Abandoned by her father as a child, she grew up on the uncertain mercies of the queen not knowing any world but the one of gay parties and high fashion of British high society. Her life changed when she came to India, and learnt, for the first time, the depths of British perfidy that had deprived her father of his kingdom and India of its freedom and self-respect. That disenchantment, shows former Anita Anand, BBC radio and TV presenter writing her debut novel, bred revolutionary sympathies in her with Indian nationalists and the women’s suffragettes, who demanded the vote for women.