Feminist stories from Blo Norton
My wife and I have been feminists all our adult lives and we’ve been involved in many feminist campaigns and organisations. We are both retired now and live in the small South Norfolk village of Blo Norton, but remain ardent supporters of Million Women Rise [MWR]. MWR is led by an international black women’s collective and we are proud to support their work campaigning to end all forms of male violence against women and girls.
The Blo Norton Sikh Connection
With this background, we were delighted to discover that Blo Norton is directly linked to Sophia Duleep Singh. In her book about Sophia, Anita Anand described her as Princess, suffragette and revolutionary. Sophia’s father was the Maharajah Duleep Singh, the last Sikh ruler of the Punjab. Duleep Singh was abducted by the British on 14 August 1847, when he was just nine years old. His mother was imprisoned and he was taken to England, leaving the British to plunder the wealth of the Punjab, which included the Khoinoor diamond!
Three Political Sisters
Sophia was one of five children, three girls and two boys. Sophia was born and brought up in England but after visiting India with her sisters, she became an advocate for Indian independence. She was also a passionate suffragette, best remembered for her leading role in the Women’s Tax Resistance League.
All the sisters were political. Bamba moved to Lahore, where she campaigned for Independence from the British. Catherine fell in love with her Governess and went to live with her in Germany. When World War 2 started, Catherine helped many German Jews escape from the Nazis.
Her eldest brother was Victor. Queen Victoria forbad him to have children as she feared the continuation of the royal Sikh line. Sophia’s younger brother, Frederick Duleep Singh, lived at Blo Norton Hall and is buried in the graveyard of St Andrew’s church there. He was the last remaining male lineal descendant of Ranjit Singh, the Lion of the Punjab.
Sophia and her sisters often visited Blo Norton. Frederick hated modernity and chose to live without electricity or a telephone, so he bought the sisters another house in Blo Norton where they stayed when visiting.
Would the Duleep Singh sisters have joined MWR?
We like to think that if Sophia was alive today, she and her sisters would be part of MWR and would join thousands of other women and girls, on 5 March 2022, to march through London to demand an end to all male violence against women and girls.
The MWR website states:
‘The MWR Movement is made up of thousands of women who are united by outrage at the continued daily, hourly, minute by minute, individualised and institutionalised male violence enacted against women worldwide.’
The March has been held in London every year since 2007 on the Saturday nearest to International Women’s Day (8 March). It’s an emotional and inspirational day and all women and girls are welcome to join.
This Year’s March (5 March 2022)
This year, it feels very important to make our voices heard as misogyny, racism, homophobia, harassment and violence against women and girls seem to be horrifyingly more prevalent (or possibly just more exposed) in wider society and inside the Police, the very institution charged with our protection.
So, this year the route of the march will highlight some of the shameful behaviour of police officers in the Met and elsewhere. The march will begin outside Charing Cross Police Station, where a group of officers are being investigated for sending deeply offensive racist and misogynist WhatsApp messages. It is particularly scandalous that this group has been known about since 2018, and yet two of the group have been promoted and none had been suspended until last week.
We will march past Downing Street to register our anger and rage at the lack of Government action to combat male violence against women and girls and the constant reduction of resources for organisations seeking to support victims and survivors.
We will continue down Whitehall, around Parliament Square, past the statue of Millicent Garrett Fawcett, herself born in Suffolk, and on to a rally at New Scotland Yard. Here, we will continue to protest against the Met’s appalling record in routing out the racism and misogyny within their own ranks.
Gross Misconduct in the Met
Two officers have been convicted of gross misconduct during the investigation of the murders of sisters Nicole Smallman and Biba Henry. Due to the persistence and dignified campaign of their mother, Mina Smallman, they are currently serving a jail term for their actions.
Despite the fact that a Met firearms officer was known to fellow officers as ‘The Rapist’, he managed to use the power of his warrant card to abduct and murder Sarah Everard.
Two serving and one former Met officer, who were in a WhatsApp group with Sarah Everard’s murderer, have been charged with sending grossly offensive racist and misogynist messages between April and August 2019.
We Will Raise Our Voices
As every year, we will raise our voices in solidarity with women and girls all over the world affected by male violence. We will raise our voices because, in the UK alone, as stated on the MWR website:
- Two women every week are murdered by their partner or ex-partner.
- One in four women will experience domestic violence [DV] in her life.
- DV has more repeat victims than any other crime.
- One incident of DV is reported to the police every minute.
- Only 5 percent of rapes reported to the police result in conviction.
The list of atrocities goes on. Please join the march if you are able. The route will be checked for accessibility and there will be accessible transport for anyone needing it. If you cannot join us on 5 March, check out the MWR website for other ways to support their work.
