Kamini Roy

• Name — Kamini Roy • Native Name — কামিনী রায় • Born — 12 October 1864 • Birthplace — Basanda, Jhalokati, Bengal Presidency, British India • Died — 27 September 1933 • Place of death — Hazaribagh, Bihar and Orissa Province, British India • Occupation — Poet, scholar • Spouse — Kedarnath Roy • Relatives — Ipsita Roy Chakraverti (grand-niece) • Family — Jamini Sen (sister) Sudhir Kumar Sen (brother) • Education — Bethune College University of Calcutta

Born on 12 October 1864 in the village of Basunda, then in Bakerganj District of Bengal Presidency and now in Jhalokati District of Bangladesh, Roy joined Bethune School in 1883. One of the first girls to attend school in British India, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with Sanskrit honours from Bethune College of the University of Calcutta in 1886 and started teaching there in the same year. Kadambini Ganguly, the country's second female honours graduate, attended the same institution in a class three years senior to Roy. Nisith Chandra Sen, her brother, was a renowned barrister in the Calcutta High Court, and later the Mayor of Calcutta while her sister Jamini Sen was the house physician of the Nepalese royal family and the first female Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. In 1894, she married Kedarnath Roy.

She picked up the cue for feminism from a fellow student of Bethune School, Abala Bose. Speaking to a girls' school in Calcutta, Roy said that, as Bharati Ray later paraphrased it, "the aim of women's education was to contribute to their all-round development and fulfillment of their potential". In a Bengali essay titled The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge she wrote, In 1921, she was one of the leaders, along with Kumudini Mitra (Basu) and Mrinalini Sen, of the Bangiya Nari Samaj, an organization formed to fight for woman's suffrage. The Bengal Legislative Council granted limited suffrage to women in 1925, allowing Bengali women to exercise their right for the first time in the 1926 Indian general election. She was a member of the Female Labour Investigation Commission (1922–23).

Selected works include: • Mahasweta, Pundorik • Pouraniki • Dwip O Dhup • Jibon Pathey • Nirmalya • Malya O Nirmalya • Ashok Sangeet • Gunjan (Children's book) • Balika Sikkhar Adarsha (Essays)

Kamini Roy is recorded with the occupation writer. Recorded with the occupation poet. Recorded as writer, university teacher, playwright, poet and social worker.