Kumudini Basu

Basu was born in 1873 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India, and was the eldest daughter of the Indian nationalist Krishna Kumar Mitra.^[1][2] She had a sister named Basanti Chakravorty (née Mitra).^[3]

Basu married the businessman Sarat Chandra Basu-Mullik.^[1]

Basu was educated at the University of Calcutta.^[4]

Basu worked as a writer and edited the publications Suprabhat (1907–14), which she also founded,^[5] and Bangalakshmi (1925-27).^[6] She published several books and poems,^[7] including the book Sikher Balidan (The Sacrifice of the Sikh).^[1]

Basu participated in the Indian non co-operation movement.^[8]

She served as secretary of the Bharat Stree Mahamandal (The Great Circle of Indian Women), which aimed to promote female education.^[9] Basu campaigned for women's right to vote and was one of the leaders, along with Kamini Roy and Mrinalini Sen,^[10] of the Nigil Bangiya Nari Votadhikar Samiti (All Bengali Women's Franchise Association) which fought for women's suffrage.^{[11][page needed]} On 16 August 1925, the Bengal Legislative Council passed a women's franchise resolution by majority vote,^[12] granting some Bengali women to exercise their right for the first time in the 1926 Indian general election.^[10] In 1935, Basu wrote to the Lothian Committee, also known as the Indian Franchise Committee, to share her views on universal suffrage.^[6] She was the first councillor elected in the Municipal Corporation of Calcutta.^[13]

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.^[9] She proposed that sex workers should register with the police and be forced to use separate polling stations to vote.^[9]

Basu also denounced the practice of purdah as one of the principal causes of "spiritual, intellectual, and physical degeneration of both men and women."^[14]

She died in 1942 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India.^{[citation needed]}