Who ?
If you saw the film Suffragettes, you ought to have seen her, but didn't. She was pretty much air-brushed out of Suffragette history, probably because she was Anglo-Indian. In fact she was at the heart of the movement, and one of Pankhurst's inner and most stalwart circle.
You can't read this book and remain unmoved by Sophia. She was, in all she did, passionate, principled, indomitable. Though she had status and did not have to worry about money, (even though the British had stolen her family's wealth including the Koh-i-Noor diamond), Sophia launched herself into causes. She was a born helper, and spent herself in serving others and pursuing causes.
The book is well written, and painstakingly researched. It is a triumphant first book by Anita Anand, and I hope she does more.
But a voice at the back of my head keeps telling me that the Suffragettes fought like lionesses for the wrong prize; if the vote was important, politicians would not allow voting at all.
What would Sophia have made of politics now ? She died in 1948, and I suspect that if she heard the braying in parliament today, and the toxic negative debate about the EU, she would be contemptuous.
I should come clean: I have never voted. Let's say that I had. At sixty five, I would have had a chance to vote for the government of my choice every five years or so. Parliaments have a fixed 5-year term now, but did not when I was younger. That would have given me chance to make 11 crosses on my ballot over my lifetime. Why on earth would anyone view that as useful political engagement ? Eleven crosses are not a lifetime's democracy.
Chomsky thought that our voting resulted in elected dictatorships. I feel sure he was right.
What I want, and what I think Sophia wanted, was real political participation, engagement that makes a difference, the kind of democracy the politicians fear most. She would not have been satisfied with a small bunch of crosses.
Sophia fought for the vote, but used her influence, her contacts, her money, her energies and her personality to make a difference. She rolled up her sleeves and got stuck in. She kept nothing back. She did not give a wet slap about what anyone thought about her.
No wonder she does not appear in the film.
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