Sarala Devi

She was very close to Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Durgabai Deshmukh, Acharya Kripalani, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and Sarojini Naidu. She was the Secretary of Utkal Sahitya Samaj at Cuttack from 1943 to 1946.

While in Banki, Sarala was inspired by stories of Suka Devi, the queen of Banki, to join the independence movement. She donated a sizeable part of her large collection of jewellery and vast tracts of real estate to the fight for India's independence. She married well-known lawyer Bhagirathi Mohapatra in 1917, and the latter joined the Indian National Congress in 1918. Sarala herself joined the Congress in 1921, following Mahatma Gandhi's first visit to Orissa. She was the first woman Member of the Odisha Legislative Assembly as well as its first woman Speaker.

Sarala Devi (9 August 1904 – 4 October 1986) was an Indian independence activist, feminist, social activist, politician and writer. She was the first Odia woman to join the Non-cooperation movement in 1921 and the first Odia woman delegate of the Indian National Congress. She became the first woman to be elected to the Odisha Legislative Assembly on 1 April 1936.

Sarala Devi was born on 9 August 1904 in Narilo village, near Balikuda, in what was then the Orissa Division of the Bengal Presidency (now in Jagatsinghpur district, Odisha) to a very wealthy, aristocratic Zamindar family. Her father was Dewan Basudev Kanungo, and her mother was Padmavati Devi. She was adopted and raised by her father's elder brother, Balamukunda Kanungo, a Deputy Collector.