Education
Bethune College; University of Calcutta.
Bethune College; University of Calcutta.
She was the first woman honours graduate in British India. Born on 12 October 1864 in the village of Basanda, then in Bakergunj district of Bengal Presidency and now in Barisal District of Bangladesh, she joined Bethune School and passed the First Arts examination in 1883. A part of the earliest batch of girls to attend school, she was the first woman honours graduate in the country, having passed her bachelor of arts degree with Sanskrit honours from Bethune College of the University of Calcutta in 1886.
Kadambini Ganguly was three years senior to her in the same institution.
She continued her association with Bethune College as a teacher. She hailed from an elite Bengali family.
Another sister, Jamini was the house physician of the then Nepal Royal family. Kamini Roy was a feminist in an age when even women"s education was a taboo.
In an address delivered at a girls" school in Calcutta she declared that the aim of women"s education was to contribute to their all-round development and fulfilment of their potential.
In a Bengali essay titled The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge she wrote,
“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’.”
In 1921, she was one of the leaders, along with Kumudini Mitra (Basu) and Mrinalini Senator of the Bangiya Nari Samaj to fight for woman’s suffrage.
Limited suffrage was granted to women in 1925, and in 1926 Bengali women exercised their right for the first time.
She was in the Female Labour Investigation Commission (1922-1923). She went out of her way to encourage other writers and poets.
In 1923, she visited Barisal and encouraged Sufia Kamal, then a young girl, to continue writing. She was president of the Bengali Literary Conference in 1930 and vice-president of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad in 1932-1933.
She was influenced by the poet Rabindranath Tagore and Sanskrit literature.
Calcutta University honoured her with the Jagattarini Gold Meda In her later life, she lived at Hazaribagh for some years. In that small town, she often had discussions on literary and other topics with such scholars as Mahesh Chandra Ghosh and Dhirendranath Choudhury.
She died on 27 September 1933.
She picked up the cue for feminism from a fellow student of Bethune School, Abala Bose.