Durga Bhagwat

Durga Narayan Bhagwat (10 February 1910 – 7 May 2002), popularly known as Durga Bhagwat, was an Indian scholar, socialist and writer. She studied Sanskrit and Buddhist literature and spent time in the jungles of Madhya Pradesh to study tribal life. She later returned to Mumbai as a researcher and wrote books in Marathi. She is arguably the foremost female writer in Marathi. Shes one amongst the prominent writers who opposed The Emergency (India). She also abstained from accepting such institutional and civilian honours as the Padma Shree and the Jnanapeeth. Durga Bhagwat was born in 1910 in a Karhade Brahmin family settled in the then princely state of Baroda. The veteran Sanskrit scholar and social activist Rajaram Shastri Bhagwat was the brother of her grandmother. Her sister Kamala Sohonie went on to become the first woman scientist of India. Her father was a scientist who discovered the procedure of making ghee from oil.