Noor Inayat Khan: story of an unlikely Heroine

By Anjana Rajan - The Hindu - Chennai, India
Sunday, August 6, 2006

Those interested in the Sufi movement would have heard of Hazrat Inayat Khan, read his works and his life story. They would know how he introduced Sufism to the West and blended spirituality and music in a seamless pursuit. Yet not many have heard of Noor Inayat Khan, his daughter, who embodied his principles and put her beliefs to the ultimate test.

Born in Moscow, brought up in England and France, educated at Sorbonne, Noor was a harpist and pianist, a children's writer with a vibrant imagination, a loving daughter and sister.

Heroic volunteer
Yet she became one of the most heroic spies of the World War II, volunteering for the British secret service that sent agents to occupied France to commit acts of sabotage against the fascists. As the first woman clandestine wireless operator sent into France, the only Asian in the service, her 29-year-old life came to an end in a Nazi concentration camp, where she was tortured and shot by the Gestapo.

In a nutshell, this is the story told in Shrabani Basu's new book, Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan, launched by Roli in India recently.

The book, stresses the London-based journalist, is based on meticulous research. "There is absolutely no fiction," she declares, adding, "There are elaborate footnotes, probably far too elaborate."
An earlier work that brought Noor's story to public attention is Shauna Singh Baldwin's The Tiger Claw published by Penguin. This, however, is a fictional work based on her life.

No need for fiction
Shrabani points out, "I personally feel, her life is so thrilling, who needs fiction?"

The project began after a few years of nursing an interest in her "sweet heroine" ever since she researched WWII stories. "It was just a little photo of her, with what I call her Mona Lisa smile," she recalls. A busy schedule prevented her from concentrating on Noor for some years.

But it was just as well, because by the time she was ready, the Right to Information Bill provided her access to a lot of declassified information. Besides these files, Shrabani contacted as many people as possible who had known Noor. She also read her letters and those of some colleagues, to decipher what seemed like "a giant jigsaw."

The bare bones of Noor's story, though replete with the elements of drama, do not reveal the deeper levels that render it a powerful lesson for today's world. How did a dreamer like Noor end up as an espionage agent in the war? Unlikely as it seemed on the surface, it was her background that made her volunteer; that gave her the inner strength to survive the Gestapo for as long as she did; to respond to humiliation and torture with dignity, and to die without having disclosed any information to her captives .

For a girl who told her instructors she could not lie and who felt the greatest power on earth was love, who collapsed under the mock Gestapo interrogation during training, it seemed an inexplicable turnaround.

But one of Hazrat Inayat Khan's well-known precepts was, "Shatter your ideals on the rock of Truth." And Noor had indeed shattered her ideals on the rock of Truth. Noor and her brother Vilayat, who later continued his father's work of running the Sufi Order in the West, decided that to refrain from contributing to the war because of their principles of non-violence would be equivalent to supporting Hitler.

Reading of the horrors she underwent, one cannot but remember Inayat Khan's words again: "... first consult yourself and find out if there is any conflict in your own being about anything you want to do. And when you find no conflict there, then feel sure that a path is already made for you."

For Shrabani, the real recognition will come when Noor Inayat Khan features on a postage stamp, as well as in comic books.

Having already signed the film rights of her book to Lord Meghnad Desai, she looks forward to the dedication of a `blue plaque' reserved for heroes at Noor's London address.