Google Doodle is celebrating the 155th birth anniversary of a leading Bengali poet and social reformer, Kamini Roy. She was the first woman to graduate with honours in Indian history, which went on to advocate for the rights of all women. She had dedicated her entire life to the education and rights of women during British India.
Born in 1864, the Bengali poet was ahead of her time with her thinking and scholarship. Her legacy remains as the first woman in India to graduate with honours. She was a fierce feminist, teacher, advocate and poet and written books of poems, when women were allowed to study.
Kamini Roy was born on October 12, 1864, in bakerganj district of british India. She did her graduate with honours in 1886 from Bethune College in Kolkata and started teaching there. One of the first girls to attend schools in British India, Kamini is graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree with Sanskrit honours. She was from an elite Bengali Baidya family. Her father, Chandi Sen was a judge, writer and a leading member of the Brahmo Samaj.
In her childhood, Kamini Roy had a fascination for mathematics but grew more intrigued by Sanskrit after spending a lot of time in her father's library.
In 1889, she published Alo O Chhaya, the first of her many books of poems. She supported advance feminism on the Indian subcontinent by forming an organization to champion causes. She also worked to support Bengali women to get the right to vote in 1926.
Because of her work and accomplishments, Kamini was awarded with the Jagatarini medal by calcutta university in 1929. Later, she became the vice-president of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad in 1932-33.
In her later life, Kamini lived at Hazaribagh for some years. In the small town, she even keeps discussing literary with great scholars like Mahesh Chandra Ghosh and Dhirendranath Choudhury. Roy breathed her last on 27 September 1933 while she was staying in Hazaribagh.
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