|
|
| Maulana
Abul Kalam Azhad |
|
|
|
|
Maulana
Abul Kalam Azad was born in the year 1888 in Mecca. His forefather's
came from Herat (a city in Afghanistan) in Babar's days. Azad
was a descendent of a lineage of learned Muslim scholars,
or maulanas. His father's name was Maulana Khairuddin and
his mother was the daughter of Sheikh Mohammad Zaher Watri.
In 1890, Azad's father moved to Calcutta. Educated according
to the traditional curriculum, Azad learned Arabic and Persian
first and then philosophy, geometry, mathematics and algebra.
He was taught at home, first by his father, later by appointed
teachers who were eminent in their respective fields. Seeing
that English was fast becoming the international language,
Azad taught himself to read, write and speak the language.
He adopted the pen name "Azad" to signify his freedom
from traditional Muslim ways. Azad was introduced to the freedom
struggle by revolutionary Shri Shyam Sunder Chakravarthy.
Most revolutionaries in Bengal were Hindus. Azad greatly surprised
his fellow Hindu revolutionaries with his willingness to join
the freedom struggle. |
|
At
first his peers were skeptical of his intentions. Azad found
the revolutionary activities restricted to Bengal and Bihar.
Within two years, Azad helped setup secret revolutionary
centers all over north India and Bombay.
Most
revolutionaries were anti-Muslim because they felt that
the British Government was using the Muslim community against
India's freedom struggle. Azad tried to convince his colleagues
that indifference and hostility toward the Muslims would
only make the path to freedom more difficult.
Azad began publication of a journal called Al Hilal (the
Crescent) in June 1912 to increase revolutionary recruits
amongst the Muslims. The Al Hilal reached a circulation
of 26,000 in two years. The British Government used the
Press Act and then the Defense of India Regulations Act
in 1916 to shut the journal down.
|
|
Azad
roused the Muslim community through the Khilafat Movement.
The aim of the movement was to re-instate the Khalifa as
the head of British captured Turkey.
Azad
supported Gandhiji's non-cooperation movement and joined
the Indian National Congress (I.N.C) in January 1920. He
presided over the special session of Congress in September
1923 and is said to be at the age of 35, the youngest man
elected as the President of the Congress.
Azad was arrested in 1930 for violation of the salt laws
as part of Gandhhiji's Salt Satyagraha. He was put in Meerut
jail for a year and a half
|
|
|
Azad was the staunchest opponent of partition of India into
India and Pakistan. He supported a confederation of autonomous
provinces with their own constitutions but common defense
and economy, an arrangement suggested in the British Cabinet
Mission Plan of May 1946. According to Azad partition was
against the grain of the Indian culture which did not believe
in "divorce before marriage." Partition shattered
his dream of an unified nation where the Hindu and Muslim
faiths would learn to co-exist in harmony.
Maulana
Azad served as the Minister of Education in Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru's cabinet from 1947 to 1958. He died in August 1958.
Azad was honored with the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1992.
|
|
|
|
|