Noor Inayat Khan, pacifist and an unlikely spy

Sam Arthya

Did you know that Tipu Sultan's great, great-grandaughter Noor was a Sufi Muslim, brought up in England and France? That she was an accomplished musician, wrote children's stories and was captured and shot as spy, in a German concentration camp, while working undercover for the British? This gentle and spiritual woman also had the fighting spirit of the Tiger of Mysore.

For most Indians, Tipu Sultan is a familiar figure. Tipu was a ruler in the South of India. He died defending the Fort of Srirangapatna, in Karnataka, against the British East India Company and their ally, the Nizam of Hyderabad. His great, great-daughter Noor Inayat Khan is less familiar. Noor's father Hazrat Innayat Khan was the grandson of Casimebi, Tipu Sultans' grandaughter.

Hazrat Inayat Khan was brought up in Baroda in a family that was accomplished in classical music and committed to the Sufi tradition. As an adult, Inayat Khan traveled extensively in Europe and America, performing classical music and teaching and practicising Sufism. Inayat Khan established the Sufi Order International, and was its spiritual head. While in the US, he met and married Ora Ray Baker, who chose to become Amina Begum, in her married life.  Noor was born in Russia, and the Khans set up home initially in Bloomsbury, London. The family (there were three other children -Vilayat, Hidayat and Claire) lived on an income earned by giving classical music performances, and the contributions of Sufi followers. However, Inayat Khan found he had overstayed his welcome in the UK, when he spoke out against Imperialism. 

The family moved to Paris and Noor spent her adolescent and young adult life in Suresnes, centered in a large home, donated by a Sufi follower. It became home to musical performances, spiritual practice, meditation and offered Sufi summer camps to its followers. Noor studied classical music and child psychology. She was an accomplished piano, harp and veena player. She was described as small in build with brown hair and hazel eyes, quiet, a dreamer and a poet. She wrote extensively for children. A book of Jataka tales and tales for children, abounded in fairies and mythological characters. Her stories were broadcast on the radio and published in the Paris papers. She was engaged in writing another book for children when Germany invaded France during World War II. Since they had British passports, some of her family traveled out of Paris and back to the UK. By this time Noor had lost her father, and her brother Vilayat Khan was now the spritual head - Pir - of the Sufi Order International.    

Both Noor and Vilayat signed up in England to serve in the war effort. The response she met  was not without its ironies. Before they boarded the boat to England, Noor, who had been born in Russia was held overnight, suspected as a Russian spy. When she applied to the Womens Air Auxilliary Force, (WAAF) she was turned down because she was born in Russia. Noor sent them a letter stating that as a person holding a British Common Subject passport she should be allowed to serve her country. Noor signed up for service as Nora Baker - Nora was a name closest to her own. 

After being assigned into the wireless division where she learnt morse code and Noor was interviewed as a candidate for the Special Operations Executive - SOE. The mission of the SOE was to infiltrate enemy-occupied territory and coordinate acts of subversion and  sabotage. Noor was recruited because she could speak French like a native.

At the time, the Indian Independence Struggle was playing out in front of her in the UK. Noor, in her interview, squared off her split loyalties between Britain and India by explaining that she would first defend Britain against Fascism, and then when that war was over, she would reconsider her position and might support India against Britain. She came out strongly in favor of India forming its own defense against a probable invasion on its eastern border, where the Japanese would eventually invade (Myanmar and Malaysia). Noor was brought up in a universal, and mystic spiritual religion. It was both pacifist and embracing of other world religions. Yet she felt the need to defend the countries that she identified with, in ways that stood up to systems that propagated domination and violence. Shrabani Basu who wrote  Spy Princess - The Life of Noor Inayat Khan, describes how Noor balanced her pacifist non-violent leanings with the teachings of the Bhagwad Gita, that emphasize the need for action, even if violent, in the defence of dharma. 

Noor was airdropped into northern France in June of 1943, with just her fluency in French and skills as a radio operator for survival. Her cover name was Madeline and she was in the 'Prosper' network, which was soon betrayed and disbanded. Without support, she was left to her own resources to survive in German - occupied France. She was on the move constantly; she knew she was in danger. She knew that she was the last radio operator left in the network, and so she refused the offer to be transported in safety to London. She continued to transmit over the wireless, communicating for the agents in France with the SOE. Noor was eventually betrayed and captured in October of 1943. She was held by the Gestapo in their Paris head quarters and interrogated. After two failed escape attempts, she refused to sign a declaration abandoning future escape attempts. Her Gestapo interrogator later described her as courageous and brave, refusing to reveal anything during her interrogations.

In December of 1943 she was transported to Pforzheim, Germany, where she was classified an 'extremely dangerous prisoner'. She was in solitary confinement, handcuffed and shackled till September 1944. She and three other women agents were transported to Dachau concentration camp and executed the next day. Eye-witness testimony from a prisoner who witnessed the execution said that Noor was badly beaten by a Nazi officer and shot in the head.. …her last word was "Liberte".

Noor was awarded the St. George Cross, the highest honor awarded to a civilian in wartime, in the UK. She was one only of three women to receive this award. 

A campaign is underway to place a bust in her honor in a park near her home in London. She will be the first Asian woman and first Muslim to be honored thus. Visit the campaign at www.noormemorial.org.

Images courtesy the Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust