Kamini Roy (English: Kamini Roy, born- 12 October, 1864; died- 27 September, 1933) was a prominent Bengali poet, social activist and feminist of India. She was the first woman to graduate in British India. Kamini Rai wrote many poems to make women aware.
Kamini Rai was born on October 12, 1864 in Basanda village of Bengal, which now falls in Barisal district of Bangladesh. He started his education from Bethune School in 1883. Kamini Rai, one of the first girls to attend school in British India, graduated. In 1886, he took the degree of Arts with Sanskrit proficiency from Bethune College of Calcutta University and started teaching there in the same year. Kadambini Ganguly, one of the first two female graduates in the country, was three years his senior at the same institute.
Kamini Rai’s writing was simple and elegant. She published her first collection of verses, Aalo Chaiya, in 1889, followed by two more books, but then took a break from writing for several years following her marriage and motherhood. She was a feminist in an era when it was taboo for a woman to be educated. She introduced feminism to one of her classmates at the Bethune School, Abala Bose. In an address delivered at a girls’ school in Calcutta, he declared that – ‘The aim of women’s education is to contribute to their all-round development and to fulfill their potential’.
Notable literary contributions of Kamini Rai included – Mahashweta, Pundarik, Purani, Deep o Dhoop, Jiban Patheya, Nirmalya, Mallya o Nirmalya and Ashok Sangeet etc. She also wrote Gunjan and a book of essays for children, Balika Shikhar Adarsh.
In later life, Kamini Rai lived in Hazaribagh for some years. In that small town she often discussed literary and other topics with scholars like Mahesh Chandra Ghosh and Dhirendranath Chaudhary. He died on September 27, 1933.
