India Wins Freedom: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (RA)

A poignant narrative by Maulana Azad, India Wins Freedom is his take on the entire partition, his personal experiences, and his take on the concept of liberty and freedom.India Wins Freedom is an autobiographical narrative of the partition that occurred in 1947. It is marked by the direct, clear cut passages that narrate incidents that took place during the Indian Independence movement. Azad recounts, in his typically frank and forthright manner, the events that unfolded and ultimately led to the partition in a profound, yet deceptively simple manner. When India Wins Freedom was first published, it was sealed and confined at the National Library of Calcutta, with a copy placed at the National Archives in Delhi, for thirty years. In 1988, a court directive released the text, and made it accessible to the general public. The controversial and unique take on the entire freedom movement led to over thirty million copies of the book being sold worldwide. Azad discusses about how politics, more than religion, was responsible for the partition, and how India gained freedom but failed to utilize it to its maximum advantage. He writes about the predominant hypocrisy in the field of politics, and also mentions fellow contemporaries of his time like Gandhi, Nehru, and Subhash Chandra Bose and their mindsets during the entire movement.

Maulana Azad (RA) writes in his book that his political activism was inspired from a Hindu in his young age.

You are an idiot!

Mr. Jinnah and his followers did not seem to realize that geography was against them. Muslims in undivided India were distributed in a way which made it impossible to form a separate state in a consolidated area. The Muslim majority areas were on the north-west and the north-east. These two regions have no point of physical contact. People in these two areas arc completely different from one another in every respect, except only in religion. It is one of the greatest frauds on the people to suggest that religious affinity can unite areas which are geographically, economically, linguistically and culturally different. It is true that Islam sought to establish a society which transcends racial, linguistic, economic and political frontiers. History has however proved that after the first few decades, or at most after the first century, Islam was not able to unite all the Muslim countries into one State on the basis of Islam alone.

This was the position in the past and this is the position today.

The result was that I was attracted to revolutionary politics and joined one of the groups.

In those days the revolutionary groups were recruited exclusively from the Hindu middle classes. In fact all the revolutionary groups were then actively anti-Muslim. They saw that the British Government was using the Muslims against India's political
struggle and the Muslims were playing the Government's game. East Bengal had become a separate province and Banifield Fuller, who was then Lieutenant-Governor, openly said that the Government looked upon the Muslim community as its favorite
wife. The revolutionaries felt that the Muslims were an obstacle to the attainment of Indian freedom and must, like other obstacles, be removed.

One other factor was responsible for the revolutionaries' dislike of Muslims. The Government felt that the political awakening among the Hindus of Bengal was so great that no Hindu officer could be full trusted in dealing with these revolutionary activities. They therefore imported a number of Muslim officers from the United Provinces for the manning of the Intelligence Branch of the Police. The result was that the Hindus of Bengal began to feel that Muslims as such were against political freedom and against the Hindu community.

The result was that I was attracted to revolutionary politics and joined one of the groups.

In those days the revolutionary groups were recruited exclusively from the Hindu middle classes. In fact all the revolutionary groups were then actively anti-Muslim. They saw that the British Government was using the Muslims against India's political
struggle and the Muslims were playing the Government's game. East Bengal had become a separate province and Banifield Fuller, who was then Lieutenant-Governor, openly said that the Government looked upon the Muslim community as its favorite wife. The revolutionaries felt that the Muslims were an obstacle to the attainment of Indian freedom and must, like other obstacles, be removed.


One other factor was responsible for the revolutionaries' dislike of Muslims. The Government felt that the political awakening among the Hindus of Bengal was so great that no Hindu officer could be full trusted in dealing with these revolutionary activities. They therefore imported a number of Muslim officers from the United Provinces for the manning of the Intelligence Branch of the Police. The result was that the Hindus of Bengal began to feel that Muslims as such were against political freedom and against the Hindu community.

Since there was no revolutionary political activism present among muslims from Bengal, he was attracted by a Hindu......

Since there was no revolutionary political activism present among muslims from Bengal, he was attracted by a Hindu......


Maulana Azad (RA) does not say this anywhere in the book! He merely states that "Anti-Muslim" sentiments from the Hindus and then tries to explain reasons for it.