रेडिओ राजकन्या... Indira Devi of Kapurthala: Cinema, War, Driving Ambulances, BBC

 "Maharajkumari Indira Devi (a.k.a. Princess Indee), born in 1912, was the daughter of Maharaja Paramjit Singh and Maharani Brinda of Kapurthala. By all accounts a spirited, intelligent young woman, she left India for Britain in her early 20s to become a movie star. She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, and worked briefly in the movies, narrating a few films.

After the outbreak of WWII, this feisty young princess successfully passed the St. John Ambulance examination and drove ambulances during air raids! She eventually joined the BBC in 1942, and hosted several series of radio broadcasts in Hindustani for Indian forces stationed in the Middle East. She also became famous for hosting ‘The Debate Continues’- a weekly broadcast to India. For this programme, she reported from the House of Commons, where she was the only woman in the entire press gallery!

Popularly known as the ‘Radio Princess’, she continued to work for the BBC till 1968. She passed away in 1979, in Ibiza, Spain.” 

 

 Picture- dated c. mid 1930s

 

courtesy: Tanveer Kinsey Studios and Mapin Publishing

 

She surely knew Balraj Sahni & his wife…George Orwell knew her well as documented below:

 

"...In other programme series, Orwell drew on members of the expatriate Far Eastern community living in Britain. These included Mulk Raj Anand, who read many of Orwell's broadcasts on the air. Other Indian novelists and essayists, Cedric Dover, Ahmed Ali, Prem Chand, and Narayan Menon among them, represented the "class that the [BBC's] literary broadcasts were aimed at." They discussed subjects like "Race Mixture and World Peace," "The Problems of Cultural Expression," and "The Federal Idea," with the intention of bringing "East and West a little nearer together." Many of the speakers invited by Orwell were women, including Princess Indira of Capurthala and fellow intellectuals such as Inez Holden and Rebecca West..."

(from '"Talking to India": George Orwell's Work at the BBC, 1941-1.943' by Jutta Paczulla)