Britain’s first Indian-origin woman magistrate dies
Friday, 22/11/2013
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=86868&boxid=57813&uid=&dat=2013-11-22
London: Britain’s first Indian-origin woman magistrate has died in the city of Coventry at the age of 84.
Chand Lal-Sarin had moved to the UK from Punjab in 1962 and made headlines in 1970 when she became a magistrate.
“My mother was very vivacious, she was full of life. She was a charmer, actually. She was a pillar of the community,” her daughter Renuka Kapoor told the Coventry Telegraph.
“My parents made great friends here, and so many people have come to pay their respects. They always said, ‘We are English first, Indian second’,” she added.
Born in Myanmar, Lal-Sarin is believed to be one of the last people to flee the country when the Japanese invaded in 1942 and escaped to India on foot.
Her husband Daman, now 90, set up his own dental practice on Broad Street in Coventry, which the city’s Indian community came to see as a centre for people who needed help.
“Most of my father’s patients were Indians who could not read or write. They came for help in buying a house, or things like that. My mother helped them, and that’s how she became Coventry’s first Indian social worker,” recalls Kapoor.
The late Lal-Sarin worked to set up refuges for women from the Asian community who were being abused or forced into marriage. She was also a police interpreter and gave talks at local clubs on India and integration.
