Abul Kalam Azad

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Abul Kalam Ghulam Muhiyuddin , called Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (born November 11, 1888 in Mecca , Vilayet Hejaz , Ottoman Empire , † February 22, 1958 ) was an Indian writer, freedom fighter and minister . in the independence movement of India. As leader of the Indian Congress Party , he represented the interests of the Urdu-speaking Muslim population. After independence he was minister of education.

Maulana Azad with his typical hat, Patel and Gandhi 1940

Life

youth

Born as Firuz Bakht into a family of Persian scholars from Herat , Azad was born in Mecca, where his father Maulana Khairuddin, dissatisfied with the situation in India, wanted to travel as early as 1855. However, he and his family were held in Bhopal by the Nawab until after the uprising in 1857 , only to then flee. Azad's mother was a daughter of Sheikh Mohammed Zaher Watri († 1891). The family returned to Calcutta when the boy was two years old after the well-traveled father, who was learned in the classical Islamic sense , had visited Bombay and Bengal several times . His school education, with a focus on classical Persian and Arabic as well as Islamic theology , he received from his father and private tutors until he was 16. Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's writings convinced him of the need to acquire modern knowledge, including studying the Bible , which he read in several languages ​​in order to acquire language skills, first and foremost Urdu. About 20 years old he took the pseudonym Azad ("freedom") as a name.

Politically he became active as part of the agitation regarding the partition of Bengal in 1905 , with the writings of Aurobindo Ghose particularly influencing him . He got into the circles around the revolutionary Shyam Sunder Chakravarty . He spent the next two years building revolutionary cells across northern India.

Soon afterwards he toured extensively Iraq, Ottoman Turkey with Egypt and France. In Cairo, as claimed in the biography of Mahadev Desai, he never studied at al-Azhar University , the methods of which he considered too old-fashioned. At that time he was in contact with the Young Turks movement . Due to the poor health of his father, he did not travel to London as planned, but returned to Calcutta.

1912-1935

In June 1912, at the age of 24, he began to publish the Islamist and anti-British weekly Al Hilal in high-quality design, which was promptly banned under the provisions of the Press Act after the outbreak of war in 1914 . At that time the sheet had a circulation of 26,000 copies. From November 1915 on, he also published Al Balagh in Calcutta , which was discontinued when the British sent him into internal exile in Bihar in March 1916 . He was then interned in Ranchi until January 1, 1920 . Soon afterwards he met Gandhi for the first time in Delhi . At this time he became active in the caliphate campaign , as the ideologue of which he was considered.

On the one hand, he was interested in the politics of non-violence and non-cooperation , on the other hand, he was moved by thoughts of jihad that would have to be preceded by an exodus to a Muslim country. A preliminary text that asked willing people to contact him was a “hijrat ka fatwa ” (legal opinion in favor of emigration), which was printed in Amritsar on July 30, 1920 by the daily Ahl-e-Hadith . But it caused the immediate departure of a good 18,000 people from Sindh and the Northwest Province . Many of them were killed when they entered Kabul through the territory of hostile tribal people and were ultimately turned back by the Afghan authorities.

Upon his release, Azad was elected President of the All India Khilafat Committee . During his agitation for Gandhi's Satyagraha in Bengal in 1921 , like almost all party leaders, he was arrested and sentenced to one year in prison. He was released from Alipur Central Prison on January 1, 1923. At the special congress party conference in September 1923, he was elected the youngest president of the party to date.

In 1928 he was chairman of the Nationalist Muslims Conference. As part of the salt march , he was again imprisoned in Meerut , this time for 1½ years. Soon after Gandhi's return from the failed negotiations in London and his arrest under the administration of the new viceroy Lord Willingdon , Azad was again arrested in Delhi for a little over a year (p 13).

1935-1945

When the essentially secular Congress Party was involved in six provincial governments for the first time after the reforms of the Government of India Act 1935 , Azad sat on a central steering committee that coordinated party politics. He was personally disappointed that Syed Mahmud prevented him from becoming Chief Minister of Bihar. As a nationalist anti-imperialist, he also acted against communalist tendencies, i. H. the separation of Hindus and Muslims. As a result, he exposed himself to hostility from radical members of the Muslim League . He never considered the role of Sardar Patel to be consistent with the interests of the party. Like many other congress leaders, he saw the principle of nonviolence propagated by Gandhi as a useful policy. This was also shown by the fact that, unlike Gandhi, he considered India's entry into the war to be sensible - but only if India had been given full independence beforehand. In 1940 he was again party president until 1946. After the party congress made its proposals a guideline, he was arrested again in the summer, like the entire party executive committee later. Initially, he received a two-year prison sentence, but was released early in December 1941. Soon afterwards, in the spring of 1942, he was involved in the unsuccessful negotiations with the Cripps mission.

When the "Quit India" movement was proclaimed, they were arrested again on August 9, 1942. Together with the rest of the party leadership , he was held in isolation in the Ahmednagar Fort under military control. His wife, who had been ailing since 1941, died in early 1944, and his sister died three months later. At the end of the year he was transferred to Bankura , where, physically weak, he was released by the British at the end of May 1945.

independence

Azad resumed his duties within the leadership of the re-admitted Congress. On behalf of the party, he led the negotiations at the Shimla Conference (June 25 - July 14, 1945) and in 1946 with the British Cabinet Mission, which was to finally initiate the independence of India. Azad was a staunch opponent of the partition of India and made Mountbatten directly responsible for it.

Minister of Education

In the first free Indian government, he became Minister of Education. When Krishna Menon , whom he despised for his actions as high commissioner, was about to be accepted into the cabinet in 1954 , he prevented this by offering to resign. Despite health problems, he held the post until February 2, 1958, shortly after his death on February 22, 1958 at the age of almost 70.

Abul Kalam Azad's tomb

Aftermath

His birthday, November 11th, is celebrated every year by the Indian government as Education Day . The Maulana Azad National Urdu University was established in 1988 in Hyderabad established. The Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Arabic Persian Research Institute exists in Tonk . In 1992 he was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna award .

Works

In Urdu

Azad published in Urdu:

  • Al-Bayan (1915)
  • Tarjuman-ul-Quran (1933-6; English: Basic concepts of the Quran, 1958-)
  • Tazkirah (1916, autobiographical)
  • Ghubar-i-Khatir (1943, letters)

Autobiography

The autobiography of Azad, which contained no private information and begins with the events of 1935, was written in English by Humayun Kabir (1906–69, professor and after 1957 several ministers at the federal level). The version authorized by Azad, which was to appear on the occasion of his 70th birthday, was shortened. Certain details, more than 30 manuscript pages, should not be published until his 100th birthday. The missing parts were only given to the publisher Longmans after a decision by the Indian Supreme Court on September 29, 1988.

  • Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad; India Wins Freedom: the complete version; Hyderabad et al. a. 1988; ISBN 0-86131-914-1 (abridged version: Bombay 1959)

Talk

A collection of his speeches from 1947 to 1955 was published in Delhi in 1956 under the title Speeches of Maulana Azad .

literature

  • Meherally, Yusuf (* 1906): Leaders of India . Bombay [1942] -46.
  • Padmasha Jha: Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad and the nation . New Delhi 1998; ISBN 81-85891-28-1 .
  • Zaidi, AM (Ed.): The Muslim school of Congress: the political ideas of Muslim Congress leaders from Mr. Badruddin Tayyabji to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad 1885-1947 . New Delhi, 1987.

Web links

Commons : Maulana Abul Kalam Azad  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Maulana is an Islamic title or a respectful address to a scholar, something like "our Lord / Master"
  2. ↑ http://www.bharatadesam.com/people/biographies/freedom_fighters/maulana_abul_kalam_azad.php
  3. ↑ a b c Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad; India Wins Freedom: the complete version; Hyderabad et al. a. 1988; ISBN 0-86131-914-1 ; "Prospectus"
  4. ↑ Address: Bengal Provincial Khilafat Conference, February 28th, 1920
  5. ^ Jacob M. Landau : The Politics of Pan-Islam. Ideology and Organization , Oxford 1994, p. 206
  6. ^ Ian H. Douglas: Abul Kalam Azad. An Intellectual an Religious Biography , Oxford University Press, Delhi et al. 1988, p. 173
  7. ↑ Chandra, Bipan; India's Struggle for Independence; New Delhi 1988; Pp. 323, 425, 436
  8. ↑ a b India Wins Freedom (1988), p. 252
  9. ↑ Sarkar Sumit; Modern India: 1885-1947; New Delhi 1983, ISBN 0-333-90425-7 ; Pp. 415-7
  10. ↑ cf. Gupta, SN; History of the national movement: including controversy on thirty pages of Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad; Agra, India 1989; ISBN 81-85070-15-6
  11. ↑ digitized version
personal data
SURNAME Azad, Abul Kalam
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Firuz Bakht (maiden name); Azad, Maulana Abul Kalam; Abul Kalam Ghulam Muhiyuddin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian writer and freedom fighter
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Mecca , Vilayet Hejaz , Ottoman Empire
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 1958