Aroti Mitra was born on 23 September 1924 to Satyendra Chandra Mitra and Uma Mitra. She was their only child. Her father was a Freedom fighter and a politician. For a time her father was a member of the Central Legislative Assembly in New Delhi and was also jailed by the British Indian Government for his political activities against British Rule in India, and young Aroti spent her years of childhood travelling to many places in India, and was educated mainly at home. Eventually, when her father became President of the Bengal Legislative Council, Aroti graduated from the University of Calcutta, majoring in Philosophy. She married Birendrasaday Dutt, the only son of Gurusaday Dutt, ICS, in 1942. She used to say that she cannot claim any "inner call" that took her into social service and that she had married into it. Her father-in-law had founded Saroj Nalini Dutt Memorial Association in memory of his wife, a women's organisation dedicated to the welfare of women. The Dutt family are renowned for their work in the field of social welfare, so Aroti took to it soon after her marriage at the age of 18. Her only child, Devsaday, was born in 1948. Her grandsons are Rajsaday and Shivsaday In 1958, she won a scholarship to do a Diploma in International Social Welfare at the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague, The Netherlands. She received her Diploma for her paper "Social Welfare Planning for low-income countries" in 1959.
International social work
She became the Area Vice-President for Asia of the Associated Countrywomen of the World at their World Conference in Edinburgh in 1959, and was re-elected at the World Conference in Melbourne in 1962. She represented ACWW at the UNESCO Seminar on Adult Education in England, the UNESCO Seminar on Eradication of prejudice in Munich, the International Council of Women's Conferences in Istanbul and in Bangkok, UNESCO's NGO Conference in Paris, and their Board meetings at Addis Ababa, Bangkok, and Manila. She was invited by the Director-General of FAO as a Consultant for the planning of the Freedom from Hunger. She was elected the World President of the Associated Countrywomen of the World at their World Conference at Dublin in 1965, and was re-elected unopposed in 1968. In 1983, the Associated Countrywomen of the World elected her a "Member of Honour". She was also a Vice-President of the International Alliance of Women and was connected with World View International.
Social work in India
Saroj Nalini Dutt Memorial Association
was the one who started Mahila Samitis in rural Bengal in 1916. After Saroj Nalini's death, her husband, Gurusaday Dutt, started the Saroj Nalini Dutt Memorial Association in her memory, to keep alive the valuable social welfare work that she did. The association is run by voluntary work by women. Soon after her marriage in 1942, Aroti started working for this association and worked in various capacities until 1970, when she became the president and continued till her death in 2003. The concept of Mahila Samiti is based on the development of women–to make them literate and self-reliant by giving them a vocation, as well as assisting them with their health, nutrition, family, welfare, and childcare needs. Each Mahila Samiti has its own rules, while the association provides general supervision, assistance and guidance. During her tenure, she increased the number of basic organizational Mahila Samitis to 67. The objectives of the association were increased to include –
To arrange facilities for maternal and child healthcare and teach hygiene and principles of basic health and child care to rural and urban women;
To teach Nutrition and Family Planning to improve the quality of life;
To establish and run vocational training centres for improving the economic condition of women;
To work for the welfare of children concerning their health, education and other career-building activities;
To look after aged women, widows and deserted wives and;
To train women as teachers to enable them to go back to their villages and be teachers there.
She also vastly expanded the association's activities to include an Industrial Training School, a Primary Teachers Training Institute, a Primary school, an Adult High School, Computer training facilities, a Production and "Kantha" centre, a Non-formal education and Literacy program, an Urban Family Welfare Centre, a Printing Press, a Family Counseling Centre, a "Save Sight" program on an ongoing basis, a Working Women's Hostel, two Old-Age Homes, a library, and a Mother and Baby Clinic. All these activities were Calcutta-centric. But the activity that gave her the most satisfaction was starting a centralised Rural Training Centre – the Mirpur Training Centre in a village in Bengal, to promote literacy, income generation, health, nutrition, family planning, clean water and sanitation in 100 villages around Mirpur. In this, she received financial assistance from sister Associations within ACWW in Norway and Australia.
Other organisations
Aroti Dutt was
the Founder President of the Countrywomen's Association of India;
the Founder President of the Soroptomist International Club in Calcutta;
the first National President of Soroptomist International of India; and
besides serving on various Committees of the Central and State Governments.
Literary contributions
She frequently wrote articles, both in Bengali and in English, for magazines in both India and abroad. During her lifetime, she published the following books:
