Kumudini Basu (, 1873–1942) was a Bengali writer, social reformer, freedom fighter and women's rights activist in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

Family

Basu was born in 1873 in

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

, India, and was the eldest daughter of the Indian nationalist Krishna Kumar Mitra. She had a sister named Basanti Chakravorty (). Basu married the businessman Sarat Chandra Basu-Mullik.

Career

Basu was educated at the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

. Basu worked as a writer and edited the publications ''Suprabhat'' (1907–14), which she also founded, and ''Bangalakshmi'' ''(1925-27)''. She published several books and poems, including the book ''Sikher Balidan'' (The Sacrifice of the Sikh). Basu participated in the Indian non co-operation movement. She served as secretary of the Bharat Stree Mahamandal (The Great Circle of Indian Women), which aimed to promote

female education Female education is a catch-all term for a complex set of issues and debates surrounding education (primary education, secondary education, tertiary education, and health education in particular) for girls and women. It is frequently called girls ...

. Basu campaigned for women's right to vote and was one of the leaders, along with Kamini Roy and Mrinalini Sen, Ray, Bharati (1990). "Women in Calcutta: the Years of Change". In Chaudhuri, Sukanta (ed.)
''Calcutta: The Living City''. Vol. II: The Present and Future
Oxford University Press. pp. 36–37. . of the Nigil Bangiya Nari Votadhikar Samiti (All Bengali Women's Franchise Association) which fought for women's suffrage. On 16 August 1925, the Bengal Legislative Council passed a women's franchise resolution by majority vote, granting some Bengali women to exercise their right for the first time in the 1926 Indian general election. In 1935, Basu wrote to the Lothian Committee, also known as the Indian Franchise Committee, to share her views on universal suffrage. She was the first councillor elected in the Municipal Corporation of Calcutta. Despite her advocacy for women's voting rights, Basu feared that voting might force respectable women to mix with or perhaps be confused with "undesirable women," such as a prostitutes. She proposed that sex workers should register with the police and be forced to use separate polling stations to vote. Basu also denounced the practice of purdah as one of the principal causes of "spiritual, intellectual, and physical degeneration of both men and women." She died in 1942 in

, India.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Basu, Kumudini 1873 births 1942 deaths University of Calcutta alumni Bengali writers Bengali educators Indian feminist writers Indian suffragists Writers from Kolkata 20th-century Indian women journalists 20th-century Indian women writers Activists from Kolkata Women Indian independence activists