Kottayam : Noted educationist and social worker Mary Roy (89), whose legal battle ensured equal rights for Syrian Christian women in their ancestral property, died on Thursday, family sources said. Roy, mother of writer and Man Booker Prize Winner Arundhati Roy, is also the founder of the famous Pallikoodam school.
Born in 1933, Mary Roy was the daughter of P V Isaac, an entomologist by profession. Her grandfather John Kuriyan established the first school in Kottayam district Rao Bahadur John Kuriyan school. She did her schooling at the Jesus and Mary Convent in Delhi and earned her degree from Queen’s Mary College in Chennai. She founded the school Corpus Christi in 1961. It was later renamed Pallikoodam.
Mary Roy, the founder of the Pallikoodam School, was known for winning the sensational Supreme Court lawsuit in 1986 against the gender-biased inheritance law prevalent within the Syrian Christian community of Kerala. The judgment gave Syrian Christian women equal rights over the ancestral property as their male siblings. She is survived by her daughter Arundhati and her son Lalit Roy.
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