{"id":16735,"date":"2012-11-10T01:19:46","date_gmt":"2012-11-10T01:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=16735"},"modified":"2012-11-10T01:19:46","modified_gmt":"2012-11-10T01:19:46","slug":"noor-inayat-khan-gc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=16735","title":{"rendered":"Noor Inayat Khan, GC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; east, west, music, espionage, pacifism, war, the Resistance, the Nazis, Dachau, and exceptional gallantry ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p>A Muslim woman &#8212; born in Moscow of princely Indian paternal descent, her mother an American from Albuquerque, her father a great North Indian classical musician and Sufi master of pacifist leanings&#8230;<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Noor-Inayat-Khan.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Noor-Inayat-Khan.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"Noor Inayat Khan\" width=\"579\" height=\"289\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-16736\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Noor-Inayat-Khan.png 579w, https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Noor-Inayat-Khan-300x149.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 579px) 100vw, 579px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Noor Inayat Khan<\/strong> was a student of Western classical music in pre-War Paris under the great <strong>Nadia Boulanger<\/strong>, escaped the oncoming Nazis and made it across the channel to England, where she told a British officer during a recruitment interview that she would indeed support Indian independence from Britain <em>after <\/em>the war &#8212; but that defeating Hitler took precedence and she would gladly fight for the British&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>She thus became the first female radio operator sent by the British <strong>Special Operations Executive<\/strong> into Nazi-occupied France, where she worked courageously as a vital link between the French Resistance and <strong>Churchill<\/strong>&#8216;s London until she was finally betrayed, imprisoned, and finally executed by firing squad in Dachau.<\/p>\n<p>After the war, the British awarded her the highest civilian award for bravery, the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/George_Cross\">George Cross<\/a>, and France the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Croix_de_guerre\">Croix de Guerre<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday&#8217;s Guardian reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On Thursday afternoon, in a corner of Bloomsbury, Princess Anne unveiled Britain&#8217;s first memorial to an Asian woman. The bust is of Noor Inayat Khan, a woman who was a pioneer in so many things: an Indian princess who was also a gifted harpist; a Sufi who wrote Buddhist fables for children; an anti-imperialist who spied for the British empire \u2013 and the first female radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Her <em>Twenty Jataka Tales<\/em> is available <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Twenty-Jataka-Tales-Noor-Inayat\/dp\/0892813237\/\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\n<strong>Shrabani Basu<\/strong>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Spy-Princess-Life-Noor-Inayat\/dp\/0930872789\/\">biography of Noor Inayat Khan<\/a> is here.<\/p>\n<p>I raise a virtual toast to Noor Inayat Khan.<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>h\/t <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/chicagoboyz.net\/archives\/5217.html\">David Foster<\/a><\/strong> at <a href=\"http:\/\/chicagoboyz.net\/archives\/33432.html\">Chicago Boyz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; east, west, music, espionage, pacifism, war, the Resistance, the Nazis, Dachau, and exceptional gallantry ] . A Muslim woman &#8212; born in Moscow of princely Indian paternal descent, her mother an American from Albuquerque, her father a great North Indian classical musician and Sufi master of pacifist leanings&#8230; . . [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[361,133,53,701,52,560,47,753,652,295,782,714,1,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-book","category-britain","category-buddhism","category-france","category-india","category-intelligence","category-islam","category-literature","category-nazis","category-pacifism","category-sufi","category-uncategorized","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16735"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16822,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16735\/revisions\/16822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}