Sarala Roy

Sarala Roy ( Shôrola Rae) was an educationist and is remembered as founder of the Gokhale Memorial School at Kolkata (previously known as Calcutta), at present the capital of the east Indian state of West Bengal.

Life

She was daughter of the renowned Brahmo reformer Durga Mohan Das, sister of S.R.Das and Abala Bose, and cousin of Chittaranjan Das and Sudhi Ranjan Das ( Chief Justice of India ). She belonged to the famous Das family of Telirbagh, Dhaka, now in Bangladesh. She was married to Dr. P.K.Roy, the first Indian to become principal of Presidency College, Kolkata.Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali (editors), 1976/1998, Sansad Bangali Charitabhidhan (Biographical dictionary) Vol I, , p23, ISBN 8185626650 Renuka Ray, a Union Minister, Air Marshal Subroto Mukerjee, and Prasanta Mukherjee, a General Manager of the BNR were her grandchildren.

Along with her husband she used to stay or visit regularly Hazaribagh, which had a small Brahmo community.

Educationist

She was amongst the early students of Banga Mahila Vidyalaya and Bethune School (established by Bethune) and devoted her life to the cause of women’s education. She established a girl’s school and a mahila samiti (organisation of women) at Dhaka, when she lived there with her husband. On her return to Kolkata she was a member of Swarnakumari Devi’s “Sakhi Samiti”. She inspired women from aristocratic families to participate in dance dramas.......
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