Kamini Roy

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. In 1894, she married Kedarnath Roy. ==Writing and feminism==

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). ==Honors and laurels==

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. ==Works==

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) ==References==