If Tipu Sultan fought against the British, Noor Inayat Khan worked for Britain as a spy in Nazi-occupied France; the lineage returns to focus as France honours Noor with a commemorative postage stamp
Between 1767 and 1799, during the four Anglo-Mysore Wars, Tipu Sultan fought the British with unflinching bravery and finally laid down his life. Two centuries later, between 1939 and 1945, during the Second World War, Tipu Sultan’s great-granddaughter Noor Inayat Khan stood on the opposite side of history — fighting for the British against the German dictator Hitler. This is now well-documented history.
When France had fallen to German occupation, it was Tipu Sultan’s descendant who assisted France on behalf of Britain. As a wireless operator on the battlefield, Noor Inayat Khan intercepted and transmitted accurate military intelligence and enemy weaknesses, sending them swiftly to Britain and France. Because crucial information was reaching enemy nations within seconds, the Nazis were literally shaken.
During the Second World War, France had three Presidents in succession: Albert Lebrun, Philippe Pétain and Charles de Gaulle. All three were overwhelmed by Hitler’s military might and France fell under Nazi control. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill rushed to France’s aid, sending Noor Inayat Khan as an undercover agent to monitor every step of the enemy and help create counter-strategies.
Much of this was possible because of Noor. Now, 80 years after the Second World War, the French government has honoured Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan — Tipu Sultan’s descendant — by releasing a commemorative postage stamp. This has sparked curiosity: What was Tipu Sultan’s connection to France? How exactly was Noor Inayat Khan related to him?
Tipu Sultan’s descendant
Noor Inayat Khan was the daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan, born in Baroda in the Bombay Presidency. Noor was the eldest of four children. Born into a family of classical musicians, Noor studied music because that was where her interest lay. The 18th-century Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan was the great-great-grandfather of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Tipu Sultan’s second son, Abdul Khaliq, participated in the First War of Indian Independence (the 1857 revolt) in Delhi.
Tipu’s daughter Khasim Bee was kept in a guarded location in Mysore. She was to be married to a suitable nobleman. Around that time, a Hindustani and Carnatic classical musician named Alla Baksh Khan visited the Mysore Wadiyar Palace from Delhi. Impressed by his singing, the Wadiyar discreetly arranged his marriage to Tipu’s daughter Khasim Bee.
Noor Inayat Khan, 1934. At the age of 20, Noor Inayat Khan sits in the dunes near The Hague, Netherlands. Photograph courtesy of the Nekbakht Foundation.
At the invitation of the Gaekwads of Baroda, Alla Baksh moved there and was appointed court musician. Alla Baksh and Khasim Bee established a music school for students; that institution survives today as part of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. From this lineage emerged Rahmat Khan, a Sufi saint and Hindustani vocalist who gained prominence.
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His son, Hazrat Inayat Khan, was also born in Baroda. Inayat Khan, himself a Sufi and Hindustani classical musician, drew the ire of Islamic fundamentalists for spreading Sufi philosophy and music across the country. Even the Nizam of Hyderabad admired his music so much that he called him a modern-day Tansen and gifted him a diamond-encrusted instrument.
Noor Inayat Khan in America
In the Ramakrishna Ashram in America, Inayat Khan gave spiritual discourses and met Ora Baker, whom he later married. She adopted the name Sharada Amina Begum, reportedly in memory of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s wife Sharada Devi. In Russia, Inayat Khan performed at the home of Leo Tolstoy’s son. It was during their stay in Russia that Noor Inayat Khan was born. Noor later followed her father’s Sufi path and became interested in Indian mythology and the Upanishads.
She translated the Jataka tales of the Buddha into English. During the Second World War, moved by an army recruitment poster, she directly went to the military office and applied for the post of telephone operator. Later, she was recruited as the first female spy in the French resistance. When the Nazis occupied France, Noor entered the war arena.
Noor mastered various musical forms and was an accomplished veena player. Just as she plucked the strings of the veena with precision, she encoded and transmitted signals and encrypted messages as a wireless operator from enemy territory to London. While spreading peace through Sufi teachings and translating Buddha’s Jataka stories, she simultaneously reported each movement of the Nazis, indirectly waging war against Hitler.
Trained as a wireless operator
Inayat Khan died during a visit to India in 1927. As the eldest child, Noor had to take on responsibility for the entire family. Her siblings were Vilayat Inayat Khan, writer and Sufi teacher; Hidayat Inayat Khan, composer and Sufi guide; and Khair-un-Nisa Inayat Khan.
Before the First World War began in 1914, the family left Russia for Bloomsbury, London. Noor completed primary schooling at a nursery in Notting Hill. In 1920, the family moved to France. Noor studied child psychology at the Sorbonne and music at the Paris Conservatoire.
During this period, Noor also began her writing career. Her poems and children’s stories were published in both English and French. She contributed regularly to children’s magazines and French radio. In 1939, inspired by Buddhist Jataka traditions, she published Twenty Jataka Tales.
During the Second World War, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany, Noor’s family fled first to Bordeaux and then escaped by sea to Britain. In November 1940, Noor joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and later trained as a wireless operator. In June 1941, she was posted to a bomber training unit.
The British agent
The British government appointed Noor Inayat Khan as a Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent and sent her to France. In February 1943, she was posted to the Air Intelligence Directorate. Already trained in wireless operations, she surpassed other agents; her transmissions were swift and accurate. During the war, Noor became the ‘last remaining wireless agent’ linking France and England.
Memorial bust of Inayat Khan in Gordon Square Gardens, Bloomsbury, London. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Her job involved relaying information about Nazi sabotage plans and signalling where weapons were needed for resistance fighters. While spying against the Nazis, Noor was captured. She was brutally tortured and denied food, yet for 10 months she revealed nothing. This caused immense frustration to the Nazis. She attempted escape twice while in captivity. Considering her dangerous resilience, the Nazis executed her in 1944.
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For her courage, Noor was posthumously awarded the George Cross, Britain’s highest civilian honour for bravery. A memorial plaque was installed in 2020. Now, the French government too has commemorated her with a postage stamp.
“Tipu Sultan had no direct relation with Noor,” says Prof. P.V. Nanjaraje Urs, a Mysuru historian, speaking to The Federal Karnataka. “Some reports claim Noor was Tipu’s third-generation descendant, but the books I’ve studied do not mention this. Tipu’s wives lived in one place. During the Third Anglo-Mysore War, three of his five sons were handed over as hostages for 3.3 crore rupees. After Tipu’s death in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, there was great unrest in Srirangapatna. The British relocated Tipu’s family to Vellore in the Madras Presidency, and later to Kolkata,” he adds.
Films and documentaries
A 2019 film A Call to Spy is based on Noor’s story. Sarah Megan Thomas wrote the screenplay; Lydia Dean Pilcher directed it. Indian actor Radhika Apte portrayed Noor. In 2021, a live-action short film Liberté also focused on her story, depicting her SOE training and espionage in France; her brother Hidayat Inayat Khan composed the music.
In 2014, the third episode of the Indian anthology series Adrishya (Epic TV) featured Noor’s wartime intelligence career. In the Canadian network CTV and the American NBC, the six-hour factual miniseries A Man Called Intrepid depicted Noor, with David Niven as Sir William Stephenson and Barbara Hershey as Noor.
In 2014, PBS broadcast a 60-minute biographical documentary Enemy of the Reich: The Noor Inayat Khan Story, produced by Unity Productions Foundation (Alex Kronemer and Michael Wolfe), directed by Robert H. Gardner. In 2018, Netflix’s Churchill’s Secret Agents: The New Recruits (Season 1, Episode 4) featured her final SOE mission. On January 5, 2020, Aurora Marion played Noor in Doctor Who Season 12, Episode 2 (Spyfall – Part Two).
Noor Inayat Khan’s story closes a historical loop that stretches from the battlefields of Mysore to the resistance networks of wartime Europe. Tipu Sultan fought the British empire head-on; generations later, his descendant fought Hitler’s tyranny in the shadows, armed with a wireless set, unwavering resolve, and a vision of freedom that transcended nations.
(This piece first appeared in The Federal Karnataka)
