It’s only natural that when we search for inspiration, we tend to look to those who are still alive and to whom we can see and relate to. But sometimes there is much we can learn from studying the lives of those who lived before us. In particular, studying the lives of women in the past can be a motivating reminder that if they could achieve all they did with far less freedom than we take for granted today, then we too continue to fight and achieve new heights for the women to come after us. 

So in that spirit, below are 10 incredible historical female British south Asian figures, to motivate and inspire you. Happy Women’s History Month!

Sophia Duleep Singh

Sophia Duleep Singh was a princess. Her father, Maharaja Duleep Singh was forced to abdicate the Sikh kingdom and exiled to the UK at 15. When Sophia came of age, she was given an apartment in Hampton Court Palace by her godmother, Queen Victoria. Although Singh first lived as a socialite, attending parties, breeding dogs and pursuing hobbies, following a trip to India where she saw abject poverty and realised the scale of the empire her family had lost to the British, she was a changed woman. 

Upon her return, Singh joined the Women’s Social and Political Union which included suffragettes like Emmeline Pankhurst. She became a leading member of the women’s right to vote movement, using her title and position to lead meetings, protest and sell newspapers on the streets and using her wealth to fund suffragette groups. During World War 1, she joined a 10,000-woman strong protest march against the prohibition of a volunteer female force and served as a British Red Cross nurse where she tended to the wounds of Indian soldiers in Britain. Fortunately, in her lifetime Singh saw the enactment of the Representation of the People Act, which allowed women over the age of 30 to vote and her later trips to India boosted the cause of female suffrage in the country.

Cornelia Sorabji

Sorabji is one of the first female south Asian barristers (although she was never actually called to the bar) and was also the first woman to sit the law exams after studying law at the University of Oxford. Yet it wasn’t an easy road to the university. Born in 1866 in India, after hearing the story of how an elderly lady had been swindled out of her land by her grandson, her mother advised her that if she really wanted to help women, she should study law. But despite being the first female graduate of Bombay University and meeting the entrance requirements of Oxford University, she was still denied a place. 

But Sorabji did not give up. Instead, she wrote to a number of prominent organisations requesting help and received a tremendous positive response from British dignitaries including Florence Nightingale, who petitioned to allow her to attend. Upon graduating however she found that few firms were willing to hire a female lawyer and so instead, she campaigned to become a legal adviser for vulnerable women, in particular the purdahnashins, or women who were forbidden to communicate with the outside male world. Sorabji also wrote a number of books, two of which were autobiographies and ultimately helped over 600 women and orphans fight their cases. 

Indira Devi

Indira Devi was born Maharajkumari Indira Devi; a princess. She came to the UK in 1935, with dreams of being an actor and even studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), in London. But difficulties with the movie industry meant that although she had narrated a few films, she never got her big break and following the outbreak of the Second World War, she chose instead to pass the St John Ambulance exam and drove motor ambulances during air raids.

In 1942, she joined the BBC Indian Section of the Eastern Service, a radio show whose aim it was to provide a window into Britain through eastern eyes by employing Indian broadcasters living in Britain. The show included current affairs, reviews, round-table discussions, poetry readings, plays, music and messages from Indians living in the UK as well as Indian soldiers stationed here. When the show first began, the programmes were organised by George Orwell, who was very impressed with Devi. In fact, she was so good at broadcasting, that she became known as the ‘Radio Princess’, even doing a program called 'The Debate continues’; a weekly report on the proceedings in the House of Commons, where she was the only woman in the Press Gallery.

Noor Inayat Khan

Born in 1914, Khan served as a British spy during World War II and was the first female wireless operator to be sent from the UK into occupied France to aid the French Resistance during the war. Khan was a gifted individual. She studied child psychology, learnt to play and compose music for the harp and the piano and enjoyed a career writing poetry and children’s stories before she joined the war effort. As a wireless operator, it was Khan’s job to work a radio transmitter to pick up enemy messages but there was a double agent in the team which she was deployed with and soon after arriving in France, many were killed. Yet despite great risk to herself, Khan stayed, moving between safe houses and transmitting messages back to London. 

However the Gestapo were on her trail and a day before she was due to return, she was arrested. Despite hours of torture, Khan revealed nothing and even attempted escape twice. But on 11 September 1944, she was taken to a concentration camp and shot dead. Posthumously, Khan was awarded the George Cross, the second highest award in the United Kingdom honours system "for acts of the greatest heroism in circumstance of extreme danger” and last year was honoured with a blue plaque at her wartime London home - the first Indian-origin woman to receive one.

Karpal Kaur Sandhu

Karpal Kaur Sandhu was the world’s first female Asian police officer. She served in the Metropolitan Police Service from 1971 to 1973. Born in Zanzibar in 1943, she moved to the UK in 1962 after getting a job as a nurse but her dream was to become a police officer. However, rising racial violence, racial discrimination and police brutality against the south Asian community meant that Sandhu faced strong opposition from her family and the wider community for her desire to join the police force. Yet Sandhu persevered and served first in Hornsey, then in Walthamstow and Leyton. 

Sandhu proved invaluable, not only performing regular duties like assisting in criminal investigations and patrolling the streets, but also interpreting, helping police deal with the immigrant population and teaching police officers Asian dialects. Having finished her duty, she was attacked outside her home. Recalling herself to duty to confront her attacker, she was stabbed and fatally wounded. Although Sandhu’s life was tragically cut short, she continues to serve as inspiration for the hundreds of female south Asian police officers now working in the UK.