Summary
Co-chairman of the Conservative party, Baroness Warsi recalls her Pakistani-born father during her Yorkshire childhood telling her about the heroic martial deeds conducted by a thirteenth century Indian princess, Razia Sultana.
Descended from humble stock, the much mythologized Sultana ruled for less than four years in the 1230s, but has long been celebrated as the first female Indian Muslim leader. Sayeeda Warsi explains why she's fascinated by this character whose reign was abruptly brought to an end by the jealous rivalries of the male nobility around her who could not tolerate the fact that she had been chosen by her father above the heads of her brothers. We'll hear whether Sayeeda draws inspiration from Razia's model of bold leadership, and whether she finds parallels with her own experience of British politics today within the senior ranks of the Conservative Party.
Writer and expert on India, William Dalrymple sets the scene, explaining how and why Turkish Muslims had an empire that reached as far as the Himalayas, at a time when northern India was having to withstand the Mongol incursions of Genghis Khan.
Producer: Mark Smalley.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading this Great Lives podcast from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:05.0 | For more information and details of other podcasts, just visit BBC.co. |
| 0:09.0 | UK slash Radio 4. |
| 0:12.0 | Hello, today on Great Lives, we explore the legacy of a groundbreaking female leader, |
| 0:18.0 | a powerful woman operating in a man's world, |
| 0:21.0 | no wait for it, nearly 800 years ago. She's the choice of Baroness Varsi, |
| 0:27.0 | Saeeda Varsi, the co-chairman of the Conservative Party. |
| 0:30.3 | Baroness Varsi, whom have you chosen and in a nutshell why? |
| 0:35.0 | I've chosen Resia Sultana. |
| 0:38.0 | She was born around 12.05. |
| 0:42.0 | She ruled around Delhi in the Sultanate around Delhi. She was of |
| 0:47.7 | Turkish origin. She was Muslim by faith and she was an amazingly radical leader for her time and this was a woman |
| 0:57.8 | leading, including leading men into battle, 800 years before we had our own great female leader in the UK. |
| 1:06.8 | The facts as you described them are quite astonishing. |
| 1:10.6 | When did you first learn about her? Well, I grew up on lots of stories that dad told us about Islamic history, about the history of the Indian subcontinent. |
| 1:19.0 | Where did you grow up? |
| 1:21.0 | I grew up in West Yorkshire, in Dews yes. And dad would come back from the mills in the evening |
| 1:26.1 | We'd all sit down to dinner family dinner was always important. I was one of five girls. |
| 1:30.7 | We don't have any brothers and we grew up really in an environment where I think there was a sense, |
| 1:35.3 | and possibly my parents felt that they hadn't had their male child, their heir, and possibly |
| 1:40.8 | we grew up feeling that somehow we weren't good enough and I think mom and dad |
| 1:44.8 | compensated for that feeling within the community by telling us stories about |
... |
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