil-k-roy-indian-diplomat-73.html}}</ref> She also had 5 daughters - Kanakalata Roy, Swarnalata Bose, Nemima Roy, Dolly Maitland, and Charulata Mukherjee, who was also closely associated with the All India Women's Conference.<ref name=":0"/> Kanakalata Roy married Jatindra Nath Roy OBE who was Commissioner of Bengal.<ref>{{Cite web|title=1929 Honours|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_New_Year_Honours#Companion_(CIE)|access-date=2025-09-26|website=en.wikipedia.org}}</ref> One of her grandsons is Bunker Roy, noted social activist and reformer.
Sarala Roy's siblings were the eminent feminist and social worker Abala Bose who married the pioneering scientist Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, and Satish Ranjan Das Advocate-General of Bengal and later the Law Member of the Executive Council of the Viceroy as well as founder of The Doon School.
== References ==
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Roy, Sarala}} Category:1861 births Category:1946 deaths Category:Bengali Hindus Category:Bengali educators Category:20th-century Bengali people Category:19th-century Bengali people Category:Indian suffragists Category:20th-century Indian educators Category:20th-century Indian women educators Category:Indian feminists Category:Indian social workers Category:Social workers from West Bengal Category:19th-century Indian educators Category:Founders of Indian schools and colleges Category:20th-century Indian women educational theorists Category:20th-century Indian educational theorists Category:19th-century Indian educational theorists Category:19th-century Indian women educational theorists Category:People from the Bengal Presidency Category:People from Kolkata