Two women wrote two letters in 1947. Neither knew that their words would force India to confront a question it had never answered.

Harsimran Kaur and Renuka Mitra are two names lost to history. Yet, in ways that they could scarcely have imagined, they have shaped the history of the Indian Foreign Service. All they did was write a letter each.

Two Letters

On 31 January 1947, Harsimran Kaur dispatched a letter addressed to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, a British officer named Hugh Weightman. It received immediate attention in the ministry because Kaur was the daughter of the Prime Minister of Patiala State, Hardit Singh Malik. The Oxford-educated Malik had been the first Indian to receive a commission in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. After a successful but short career as a fighter pilot, he joined the Indian Civil Service and served as India’s Trade Commissioner to the United States and Canada from 1938–1943. In 1947, Malik was one of the only four Indian officials—others being G.S. Bajpai, K.P.S. Menon, and P.A. Menon—with an international exposure of some kind.