https://indianpedia.org/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Kamini_RoyKamini Roy - Revision history2026-07-31T10:10:50ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.45.4https://indianpedia.org/index.php?title=Kamini_Roy&diff=507991&oldid=prevRayfordFvx at 05:34, 11 March 20262026-03-11T05:34:50Z<p></p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{Short description|Bengali writer and feminist (1864–1933)}}<br />
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2025}}<br />
{{Use Indian English|date=August 2016}}<br />
{{Infobox person<br />
| name = Kamini Roy<br />
| native_name = কামিনী রায়<br />
| image = Kamini Roy.jpg<br />
| caption =<br />
| birth_date = {{birth date|1864|10|12|df=y}}<br />
| birth_place = Basanda, [[Jhalokati]], [[Bengal Presidency]], British India<br />
| death_date = {{death date and age|1933|09|27|1864|10|12|df=y}}<br />
| death_place = [[Hazaribagh]], Bihar and Orissa Province, British India<br />
| occupation = Poet, scholar<br />
| years_active =<br />
| notable_works = <br />
| spouse = Kedarnath Roy<br />
| relatives = [[Ipsita Roy Chakraverti]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ipsita R. Chakraverti Biography |url=https://www.thewiccanbrigade.com/Biography.html#:~:text=My%20other%20great%20aunt%2C%20Jamini,I%20did%20my%20early%20education. |access-date=6 January 2025 |website=thewiccanbrigade.com}}</ref> (grand-niece)<br />
| family = [[Jamini Sen]] (sister)<br />
| alma_mater = [[Bethune College]]<br />[[University of Calcutta]]<br />
}}<br />
'''Kamini Roy''' (12 October 1864 – 27 September 1933) was a [[Bengali people|Bengali]] poet, social worker and feminist in [[British India]]. She was the first woman honours graduate in British India.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://feminisminindia.com/2017/07/07/kamini-roy-essay/ |title=Kamini Roy: Poet, Teacher And The First Woman Honours Graduate In British India |last=Sarna |first=Jasveen Kaur |date=7 July 2017 |website=Feminist India |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180924131145/https://feminisminindia.com/2017/07/07/kamini-roy-essay/ |archive-date=24 September 2018 |url-status=live |access-date=24 September 2018}}</ref><ref name = "Bose83">{{cite encyclopedia |editor1-last=Sengupta |editor1-first=Subodh Chandra |editor2-last=Basu |editor2-first=Anjali |year=1998 |orig-year=First published 1976 |script-title=bn:কামিনী রায় |trans-title=Kamini Roy |script-encyclopedia=bn:সংসদ বাঙালি চরিতাভিধান |encyclopedia=Saṃsada bāṅāli caritābhidhāna |trans-encyclopedia=Parliament Bengali Biographical Dictionary |language=bn |volume=1 |edition=4th |location=Kolkata |publisher=Sahitya Samsad |isbn=81-85626-65-0 |page=83}}</ref><br />
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==Early life==<br />
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.<ref name = "Bose83"/> [[Kadambini Ganguly]], the country's second female honours graduate, attended the same institution in a class three years senior to Roy.<br />
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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 monarchy|Nepalese royal family]] and the first female Fellow of the [[Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ray |first=Sharmita |date=2014 |title=Women Doctors' Masterful Manoeuverings: Colonial Bengal, Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24372948 |journal=Social Scientist |volume=42 |issue=3/4 |pages=59–76 |jstor=24372948 |issn=0970-0293}}</ref> In 1894,{{citation needed|date=August 2025}} she married Kedarnath Roy.<ref name = "Bose83"/><br />
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==Writing and feminism==<br />
{{Quote box|quote=Bethune School and College will take just pride in Kamini Roy (1864–1933), the first woman lyricist who began composing from 1880 and published her ''Alo Chhaya'' in 1889 which created a stir in the literary world as much by its rare sensibilities as by the profundity of woman's self-realisation. Kamini Roy worked with her pen for nearly fifty years and witnessed the emergence of a new generation of womanhood enriching the social, artistic and literary life of Bengal through their original creations.|source=— Kalidas Nag in ''Introduction to the Bethune School and College Centenary Volume'', 1949|align=right |width=20% |fontsize=85% |quoted=1}}<br />
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".<ref name = "Ray">{{cite book |last=Ray |first=Bharati |author-link=Bharati Ray |chapter=Women in Calcutta: the Years of Change |year=1990 |editor-last=Chaudhuri |editor-first=Sukanta |editor-link=Sukanta Chaudhuri |title=Calcutta: The Living City |volume=II: The Present and Future |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=36–37 |isbn=978-0-19-563697-0}}</ref><br />
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In a Bengali essay titled ''The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge'' she wrote,<br />
<br />
{{blockquote|text=The male desire to rule is the primary, if not the only, stumbling block to women's enlightenment ... They are extremely suspicious of women's emancipation. Why? The same old fear – 'Lest they become like us'.<ref>This has been included in an English book ''Talking of Power - Early Writings of Bengali Women from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century'' edited by Malini Bhattacharya and Abhijit Sen.</ref><br />
}}<br />
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In 1921, she was one of the leaders, along with [[Kumudini Basu|Kumudini Mitra (Basu)]] and Mrinalini Sen, of the Bangiya Nari Samaj, an organization formed to fight for woman's suffrage. The [[British Bengal Legislative Council|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]].<ref name = "Ray"/> She was a member of the Female Labour Investigation Commission (1922–23).<ref name = "Bose83"/><br />
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==Honors and laurels==<br />
Roy supported younger writers and poets, including [[Sufia Kamal]], who she visited in 1923. She was president of the Bengali Literary Conference in 1930 and vice-president of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad in 1932–33.<ref name = "Bose83"/><br />
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Calcutta University honoured her with the Jagattarini Gold Medal.<ref name = "Bose83"/><br />
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On 12 October 2019, Google commemorated Roy with a [[Google Doodle]] on her 155th birth anniversary. The accompanying write up started with her quote, "Why should a woman be confined to home and denied her rightful place in society?"<ref name="Kamini Roy's Google Doodle">{{cite web |title=Kamini Roy's 155th Birthday |website=Google |date=12 October 2019 |url=https://doodles.google/doodle/kamini-roys-155th-birthday/ |access-date=12 October 2019}}</ref><br />
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==Works==<br />
Selected works include:<br />
* ''Mahasweta'', ''Pundorik''<br />
* ''Pouraniki''<ref name="Bose83" /><br />
* ''Dwip O Dhup''<ref name="Bose83" /><br />
* ''Jibon Pathey''<ref name="Bose83" /><br />
* ''Nirmalya''<ref name="Bose83" /><br />
* ''Malya O Nirmalya''<ref name="Bose83" /><br />
* ''Ashok Sangeet''<ref name="Bose83" /><br />
* ''Gunjan (Children's book)''<br />
* ''Balika Sikkhar Adarsha (Essays)''<br />
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==References==<br />
{{Reflist}}<br />
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==Further reading==<br />
* {{cite journal |last=Southard |first=Barbara |date=May 1993 |title=Colonial Politics and Women's Rights: Woman Suffrage Campaigns in Bengal, British India in the 1920s |journal=Modern Asian Studies |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=397–439 |jstor=312775 |doi=10.1017/s0026749x00011549 |doi-access=free}}<br />
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==External links==<br />
* {{cite book |last=Kahaly |first=Anirudha |year=2012 |chapter=Roy, Kamini |chapter-url=https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Roy,_Kamini |editor1-last=Islam |editor1-first=Sirajul |editor1-link=Sirajul Islam |editor2-last=Jamal |editor2-first=Ahmed A. |title=Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh |edition=Second |publisher=[[Asiatic Society of Bangladesh]]}}<br />
* [https://www.poemist.com/kamini-roy/poems Kamini Roy poems in Bengali]<br />
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{{Bengal Renaissance}}<br />
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{{Authority control}}<br />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Roy, Kamini}}<br />
[[Category:1864 births]]<br />
[[Category:1933 deaths]]<br />
[[Category:People from Basanda]]<br />
[[Category:Bethune College alumni]]<br />
[[Category:University of Calcutta alumni]]<br />
[[Category:Writers from the Bengal Presidency]]<br />
[[Category:Indian feminist writers]]<br />
[[Category:Bengali women poets]]<br />
[[Category:19th-century Indian women writers]]<br />
[[Category:19th-century Indian poets]]<br />
[[Category:20th-century Indian poets]]<br />
[[Category:Poets from the Bengal Presidency]]<br />
[[Category:19th-century Bengali poets]]<br />
[[Category:20th-century Bengali poets]]<br />
[[Category:Writers from Jhalokati District]]<br />
[[Category:20th-century Indian women poets]]<br />
[[Category:19th-century women poets]]</div>RayfordFvx