Aruna Asaf Ali: Queen of the 1942 Movement

On 9 August 1942, the British had jailed every top Congress leader. One young woman walked onto a Bombay ground and raised the Congress flag.

She was Aruna Asaf Ali. The country later called her the Queen of the 1942 Movement.

1Who was Aruna Asaf Ali?

She was a teacher who married for love and paid a price.

• She was born on 16 July 1909 in Kalka, Punjab.
• Her family was Bengali Brahmin, with Brahmo roots.
• Her father, Upendranath Ganguly, owned a restaurant.
• Her mother, Ambalika Devi, was the daughter of the Brahmo leader Trailokyanath Sanyal.
• She studied at Sacred Heart Convent in Lahore.
• She then studied at All Saints’ College in Nainital.
• She taught at Gokhale Memorial School in Calcutta.
• She met the Congress leader Asaf Ali in Allahabad.
• They married in September 1928.
• He was a Muslim and more than twenty years older than she was.
• Her family opposed the match.
• Her uncle Nagendranath told people he had performed her funeral rites.
• Her sister Purnima Banerjee later sat in the Constituent Assembly.

2Why was she held in jail?

Her first arrest taught her how the system treated women prisoners.

• She joined the Congress after marrying Asaf Ali.
• She walked in public processions during the Salt Satyagraha.
• She was arrested at age 21.
• The charge was that she was a vagrant.
• So she was not freed in 1931 under the Gandhi–Irwin Pact.
• The pact required the release of all political prisoners.
• Her women co-prisoners refused to leave jail without her.
• They gave in only after Mahatma Gandhi stepped in.
• A public agitation then won her release.
• In 1932 she was held at Tihar Jail.
• She went on hunger strike over how political prisoners were treated.
• Conditions in Tihar improved.
• She was moved to Ambala and kept in solitary confinement.

3What happened on 9 August 1942?

She became the face of a movement with no leaders.

• On 8 August 1942 the All India Congress Committee passed the Quit India resolution.
• The session met in Bombay.
• The government arrested all members of the Congress Working Committee.
• It hoped to kill the movement before it began.
• On 9 August Aruna Asaf Ali presided over the rest of the session.
• She hoisted the Congress flag at Gowalia Tank Maidan.
• That act marked the start of the movement.
• Police fired on the crowd.
• She was called the Queen of the 1942 Movement for her courage.
• Later in life she was called the Grand Old Lady of the independence movement.
• Protests then broke out across the country without direct leadership.

4How did she live underground?

She hid for years but kept writing.

• The government issued a warrant for her arrest.
• She went underground to avoid it.
• Her property was seized and sold.
• She edited Inquilab, a monthly Congress magazine.
• Ram Manohar Lohia edited it with her.
• In 1944 she urged young people to stop arguing about violence and non-violence.
• She told them to join the revolution instead.
• The government offered a reward of ₹5,000 for her capture.
• She fell ill and hid for a time in Dr Joshi’s Hospital in Karol Bagh, Delhi.
• Gandhi sent her a note asking her to surrender.
• He said she could use the reward money for the Harijan cause.
• She came out only in 1946, when the warrant was withdrawn.
• Gandhi also criticised her for backing the Royal Indian Navy mutiny.

5What did she do after 1947?

She moved from the Congress to the left and then to public service.

• She belonged to the Congress Socialist Party.
• In 1948 she joined the new Socialist Party.
• She later joined the Communist Party of India in the early 1950s.
• Asaf Ali died in 1953.
• In 1954 she helped form the National Federation of Indian Women.
• She left the CPI in 1956, after Khrushchev disowned Stalin.
• In 1958 she became the first Mayor of Delhi.
• In December 1960 she joined a delegation urging action to free Goa.
• She and Edatata Narayanan started Link Publishing House.
• It launched the daily Patriot and the weekly Link.
• She also wrote a book called Ideas of a Nation.
• She died in New Delhi on 29 July 1996, aged 87.

6What are the exam traps?

Dates and honours are where marks are lost.

• The resolution was passed on 8 August, but the flag went up on 9 August.
• She won the International Lenin Peace Prize in 1964.
• She won the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1991.
• She received the Padma Vibhushan in 1992, in her lifetime.
• She received the Bharat Ratna in 1997, after her death.
• A stamp in her honour came out in 1998.
• She did join the Communist Party in the 1950s, but she left it in 1956.
• Read about the Quit India Movement.
• Read about Ram Manohar Lohia, her partner at Inquilab.
• Compare her with Hemu Kalani, a young Quit India martyr.