Portal:West Bengal/Selected biography/6

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Kamini Roy

Kamini Roy (12 October-1864 27 September 1933), was a leading Bengali poet, social worker and feminist. 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. She was inclined towards literature from a young age and started composing poems at the age of eight. Her father, Chandi Charan Sen, a judge and a writer, was a leading member of the Brahmo Samaj. In 1894 she married Kedarnath Roy. 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.