Mary Roy is an India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n educator

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

 and women's rights

Women's rights

Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

 activist, who won a lawsuit in 1986, against the inheritance legislation of her Keralite

Kerala

or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

 Syrian Christian

Syrian Malabar Nasrani

The Syrian Malabar Nasrani people, also known as Saint Thomas Christians, "'Nasrani Mappila'" and Nasranis, are an ethnoreligious group from Kerala, India, adhering to the various churches of the Saint Thomas Christian tradition...

 community in the Supreme Court

Supreme Court of India

The Supreme Court of India is the highest judicial forum and final court of appeal as established by Part V, Chapter IV of the Constitution of India...

. The judgement ensured equal rights for Syrian Christian women, with their male siblings in their ancestral property.

Mary Roy was the recipient of a share of the property of her father as dowry during her marriage. The custom of giving daughters a share of the property as dowry is a common practice in the Indian state of Kerala as the inheritance laws favor the sons. Dowry is seen as a balancing custom so that the daughter too gets a share of the property. Mary Roy, after receiving her share of the property in the form of dowry, sued her brothers after her father's death. This was the case that made its way through the Indian court system and which she won.

Roy is the founder-director of Pallikoodam school

Pallikoodam

Pallikoodam is a high school in the Kalathilpady area of Kottayam in Kerala Pallikkoodam. It was established as Corpus Christi High School in 1967 by educator and women's rights activist, Mary Roy...

 (formerly Corpus Christi High School) at Kalathilpady

Kalathilpady

Kalathilpady is an area on the suburbs of Kottayam town in the state of Kerala in south India. It is about 3 km from the town center located on the Kottayam Kumili road....

, a suburb of Kottayam

Kottayam

Kottayam is a city in the Indian state of Kerala, spread over an area of 55.40 km2. It is the administrative capital of the Kottayam district. Kottayam Kottayam (Malayalam: കോട്ടയം) is a city in the Indian state of Kerala, spread over an area of 55.40 km2. It is the administrative...

 town in the state of Kerala

Kerala

or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

 . Her daughter is the Man Booker Prize

Man Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...

 winner Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays...

.