Table Of ContentMAULANA ABUL KALAM AZAD (1888–1958) was named Firoz Bakht at birth but was
known in his youth as Muhiyuddin Ahmad and later adopted the pseudonym of ‘Abul Kalam
Azad’. He descended from a family which came from Herat to India in Babar's time and among
his ancestors were well-known scholars and administrators. Two years aer his birth in 1888 in
Mecca where his father Maulana Khairuddin had migrated aer the 1857 Revolt, the family
moved and settled in Calcutta. Azad was educated at home by his father and private tutors. His
political awakening was stimulated by the partition (later annulled) of Bengal in 1905. He
travelled extensively in Iraq, Egypt, Turkey and France and had planned to visit London but his
father's illness obliged him to return home in 1908.
Maulana Azad started the Urdu weekly Al Hilal at Calcutta in July 1912. He opposed the Aligarh
line of remaining aloof from the freedom movement. With the outbreak of war in Europe in
1914, the journal was banned under the Press Act. He then started another Urdu weekly Al
Balagh, also from Calcutta, in November 1915, and this continued to be published until March
1916 when Azad was externed under the Defence of India Regulations. e governments of
Bombay, Punjab, Delhi and the United Provinces banned his entry, and he went to Bihar. He was
interned in Ranchi until 1 January 1920.
Aer his release Azad was elected President of the All India Khilafat Committee (at the Calcutta
session, 1920), and of the Unity Conference at Delhi in 1924. He presided over the Nationalist
Muslims Conference in 1928. He was elected President of the Indian National Congress in 1923,
and again in 1940, and continued to hold this office until 1946. He led the negotiations on behalf
of the Congress Party with the British Cabinet Mission in 1946. Later he joined free India's first
government as Minister for Education, a post he held until his death on 22 February 1958.
Among his other published works are Al-Bayan (1915) and Tarjuman-ul-Quran (1933–1936),
which are commentaries, Tazkirah (1916), an autobiographical work and Ghubar-i-Khatir (1943),
a collection of letters, all in Urdu.
HUMAYUN KABIR (1906–1969): Aer a distinguished academic Career at the Calcutta and
Oxford Universities, he served as lecturer first at the Andhra University sit Waltair and then at
calcutta University, 1933–45. In 1937, he was elected to the Bengal Legislative Council as leader
of the Peasants Parry. In 1946 Azad selected him to serve as his secretary and he was therefore
closely associated with Azad. He served as Educational Advisor to the Government of India until
1956 when he resigned and was elected to Parliament as a member of the Congress Party in
1957. He was appointed Minister for Civil Aviation (1957–58), for Scientific Research and
Cultural Affairs (1958–63), and for Petroleum and Chemicals (1963–68). e author of more
than twenty books in English and Bangla on philosophy, literature, politics and culture, he also
published two novels and three volumes of verse.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
India Wins Freedom
the complete version
INDIA WINS FREEDOM
ORIENT BLACKSWAN PRIVATE LIMITED
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© Orient Blackswan Private Limited 1959
e text has been adapted from the original published by
Orient Blackswan in 1988
Reprinted 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003,
2004(twice), 2005, 2006, 2007.
eISBN 978 81 250 4482 6
e-edition:First Published 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of
brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other
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write to the publisher.
for
Jawaharlal Nehru
friend and comrade
Publishers' Note
When the manuscript of India Wins Freedom was handed over to us for
publication by the late Professor Humayun Kabir in September 1958, seven
months aer Maulana Azad's sudden death, we were informed that a fuller
version containing additional material of about thirty pages would be made
available to us for publication on 22 February 1988, the thirtieth death
anniversary of Maulana Azad.
However, when the time came, the handing over of the complete text got
delayed because of various issues raised by persons claiming an interest in
the matter. ese issues were heard by the Calcutta High Court, the Delhi
High Court and the Supreme Court, before Justice B.N. Kirpalof the Delhi
High Court directed on 29 September 1988 that a copy each of the text
deposited in the National Library, Calcutta, and in the National Archives,
New Delhi, be handed over to Orient Longman on 29 September 1988. e
court further directed that the material should be reproduced without any
alteration, aer comparing the copies to ensure that they were identical. is
has been done.
On examining the material, it became apparent that the additional matter
was not just an extra thirty pages as generally believed but was to be found
scattered throughout the text. Also, apart from phrases, sentence sequences
and series of passages le out of the published text, the original text had
been modified at many places by Professor Kabir's editorial intervention (see
his note in Appendix 1).
e present edition now gives the full text as found in the copies released
to us. Major additions to the earlier version are indicated by asterisks at the
beginning and at the end. e 'Prospectus of the First Volume' as published
in the first edition has been retained. e appendixes included in that
edition have also been reproduced.
October 1988.
Contents
Chapter
Prefacetothe1959edition
Prospectus
1 Congress in Office
2 War in Europe
3 I Become Congress President
4 A Chinese Interlude
5 e Cripps Mission
6 Uneasy Interval
7 Quit India
8 Ahmednagar Fort Jail
9 e Simla Conference
10 General Elections
11 e British Cabinet Mission
12 e Prelude to Partition
13 e Interim Government
14 e Mountbatten Mission
15 e End of a Dream
16 Divided India
Epilogue
Appendixes
Preface to the 1959 Edition
When a little over two years ago I approached Maulana Azad with the
request that he should write his autobiography, I never for a moment
thought that it would be my melancholy duty to write a preface for the
volume. He did not like to talk about his personal life and was at first
reluctant to undertake the work. It was with great difficulty that he could be
persuaded that, as one of the principal actors in the transfer of power from
British to Indian hands, he owed a duty to posterity to record his reading of
those memorable times. His reluctance was also partly due to his shattered
health. He felt that he needed all his energies to cope with the burden of
work imposed on him by inescapable political and administrative tasks. He
finally agreed on my assuring him that I would do my best to relieve him of
the actual burden of writing. is would of course mean that the Indian
people would be denied the privilege of reading his autobiography in his
own words. Indian literature in general and Urdu in particular would be the
poorer for this, but even a version in English written under his direction
would be better than no record at all.
I think it necessary to describe in some detail how the work has been
composed. During these last two years or so, I spent on an average an hour
or more every evening with Maulana Azad, except on those occasions when
I had to go out of Delhi. He was a wonderful conversationalist and used to
describe his experiences in vivid terms. I made fairly copious notes and also
asked questions for clarification of a point or elicitation of further
information. He consistently refused to speak on personal matters, but on all
questions relating to public affairs, he spoke with the utmost frankness and
sincerity. When I had collected sufficient material for a chapter, I prepared a
dra in English which I handed over to him at the earliest opportunity. He
read each chapter by himself and then we went over it together. At this stage,
he made many amendments by addition and alteration, as well as by
omission. We proceeded in this way till I was able to give him the first dra
of the completed book in September 1957.
When he had the completed text in his hands, Maulana Azad decided that
some thirty pages of the text dealing with incidents and reflections mainly of
a personal character should not be published for the present. He directed
that a copy each of the complete text should be deposited under sealed cover
in the National Library, Calcutta, and the National Archives, New Delhi. He
was, however, anxious that the exclusion of these passages should not in any
way alter either the outline of his picture or his general findings. I carried
out the changes according to his instructions and was able to present to
Maulana Azad the revised and abridged dra towards the end of November
1957.
He went through it once again during the period when I was away in
Australia. Aer my return we went through the manuscript chapter by
chapter and indeed sentence by sentence. He made some minor alterations,
but there was no major change. In some cases, a chapter was thus revised
three or four times. On Republic Day this year, Maulana Azad said that he
was satisfied with the manuscript and it could now be sent to the printers.
e book as now released represents the text as finally approved by him.
It was Maulana Azad's wish that the book should appear in November 1958
to synchronise with his seventieth birthday. Fate however willed otherwise
and he will not be with us to see the book when it appears.
As I have already stated, Maulana Azad was not in the beginning very
willing to undertake the preparation-of this book. As the book progressed
his interest grew. In the last six months or so, he rarely missed an evening for
the preparation of the manuscript. He was extremely reticent about his
personal life, but in the end he volunteered to write a first volume which
would have covered the earlier phases of his life and brought the story up to
1937. He did in fact approve a synopsis which, according to his own wishes,
is included in this volume as its first chapter. He had also intended to write a
third volume to deal with events since 1948. Unfortunately for us, these
volumes will now never be written.
e work in connection with this book has been for me a labour of love
and I shall feel happy if it helps in forwarding an object that was very dear to
