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Kumudini Basu
Born	1873 Calcutta, West Bengal, India
Died	1942 Calcutta, West Bengal, India
Occupation	writer, social reformer, freedom fighter and women's rights activist

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

Family

Basu was born in 1873 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India, and was the eldest daughter of the Indian nationalist Krishna Kumar Mitra. She had a sister named Basanti Chakravorty (née Mitra).

Basu married the businessman Sarat Chandra Basu-Mullik.

Career

Basu was educated at the University of Calcutta.

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. Basu campaigned for women's right to vote and was one of the leaders, along with Kamini Roy and Mrinalini Sen, 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 womens 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 Calcutta, West Bengal, India.

References

1. ^ "Mitra, Kumudini". The Incarnate Word. Retrieved 2025-01-17.
2. Pal, Rina (August 2019). "Role of Women in Indian Freedom Struggle (1905 – 1927)" (PDF). Anudhyan An International Journal of Social Sciences (AIJSS): 32.
3. Research, Indian Council of Historical. Sri Aurobindo-Life and Legacy (in Danish). Publications Division Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. ISBN 978-93-5409-742-3.
4. Forbes, Geraldine Hancock (2005). Women in Colonial India: Essays on Politics, Medicine, and Historiography. Orient Blackswan. p. 70. ISBN 978-81-8028-017-7.
5. Mukherjee, Sreemati (2024-04-30). Women and the Romance of the Word: 19th Century Contexts in Bengal. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 91. ISBN 978-93-5640-604-9.
6. ^ Chakravarty, Pallavi (2024). Urbanisation in Bengal: Ideas, Institutions and Policies. Taylor & Francis. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-040-08583-7.
7. Studies in History. Vol. 14. Sage. 1998. p. 79.
8. Mukhopādhyāẏa, Amitābha (1996). Women in Indian Life and Society. Punthi Pustak and Institute of Historical Studies. p. 221. ISBN 978-81-85094-97-7.
9. ^ Sarkar, Asok Kumar; Gupta, Satyajit Das (2024). Understanding Women's Empowerment in South Asia: Perspectives on Entitlements and Violations. Springer Nature. p. 25. ISBN 978-981-16-7538-6.
10. ^ 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. ISBN 978-0-19-563697-0.
11. Aribam, Angellica; Satyawali, Akash (2024-07-26). The Fifteen: The Lives and Times of the Women in India’s Constituent Assembly. Hachette India. ISBN 978-93-91028-31-2.
12. Asthana, Pratima (1974). Women's Movement in India. Vikas Publishing House. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-7069-0333-1.
13. Hust, Evelin; Mann, Michael (2005). Urbanization and Governance in India. Manohar. p. 88. ISBN 978-81-7304-609-4.
14. Patil, V. T. (1989). New Dimensions and Perspectives in Gandhism. Inter-India Publications. p. 394. ISBN 978-81-210-0230-1.

• 1873 births
• 1942 deaths
• University of Calcutta alumni
• Bengali writers
• Bengali educators
• Indian feminist writers
• Indian suffragists
• 20th-century Indian women journalists
• 20th-century Indian women writers
• Writers from Kolkata
• Activists from Kolkata