Indira Devi of Kapurthala

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Indira Devi
Devi in 1938[1]
Born(1912-02-26)26 February 1912
Kapurthala, Kapurthala State, British India
Died1 September 1979(1979-09-01) (aged 67)
Ibiza, Spain
EducationQueen Mary College, Lahore
OccupationRadio presenter
Years active1939–1968
EmployerBBC Radio
Known for
Parent
RelativesJagatjit Singh (grandfather)

Indira Devi of Kapurthala (26 February 1912 – 1 September 1979), affectionately known as the Radio Princess, was an Indian socialite and princess, the eldest grandchild of

Second World War she was recruited as a political correspondent to George Orwell, for the India team of the BBC. There she became a regular broadcaster of the programme The Debate Continues from the House of Commons, and Hello Punjab, a programme in Hindustani for the British Indian Army. With Narayana Menon she hosted
the Indian Service musical programmes.

At the age of 23, Devi had secretly travelled to London to become an actress, telling only her two sisters, and enrolled at the

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. For a brief period, she worked at London Films with Alexander Korda
, and in 1938, she appeared on stage for the first time, when she played the role of a Turkish slave girl.

At the onset of the Second World War, Devi sat the St John Ambulance examinations and qualified in first aid. She subsequently transported casualties during the Blitz. In 1943, she was appointed permanently within the BBC Radio's Overseas Service Division, and in 1951, she reported on the 30th anniversary of the 1921 Northern Ireland general election. Following a road trip to India in 1958, she narrated a film by the explorer Count Vitold de Golish, Twilight of the Maharajahs, for the BBC in their Adventure series. It was delivered alongside her own life, having discovered old film footage after revisiting her former palace in India. She continued to work for the BBC until 1968, and spent her last years in Ibiza, Spain, where she managed a bar.

Early life and education

Indira Devi was born in

saree for formal wear.[10]

At the age of 23 years she secretly travelled to London to become an actress, telling only her two sisters, Sushila and Ourmilla.

Byron and Shelley, The Heart was not Burned, at the Gate Theatre.[11][16][b] She subsequently had a role in the children's theatrical piece Let's Pretend.[11] Her sisters were reported to visit her in London, and the three were popular socialites of the 1930s.[18] In addition, sometime in the 1930s, she also featured in Vogue.[19]

  • Indira Devi with her mother and two sisters[1]
    Indira Devi with her mother and two sisters[1]
  • Indira Devi (centre) with her sisters princesses Sushila (left) and Ourmilla (right) (1935)[1]
    Indira Devi (centre) with her sisters princesses Sushila (left) and Ourmilla (right) (1935)[1]
  • Indira Devi, mid 1930s, Kinsey Studios, Delhi.[1]
    Indira Devi, mid 1930s, Kinsey Studios, Delhi.[1]
  • Indira Devi, likely mid-1930s, Hay Wrightson Ltd.[20]
    Indira Devi, likely mid-1930s, Hay Wrightson Ltd.[20]

Second World War

Indira Devi at the BBC, December 1942[21]

At the onset of the

Second World War, Devi sat and passed the St John Ambulance first aid examination, and subsequently transported casualties during the Blitz.[3][22] Earlier, she had travelled Europe and was in Munich in 1939, at the time of the Munich Crisis.[23] For a short while, she worked as a censor for the wartime department of postal censorship.[8]

She joined BBC Radio in 1939.[14] At that time, she lived at 512a Nell Gwynn House, Sloane Avenue, Kensington.[18] In 1941, she became political correspondent for the India team of the BBC, with George Orwell as the talk producer, and with the aim at enlisting Indian support for the War.[24] Others on the team included Mulk Raj Anand, Venu Chitale, Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari, T. S. Eliot and E. M. Forster.[24] She appeared regularly on the Home Service and the Eastern Service, and became affectionately known as the "Radio Princess".[25][26] She hosted talks with Indian men in technical training based in the UK, and a 30-minute programme called Hello Punjab, a programme in Hindustani for the British Indian Army based in the Middle East and the Mediterranean.[22][27] From the House of Commons, where she was sometimes the only woman in the press gallery,[8] she analysed and broadcast weekly reports to India in a programme called The Debate Continues.[22][27] With Narayana Menon she hosted the Indian Service musical programmes, and was familiar with popular and classical western music.[28] In 1943 she was appointed permanently at the Overseas Service Division.[25]

With regard to the BBC's wartime broadcasts to listeners in India, when an initial questionnaire was sent across India asking about who people preferred to listen to, Devi was found to be twice as popular as Orwell.[29][c] BBC producer Trevor Hill later recalled in his memoirs Over the Airwaves, that Devi was a "very elegant lady in beautifully cut English tweeds, and with a beautifully cut Oxford accent to match".[31] In India she was noted to have a "very good command of English".[28]

Post-war life

In February 1948, Devi was cleared of a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol in November 1947, but given a fine for dangerous driving, found to be due to taking pills containing

Ivinghoe Aston, Buckinghamshire.[3][4]

In 1951, Devi visited Stormont.[33] There, she reported on the anniversary of the 1921 Northern Ireland general election.[34] The following year she visited New York to see the new United Nations Building and report on the International Refugee Organization.[35] She left New York on 23 January 1952 on the SS Liberté bound for Plymouth.[36] The following month, Frances P. Bolton had praised her report as "clear and concise" and included it in her remarks at the House of Representatives.[35]

In 1953, Devi co-directed a musical with Wauna Paul.[37] That year, the Daily Mirror published a photograph of Devi changing the tyre of a caravan, also carrying Paul; they were preparing to drive to India.[38] In 1962, following her return from India, she narrated a film by the explorer Count Vitold de Golish, Twilight of the Maharajahs, for the BBC in their Adventure series.[39] It was delivered alongside her own life, having discovered old film footage after recently revisiting her former family palace.[40] In 1963 she narrated Disciples of the Sword, a film about the Sikhs by Rustom Master in the same series.[41][42] She continued to work for the BBC until 1968.[25]

In later life she moved to Ibiza, Spain, where she managed a bar.[19] She died there in September 1979.[3]

Selected publications

  • The Revenge of the Gods: A story of ancient Egypt. The Eastern Press, London, 1928.[43]

Notes

  1. ^ Devi's arrival in England is given as 1 January 1935 in The Open University document.[3] She had previously visited London at least once, when at age two she accompanied her parents from Paris at the onset of World War I.[13]
  2. ^ Cast with James Mason and Pamela Brown, at the Gate Theatre in London, not Dublin.[17]
  3. ^ How accurate the report was is not clear. Laurence Brander, who was tasked to investigate the impact of the Indian programmes, did not gather the data himself, and told Orwell that very few Indians listened to the broadcasts.[29][30]

References

Citations

  1. ^
    OCLC 932267190
    .
  2. ^ Williams, Elaine (2003). "1". Memoirs of a rebellious princess. pp. 1–14.
  3. ^
    The Open University. Archived from the original
    on 20 July 2022. Retrieved 20 July 2022.
  4. ^ a b "The Princess Indira". Bucks Advertiser & Aylesbury News. 24 June 1949. p. 3 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  5. ^ Williams, Elaine (2003). "9". Memoirs of a rebellious princess. pp. 117–129.
  6. ^ Williams, Elaine (2003). "11". Memoirs of a rebellious princess. pp. 145–159.
  7. ^ a b Williams, Elaine (2003). "14". Memoirs of a rebellious princess. p. 199.
  8. ^ a b c "She talks to India". Civil & Military Gazette (Lahore). 15 October 1944. p. 3. Retrieved 17 August 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  9. ^ "Tail-wagger sergeants - Champion Recruiter". Bournemouth Weekly Post and Graphic. 13 January 1934. p. 12. Retrieved 25 July 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  10. ^ a b c d Williams, Elaine (2003). "15". Memoirs of a rebellious princess. pp. 205–219.
  11. ^
    ISBN 978-1-134-21689-5
    .
  12. ^ UK and Ireland, incoming passenger lists, 1878-1960. The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and successors: Inwards Passenger Lists.; Class: BT26; Piece: 1075; Item: 23. [1] via ancestry.com. (subscription required)
  13. ^ Williams, Elaine (2003). "10". Memoirs of a rebellious princess. pp. 130–144.
  14. ^
    ISBN 978-962-937-590-4
    .
  15. ^ "Princess as film extra". Nottingham Journal. 8 April 1938. p. 6. Retrieved 25 July 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  16. ^ "What other people are doing". The Sphere. 3 December 1938. p. 393. Retrieved 25 July 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.}
  17. ISBN 0-313-28496-2
    .
  18. ^ a b Singh, Ranveer (2020). "Sikh history on the streets of London: The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea" (PDF). Sikh Research Journal. 5 (1): 24–25.
  19. ^ a b Princess Indira Devi of Kapurthala. Indian women and war. BIMCIC. p.12.
  20. ^ Williams, Elaine (2003). "Photos". Memoirs of a rebellious princess.
  21. ^ "BBC Photo Sales". Retrieved 17 August 2022.
  22. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-873576-2
    .
  23. ^ "BBC Princess". Northern Whig. 19 June 1951. Retrieved 26 July 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  24. ^
    ISBN 81-7062-133-X
    .
  25. ^
    ISBN 978-0-230-39272-4
    .
  26. ISBN 978-0-19-289852-4
    .
  27. ^
    ISBN 978-1-350-10513-3
    .
  28. ^ a b Rodrigues, Abha Sharma (1994). "George Orwell, the BBC and India: a critical study". University of Edinburgh. pp. 85–86. This thesis focuses attention on the two years that George Orwell spent, between August 1941 and November 1943, at the Indian Section of the B.B.C., producing propaganda talks for listeners in India and elsewhere.
  29. ^ a b Rodrigues, Abha Sharma (1994). "George Orwell, the BBC and India: a critical study". University of Edinburgh. p. 236. This thesis focuses attention on the two years that George Orwell spent, between August 1941 and November 1943, at the Indian Section of the B.B.C., producing propaganda talks for listeners in India and elsewhere.
  30. ISBN 0-436-40409-5
    .
  31. OCLC 1245625342
    .
  32. ^ a b "Princess cleared of drinking charge". Dundee Evening Telegraph. 13 February 1948. p. 1. Retrieved 25 July 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  33. ^ "Indian Princess at Stormont". Belfast Newsletter. 21 June 1951. Retrieved 26 July 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  34. ^ "Festival recordings". Lisburn Standard. 31 August 1951. p. 2. Retrieved 26 July 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  35. ^ a b Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the ... Congress. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1952. p. 870.
  36. ^ "U.S., Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1914-196". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 26 July 2022 – via ancestry.com.
  37. ^ "Women have strong interest in this show". Portsmouth Evening News. 2 April 1953. p. 5. Retrieved 26 July 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  38. ^ "An iceberg with an odd sense of timing". Daily Mirror. 4 July 1958. p. 2. Retrieved 26 July 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  39. ^ "Adventure: The Twilight of the Maharajahs", BBC Programme Index. Retrieved 27 July 2022.
  40. ^ Radio Times. G. Newnes. 1962. p. 49. Today's Adventure programme, Twilight of the Maharajas shows something of the former glories of the princes, and couples with this the personal story of Princess Indira of Kapurthala who ran away from her grandfather's court to settle in England. A year ago she returned to Kapurthala for the first time since leaving her ancestral home. In the palace … she discovered half-a-dozen rusty cans of old film showing the princely life as it was over a generation ago.
  41. ^ "Disciples of the Sword (1963)". BFI. Archived from the original on 15 August 2022. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
  42. ^ "BBC Programme Index". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
  43. ^ "Library Guides: Bibliographies for South Asian Studies: Pre-Independence". guides.lib.uw.edu. Archived from the original on 24 July 2022. Retrieved 24 July 2022.

Bibliography

Further reading

External links
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