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{{Short description|Indian Girl Guide executive}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Sherene Rustomjee
| image = File:Sherene_Rustomjee_(1901-1967).png
| caption = Rustomjee from a 1958 newspaper
| other names =
| birth_name = Sherene Behramjee Rustomjee
| birth_date = Approx. 1901<ref>The National Archives in Washington, DC; London, England, UK; Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and Successors: Inwards Passenger Lists; Class: Bt26; Piece: 1316; Item: 137</ref>
| birth_place = Bombay, India
| death_date = 3 April 1967
| death_place = Ledbury, England
| education =
| occupation = Social worker
| family =Sir [[Hiraji Cursetji]] (uncle)
}}

'''Sherene Rustomjee''' (c.1901 - 3 April 1967) was an [[Scouting and Guiding in India|Indian Girl Guide]] executive and trainer. She worked for the [[Indian Red Cross Society]] Hospital Welfare Service in the 1940s, establishing its first training school in Bangalore. Through her friendship with German physiotherapist [[Erika Leuchtag]], Rustomjee played a small part in helping to plan the [[Tribhuvan of Nepal|King of Nepal's]] escape to India and consequently bringing about the end of the [[Rana dynasty]] in 1951.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/erika-and-king-tribhuvan |title=Erika and King Tribhuvan |author=Alisha Sijapati |website= nepalitimes.com |date= 2020-08-30 |access-date=2025-01-08}}</ref>

==Personal life==
Rustomjee was a Parsee. She was born and grew up in Bombay. She had a brother, Jamie (1904-1984).<ref>{{cite book |date=1940 |last= Hussain |first= Iqbalunnisa |title=Changing India: A Muslim Woman Speaks |publisher=Hosali Press |location=Bangalore, India |page=221}}</ref>

She was good friends with [[Erika Leuchtag]], the German physiotherapist who in 1949 travelled to Nepal to treat King [[Tribhuvan of Nepal]] and his first wife [[Queen Kanti of Nepal]], who were being held captive by Nepal's Prime Minister, [[Mohan Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana]].<ref>{{cite book |date=1958 |last= Leuchtag |first= Erika |title=Erika and the King |publisher=Coward-McCann |location=New York, USA |page=14}}</ref> By collecting and sending Leuchtag clippings from the Indian press that referenced the King, Nepal, the Rana dynasty and the Nepalese Congress party, Rustomjee contributed towards the plans to overthrow the Ranas, and ultimately return the King to the throne.<ref>{{cite book |date=1958 |last= Leuchtag |first= Erika |title=Erika and the King |publisher=Coward-McCann |location=New York, USA |page=212}}</ref>

Rustomjee moved from India to Gloucestershire, England in 1954. She looked after her elderly uncle, Sir [[Hiraji Cursetji]] from 1962 until his death in 1964.<ref>{{cite news |date=1964-07-27 |work=Bristol Evening Post |author= |title=Indian general is killed in West crash |url= https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004769/19640727/019/0019 |page=19 |location=Bristol, UK }}</ref> She died at Ledbury Cottage Hospital.<ref>Birmingham Archives; Birmingham, England; England and Wales Probate Calendar; Reference: 1967QR</ref>

==Girl Guides==
Rustomjee started her Guiding career as captain of 13th Bombay Rangers. She was Girl Guiding's district commissioner for Byculla, Bombay from 1927 to 1929. In 1932 she travelled to England with ten Indian Girl Guides to earn the "Girl Guide diploma". While there they attended a training camp at Albury Park, also attended by the Chief Guide, Lady Baden-Powell.<ref>{{cite news |date=1932-06-11 |work=The Surrey Advertiser |author= |title=Big Guiders' camp at Albury |url= https://www.newspapers.com/image/808955634/?match=1&terms=%22Miss%20Rustomjee%22 |page=9 |location=Surrey, England }}</ref> Upon Rustomjee's return to India she trained Guides, Rangers and their leaders in Bombay and Lahore.<ref>{{cite news |date=1943-01-06 |work=Civil and Military Gazette |author= |title=Girl Guide notes |url= https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003221/19430106/112/0006 |page=6 |location=Lahore, Pakistan }}</ref>

In 1935, in order to "refresh her training", she returned to England, where she attained the red cord diploma. This earned her a mention in [[Iqbalunnisa Hussain]]'s 1940 book "Changing India: A Muslim Woman Speaks".<ref>{{cite book |date=1940 |last= Hussain |first= Iqbalunnisa |title=Changing India: A Muslim Woman Speaks |publisher=Hosali Press |location=Bangalore, India |page=221}}</ref> She then travelled to [[Adelboden]] where she attended international training courses and the Girl Guides Round Table of Trainers.<ref>{{cite book |date=2017 |last=Alexander |first=Kristine |title=Guiding Modern Girls: Girlhood, Empire and Internationalism in 1920s and 1930s |publisher=UBC Press |location=Vancouver, Canada |page=241 |ISBN= 9780774835879}}</ref> Here she discussed the important role Guiding had played in India since its introduction to the country 20 years earlier: "In the early years of Guiding it was not possible to mix girls of different castes and religions; they could not cook together, not eat together. Today, I can safely say […] this attitude has changed; we have come to understand each other's point of view."<ref>{{cite news |date=1936-08-31 |work=Hong Kong Daily Press |author= |title=Girl Guides help in India |url= https://archive.org/details/NPDP19360831/page/1929/mode/2up?q=%22Miss+Rustomjee%22 |page=5 |location=Hong Kong }}</ref>

As a 'member for camping' she wrote an article entitled "Camping in 1935", which appeared in "The Indian Guide" magazine and also in "Matilda" magazine, its Australian counterpart.<ref>{{cite magazine |date=September 1935 |author=S B Rustomjee |title=Camping in 1935 |magazine=Matilda |location=Victoria, Australia |edition=Vol. XII No. 3 |publisher=Girl Guides Victoria |page=3}} </ref> In 1936, Rustomjee met the Chief Guide again, as she was on a tour of India.<ref>{{cite book |date=2017 |last=Alexander |first=Kristine |title=Guiding Modern Girls: Girlhood, Empire and Internationalism in 1920s and 1930s |publisher=UBC Press |location=Vancouver, Canada |page=175 |ISBN= 9780774835879}}</ref>

That same year, Rustomjee published an article entitled "Guiding Mutual Understanding" in [[World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts]] (WAGGGS) ''Council Fire'' magazine, which asked "the movement's self-congratulatory and mostly white imperial internationalists to rethink their assumptions about 'other' populations and parts of the world."<ref>{{cite book |date=2017 |last=Alexander |first=Kristine |title=Guiding Modern Girls: Girlhood, Empire and Internationalism in 1920s and 1930s |publisher=UBC Press |location=Vancouver, Canada |page=175 |ISBN= 9780774835879}}</ref> She would go on to become an Indian correspondent for ''Council Fire'' in the 1940s. She subsequently "gained the attention of the white leadership corps" of the WAGGGS in 1942, when her Guide companies took on the care of 161 Polish children, who had been displaced by the war in Europe. After WWII, WAGGGS appointed her to represent a number of newly independent Asian countries.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Stanhope |first=Sally K |date=2012-07-13 |title="White, black and dusky" Girl Guiding in Malaya, Nigeria, India and Australia from 1906 to 1960" |url=https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1059&context=history_theses |work= |degree=MA |location=Georgia, USA |publisher=Georgia State University |access-date=2025-01-20}}</ref> Rustomjee joined the All-India Girl Guides Association committee in 1950.<ref>{{cite book |date=1967 |last=Appadorai |first=A |title=India: Studies in Social and Political development 1947-1967 |publisher=Asia Publishing House |location=Bombay, India |page=63 }}</ref>

After permanently moving to the UK in 1954, she continued her involvement with Guiding, including holding the role of Gloucestershire Guides' extension secretary.<ref>{{cite news |date=1958-07-07 |work=Evening Post |author= |title=The Sports |url= https://www.newspapers.com/image/875182246/?match=1&terms=%22Miss%20Rustomjee%22 |page=19 |location=Gloucester, England }}</ref>

==Red Cross==
===Indian Red Cross welfare service===
In 1944 she became a staff officer for the newly-formed Indian Red Cross Hospital Welfare Service.<ref>{{cite magazine |date=June 1947 |author= |title=Kaisar-I-Hind medal |magazine=Weekly Gazette of India |location=New Delhi, India |publisher=Authority |page=542}} </ref> She was put in charge of its central training school at St Mary's Home in Bangalore, which trained people who would go on to provide welfare services overseas, including Indonesia, Iraq and Iran. She spent time in Burma and Singapore.<ref>{{cite book |date=1953 |last=Raina |first=B L |title=Official History Of The Indian Armed Forces In The Second World War - 1939-45 Medical Services Administration |publisher=Combined Inter Services Historical Section |location=Kanpur, India |page=468 }}</ref>

After the [[partition of India]] in 1947 she worked in camps for refugees from Pakistan.<ref>{{cite magazine |date=May 1967 |author=Freda Chadwick |title=Sherene Rustomjee |magazine=The Guider |location=London, UK |edition=Vol. 54 No. 5 |publisher=Girl Guides Association |page=161}} </ref> In the same year she received the [[Kaisar-i-Hind Medal|Kaisar-i-Hind medal]] for her service.<ref>{{cite news |date=1947-06-12 |work=Weekly Gazette of India |author= |title=Kaisar-i-Hind Medal |url= https://archive.org/details/in.gazette.csl_weekly.1947-06-12.O-2371-1947-0000-110307/page/n3/mode/2up?q=Rustomjee |page=543 |location=New Delhi, India }}</ref>

===British Red Cross===
After moving to the UK in 1954, Rustomjee worked for the Red Cross in Gloucestershire, where her role included running the picture library at [[Cashes Green]] Geriactric Hospital, Stroud.

==Awards and medals==
Rustomjee received the following awards, diplomas and medals:
*Medal of Merit (1927)<ref>{{cite magazine |date=May 1967 |author=Freda Chadwick |title=Sherene Rustomjee |magazine=The Guider |location=London, UK |edition=Vol. 54 No. 5 |publisher=Girl Guides Association |page=161}} </ref>
*Chief's Diploma (1937)
*Jubilee medal (1935)
*[[King George VI Coronation Medal]] (1937)
*[[Indian Independence Medal]] (1947)
*[[Kaisar-i-Hind Medal]] (1947) <ref>{{cite news |date=1947-06-12 |work=Weekly Gazette of India |author= |title=Kaisar-i-Hind Medal |url= https://archive.org/details/in.gazette.csl_weekly.1947-06-12.O-2371-1947-0000-110307/page/n3/mode/2up?q=Rustomjee |page=543 |location=New Delhi, India }}</ref>
*The [[Knights Hospitaller|Order of St John of Jerusalem]]
*[[Burma Star]]

==Further reading==
* Alexander, Kristine ''Guiding Modern Girls: Girlhood, Empire and Internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s'' (2017) Pub. UBC Press {{ISBN| 9780774835879}}

==References==
{{Portal|Biography|Scouting}}
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rustomjee, Sherene}}

[[Category:1901 births]]
[[Category:1967 deaths]]
[[Category:Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting]]
[[Category:Girlguiding officials]]
[[Category: Recipients of the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal]]

Sherene Rustomjee - Revision history

Roshni: Started first info added tags