Aruna Asaf Ali

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Bharat Ratna
Aruna Asaf
Personal details
Born
Aruna Ganguly

(1909-07-16)16 July 1909
Kalka, Punjab, India
Died29 July 1996
(aged 87)
New Delhi, India
Nationality•  British India (1909-1947)
•  India (1947-1996)
Political partyCommunist Party of India
Other political
affiliations		Indian National Congress
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1928; died 1953)​
Parent
  • Upendranath Ganguli (father)
International Lenin Peace Prize
(1964)
Jawaharlal Nehru Prize (1991)
Padma Vibhushan (1992)
Bharat Ratna
(1997)

Aruna Asaf Ali (

Bombay during the Quit India Movement in 1942. Post-independence, she remained active in politics, becoming Delhi's first Mayor.[1]

Early life

Aruna Asaf Ali was born on 16 July 1909 in Kalka,

Dhirendranath Ganguly (DG) was one of the earliest film directors.[3] Another brother, Nagendranath, was a university professor who married Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore's only surviving daughter Mira Devi.[4] Aruna's sister Purnima Banerjee was a member of the Constituent Assembly of India
.

Aruna was educated at

Muslim and her senior by more than 20 years).[5]

My father was no more when Asaf and I married in September 1928. My paternal uncle Nagendranath Ganguly, a university professor who regarded himself as my guardian, said to relatives and friends that as far as he was concerned I was dead and he had performed my shraddh.[6]

Role of Aruna Asaf Ali in the Freedom Struggle

Contribution of Aruna In the Indian struggle for independence

Aruna Asaf Ali had a major role in the Indian Independence Movement. She became a member of

vagrant and hence not released in 1931 under the Gandhi–Irwin Pact which stipulated the release of all political prisoners. Other women co-prisoners refused to leave the premises unless she was released and gave in only after Mahatma Gandhi
intervened. A public agitation secured her release.

In 1932, she was held prisoner at the Tihar Jail where she protested the indifferent treatment of political prisoners by launching a hunger strike. Her efforts improved conditions in the Tihar Jaill but she was moved to Ambala and subjected to solitary confinement. She was politically not very active after her release, but at the end of 1942, she took part in the underground movement.

Rise to prominence during the Quit India movement

On 8 August 1942, the

Bombay session. The government responded by arresting the major leaders and all members of the Congress Working Committee and thus tried to pre-empt the movement from success. Young Aruna Asaf Ali presided over the remainder of the session on 9 August and hoisted the Congress flag at the Gowalia Tank Maidan. This marked the commencement of the movement. The police fired upon the assembly at the session. Aruna was dubbed the Queen of the 1942 movement for her bravery in the face of danger and was called Grand Old Lady of the Independence movement in her later years. Despite the absence of direct leadership, spontaneous protests and demonstrations were held all over the country, as an expression of the desire of India's youth to achieve independence.[citation needed
]

An arrest warrant was issued in her name but she went underground to evade the arrest and started an underground movement in the year 1942. Her property was seized and sold. In the meanwhile, she also edited Inquilab, a monthly magazine of the Congress Party, along with

rupees for her capture.[citation needed
]

She fell ill and was for a period hiding in Dr Joshi's Hospital in Karol Bagh in Delhi. Mahatma Gandhi sent her a hand-written note to her to come out of hiding and surrender herself – as her mission was accomplished and as she could utilize the reward amount for the

Harijan cause. However, she came out of hiding only after the warrant against her was withdrawn in 1946. She treasured the note from the Mahatma and it adorned her drawing room. However, she also faced criticism from Gandhi for her support of the Royal Indian Navy mutiny, a movement she saw as the single greatest unifying factor of Hindus and Muslims at a time that was the peak of the movement for Pakistan.[7]

Post-Independence, mayorship, and career in publishing

She was a member of the

Rajani Palme Dutt. Both of them joined the Communist Party of India in the early 1950s. On the personal front, she was bereaved when Asaf Ali died in 1953.[citation needed
]

In 1954, she helped form the National Federation of Indian Women, the women's wing of CPI but left the party in 1956 following Nikita Khrushchev's disowning of Stalin. In 1958, she was elected the first Mayor of Delhi. She was closely associated with social activists and secularists of her era like Krishna Menon, Vimla Kapoor, Guru Radha Kishan, Premsagar Gupta, Rajani Palme Joti, Sarla Sharma and Subhadra Joshi for social welfare and development in Delhi.[citation needed]

She and Narayanan started Link publishing house and published a daily newspaper, Patriot and a weekly, Link the same year. The publications became prestigious due to the patronage of leaders such as

Krishna Menon and Biju Patnaik. Later she moved out of the publishing house due to internal politics, stunned by greed taking over the creed of her comrades. Despite reservations about the emergency, she remained close to Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi
.

She died in New Delhi on 29 July 1996, aged 87.[8]

Legacy

Commemoration stamp, 1998

Aruna Asaf Ali was awarded

posthumously in 1997.[11] In 1998, a stamp commemorating her was issued. Aruna Asaf Ali Marg in New Delhi was named in her honour. All India Minorities Front
distributes the Dr Aruna Asaf Ali Sadbhawana Award annually.

References

  1. ^ "Remembering the fearless freedom fighter".
  2. ^ "Let's Remember The Forgotten Women Freedom Fighters - SheThePeople TV". Archived from the original on 11 January 2022. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
  3. ISBN 9788123727622
    .
  4. ISBN 0521-59018-3
    .
  5. ISBN 9788185107769
    .
  6. ISBN 9788171004621. Archived
    from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  7. ^ "Aruna Asaf Ali Biography".
  8. ^ Singh, Kuldip (31 July 1996). "Obituary: Aruna Asaf Ali". The Independent. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 21 August 2015.
  9. ^ "Lenin Peace Prize". The Item. 14 August 1965. Archived from the original on 5 December 2020. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
  10. ICCR website. Archived from the original
    on 5 July 2010. Retrieved 13 November 2010.
  11. ^ "Padma Awards Directory (1954–2007)" (PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 April 2009. Retrieved 7 December 2010. 
Aruna Asaf Ali by Inder Malhotra in The Guardian]
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