A Long way from Hyderabad

A young Muslim woman, Muhammadi Begum, arrived on English shores from the princely state of Hyderabad in the early 1930s. Her sharp intelligence had won her a scholarship to attend Oxford University, making her one of just a few Indian Muslim women to receive the opportunity. A keen observer, she kept a diary which records a time when competing political configurations to improve lives had seized public imagination in Europe. Away from mainland Europe, in the colonies of the British Empire the movement for freedom had gathered momentum. A young Muslim woman, Muhammadi Begum, arrived on English shores from the princely state of Hyderabad in the early 1930s. Her sharp intelligence had won her a scholarship to attend Oxford University, making her one of just a few Indian Muslim women to receive the opportunity. A keen observer, she kept a diary which records a time when competing political configurations to improve lives had seized public imagination in Europe. Away from mainland Europe,