London :
As Britain’s Royal Mail today issued a stamp of Indian-origin World War II heroine Noor Inayat Khan, campaigners called for India to bestow a similar honour on the famous spy in her centenary year.
The stamp – part of a series called ‘Remarkable Lives’ – honours Noor, a descendant of Tipu Sultan, along with nine others including actor Sir Alec Guinness and poet Dylan Thomas.
“It would be fitting if India too honoured Noor Inayat Khan in her centenary year with a stamp,” said Shrabani Basu, chair of the Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust and author of “Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan”.
“Though she was brought up in Paris, Noor identified strongly with her Indian roots,” said Basu who led the campaign to build a memorial for Noor in London which was unveiled by Britain’s Princess Anne in November 2012.
Her book is now being made into a film. “Noor believed firmly in Indian independence and frankly told her British officers that after the war was over, she would back India’s freedom struggle. Sadly she did not live to see India’s independence,” said Basu.
Noor was born in Moscow in 1914 to an Indian father, Hazrat Inayat Khan and an American mother, Ora Ray Baker.
Her father was a Sufi preacher and musician and left his home town of Baroda to take Sufism to the west.
He met Noor’s mother at the Ramakrishna Mission while on a lecture tour in California.Hazrat Inayat Khan was a descendant of Tipu Sultan, the famous 18th-century ruler of the kingdom of Mysore.
Noor was brought up in Paris and the family moved to London just before Paris fell to the Germans in 1940 during the Second World War.In London, Noor joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and was later recruited for the Special Operations Executive, a secret organisation started by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.She was the first woman radio operator to be flown undercover to Paris and worked from there for three months under the code name Madeleine.
However she was betrayed, arrested and finally executed in the infamous Dachau concentration camp in Nazi Germany.
Though she was tortured and interrogated, she revealed nothing, not even her real name. Her last word as she was shot was “Liberte!” (Freedom). She was only 30.Noor was posthumously awarded Britain’s highest honour, the George Cross while France awarded her the Croix de Guerre.In 2006, President Pranab Mukherjee, the then defence minister, visited Noor’s family house outside Paris and described her bravery and sacrifice as “inspirational”. source: http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / Home> ET Home> News> Politics and Nation / by PTI / March 25th, 2014