Meet Noor Inayat Khan Only Woman With Indian Roots Honoured by French Post

French postal service, La Poste, has honoured Noor Inayat Khan with a commemorative postage stamp for her role in the French Resistance as an undercover British agent during the Second World War

Paris: French postal service, La Poste, has honoured Noor Inayat Khan with a commemorative postage stamp for her role in the French Resistance as an undercover British agent during the Second World War.

La Poste issued the “Figures of the Resistance” commemorative postage stamp in the honour of Noor Inayat Khan who fought against Nazi Germany.

Noor Inayat is among a dozen war heroes and heroines chosen on the set of stamps issued this month to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.

Noor is the only Indian-origin woman to be honoured with a commemorative postage stamp by France for her role in the French Resistance as an undercover British agent during the Second World War.

Who is Noor Inayat Khan?

Born in Moscow in 1914, Noor Inayat Khan, who goes by her full name, Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, had an Indian connection. Her father Inayat Khan was the great grandson of Tipu Sultan, the 18th century ruler of the erstwhile Mysore Kingdom.

Trained by Britain's Special Operations Executive, Inayat was the first female wireless operator to be flown into Nazi-occupied France in June 1943 during the World War II. She was captured by Nazi forces to be deported to Dachau concentration camp, where she was tortured and executed on September 13, 1944, aged just 30 years.

In recognition of her immense bravery, Noor Inayat Khan was awarded the French Resistance Medal and France’s highest civilian honour, the Croix de Guerre, as well as a posthumous George Cross (GC) by Britain in 1949.

Noor’s biographer delighted

Hailing the French Postal Service, Shrabani Basu, the London-based author of Noor’s biography – ‘Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan’, said, “I am delighted that France has honoured Noor Inayat Khan with a postage stamp, especially as it comes on this important 80th anniversary of the end of the war."

“Noor sacrificed her life in the fight against fascism. She grew up in Paris, joined the war effort in England, and it is wonderful to see her face on a postage stamp which will be posted by ordinary people in France,” she added.

Shrabani Basu's book details Noor's life from her birth in 1914 in Moscow to an American mother and an Indian Muslim father to her death at the hands of Gestapo in 1944.

There are also two movies on the life and sacrifice of Noor Inayat Khan - A Call to Spy and Enemy of the Reich: The Noor Inayat Khan Story. While the first is a biographical drama, the second is a documentary-style film.

[With inputs from PTI]

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