Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Kamini Roy’s 155th Birthday, who was the first woman to graduate with honors throughout the history of British India, who proceeded to advocate for the rights of all women. Kamini Roy was a Bengali poet, teacher, and activist.

Who is Kamini Roy?

Kamini Roy was a leading Bengali poet, social laborer and women’s activist in British India. She was the first woman honors graduate in British India.

Born on 12 October 1864 in the town of Basanda, then in Bakergunj district of Bengal Presidency and now in Barisal 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 honors from Bethune College of the University of Calcutta in 1886 and began educating there around the same year. Kadambini Ganguly, one of the first two women praises graduates ever in the nation, was three years senior to her in a similar institution.

“Why should a woman be confined to the home and denied her rightful place in society?” wrote Bengali poet, teacher, and activist Kamini Roy in 1924.

After graduation, Kamini Roy became an educator at Bethune and published Alo O Chhaya, the first of her numerous books of poems, in 1889. By forming associations to advocate causes she had faith in, she helped advance feminism on the Indian subcontinent. She likewise attempted to enable Bengali women to win the right to vote in 1926. For her literary achievements, Kamini Roy was awarded the Jagattarini medal by Calcutta University in 1929.

Kamini Roy hailed from an elite Bengali Baidya family. Her dad, Chandi Charan Sen, a judge, and a writer was a leading individual from the Brahmo Samaj. She gained from his accumulation of books and utilized his library broadly. She was a mathematical prodigy however later her advantage changed to Sanskrit. Nisith Chandra Sen, her sibling, was an eminent attorney in the Calcutta High Court, and later the Mayor of Calcutta while sister Jamini was the house doctor of the then Nepal Royal family. In 1894 she wedded Kedarnath Roy.

Roy made a special effort to encourage different writers and poets. In 1923, she visited Barisal and encouraged Sufia Kamal, then a young girl, to keep writing. She was president of the Bengali Literary Conference in 1930 and VP of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad in 1932-33.

In her later years, Kamini Roy worked towards permitting women in Bengal the right to vote and gratitude to her endeavors, women could exercise their establishment in the 1926 Indian general election.

She was affected by the poet Rabindranath Tagore and Sanskrit literature. Calcutta University honored her with the Jagattarini Gold Medal.

In her later life, she inhabited Hazaribagh for certain years. In that small town, she often had discussions on literary and different topics with such scholars as Mahesh Chandra Ghosh and Dhirendranath Choudhury. She died on 27 September 1933 while remaining in Hazaribagh.

On 12 October 2019, search engine Google celebrated Kamini Roy with a Doodle on her 155th birth anniversary.