in a British newspaper about the contribution of Indians to the Second World War. Amongst the roll-call of valiant Gurkhas, Sikhs and Rajputs, who had won the Victoria Cross and fought in battles in the Burma, Africa and Italy, was a picture of an Indian woman, who had been awarded the George Cross, the highest civilian award. The brief write-up said only that she had been a secret agent in the Second World War and that she had been shot by the Nazis at Dachau concentration camp.

My curiosity was immediately aroused. The photograph showed a beautiful young woman with a shy smile in an Air Force uniform. I wanted to know who she was, where she came from, how she became the only Indian secret agent in Europe in the Second World War and how she came to face such a gruesome death.

My trail of Noor took me from India to Britain and Europe. I learnt that Noor was no Mata Hari. Instead, she was a Sufi. Her father was a Sufi preacher and she was a descendant of Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore. I knew by then that I wanted to write her biography. A publisher suggested I fictionalise it, but for me that was not an option. I wanted her story to be told so it would go into the history books. I wanted the real story of Noor Inayat Khan -- a gentle musician and writer of children’s stories, who took on one of the most dangerous jobs in the Second World War -- to be known to the world. I wanted school children in Britian and India to learn about this brave and beautiful woman who made the ultimate sacrifice for her principles. I wanted to revive a forgotten heroine.

My research took me to the National Archives in Britian where her secret documents were declassified in 2003. This provided a mine of information. For the first time we could see how she was recruited, the training she was given and how she was sent on her mission. Also lying in the files were her letters and messages from the field -- haunting reminders of the pressure she was under -- as she played cat and mouse game with the Nazis. I visited Dachau, where she was brutally tortured and executed, saw the crematorium where she was dragged and burnt and the field where her ashes were scattered.

I contacted her family -- her brothers in France and The Hague -- her friends in the SOE (Special Operations Executive) and the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and families of agents who had worked with her. All of this helped to piece together the giant crossword of her life. A picture was emerging before my eyes of a woman who was gentle, shy and philosophical but who also had a stubborn streak in her. When it came to the crunch, the descendant of Tipu Sultan was ready to take a pistol in her handbag and land in German-occupied France with a false identity in her handbag. She was ready to climb on roof-tops, break locks and take on the Gestapo. When she was caught and imprisoned, she made two daring escape attempts. She was classified by the Germans as a “highly dangerous prisoner”. In her captivity, she refused to reveal the names of her colleagues despite torture and repeated interrogation. After the war, her captors admitted, that they had come to know nothing from Noor Inayat Khan, not even her real name.

The story of Noor Inayat Khan becomes all the more relevant today in a world divided by sectarian conflicts. Noor Inayat Khan died over sixty years ago, far from the ones she knew and loved, in a desolate death camp in Dachau, so the world could be free. She deserves to be remembered for her sacrifice.

	Shrabani Basu is the London correspondent for the Kolkata-based Ananda Bazaar Patrika Group and writes for the Telegraph and other publications. She is the author of Curry: The Story of the Nation's Favourite Dish (2003), and the critically acclaimed Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan (2006), a compelling biography of the exotic WWII British S.O.E. agent executed by the Gestapo.
Honourable Governor of West Bengal Shri Gopal Krishna Gandhi launches Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan with the author, Shrabani Basu at Oxford Bookstore Kolkata on December 5, 2006

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