The Radio Princess

Radio may have its nobility whether it’s Tony ‘Your Royal Ruler’ Prince, Emperor Rosko or The Baron. But seventy years ago UK radio had the real thing, a broadcasting Princess whose career lasted thirty years but is now largely forgotten.

For many years Princess Indira Devi Kaur of Kapurthala reported to a worldwide audience on the proceedings in the House of Commons; at the time she was often the only woman in the Press Gallery. Later, during the 1950s and 60s, she would regularly provide a monthly commentary on the happenings at Westminster for the domestic audience of Woman’s Hour. 

Maharajkumari Indira Devi was born on 26 February 1912 to Maharaja Paramjit Singh and Maharani Brinda of Kapurthala in what was then known as East Punjab. It was not exactly an ordinary Indian upbringing. As a young girl she lived in a replica Palace of Versailles.  “My grandfather built it. He admired the French one so much that he had an exact replica made in Karpurthala. Grandfather was the last of the old-time Maharajahs.”

Despite this exotic upbringing Indira, perhaps fearing she would be forced into a loveless arranged marriage like that of her parents, ran away from home in 1935 and left for Britain, only her sisters Princesses Sushila and Ourmilla knowing of her plans. In London she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art with the notion of becoming a movie star. She did briefly work for Alexander Korda at London Films who had her in mind as the next Merle Oberon. That failed to go anywhere but she gained some useful experience as a film extra, modelling, at least two theatre productions and an appearance on pre-war television on an edition of Picture Page.

When World War II broke out Princess Indira initially did her bit by driving ambulances for St John’s Ambulance but soon joined the BBC, at first as an interpreter, “in the department that translates letters in peculiar tongues. It was terribly boring”. By 1941 as part of the Indian section of the Eastern Services based at 200 Oxford Street (where George Orwell also worked as a Talks Producer), she began to make her first broadcasts in Hindustani on the programme Hello Punja, a programme aimed at members of the British Indian Army based in the Middle East and the Med. She also made her first broadcasts on the Home Service on the subject of Indian culture.

The Radio Princess, as she soon became known, also started to broadcast in English (initially on the Eastern Services but post-war on the General Overseas Service) in a programme known as The Debate Continues. Starting in 1941 this was a weekly 15 minute report on news from the House of Commons for the BBC’s international audience and ran on the GOS until the 1950s (exact date unknown to me).

For the London Calling magazine in December 1953 Indira made this contribution to a feature on Stories Behind the Broadcast.    

Between 1954 and 1964 she would make regular reports for Woman’s Hour on the Light Programme in The Month in Parliament, later billed as Parliamentary Notebook, Parliamentary Diary or Impressions from Parliament.

By the mid-60s Indira had moved to Ibiza but she continued to record occasional contributions for Woman’s Hour on her life on the island until her last broadcast in 1967. Little is known of her life at this time other than that she ran a bar, quite a contrast to her upbringing in the Indian Versailles. Indira died on 1 September 1979.    

You can hear and see The Radio Princess in this 1941 film documentary 19 Metre Band