Aruna Asaf Ali

<!-- Image with questionable fair-use claim removed: -->Aruna Asaf Ali (Bengali: অরুণা আসফ আলী) (July 16, 1909, Kalka, Haryana—July 29, 1996) (born Aruna Ganguli), was an Indian independence activist. She is widely remembered for hoisting the Indian National Congress flag at the Gowalia Tank maidan in Bombay during the Quit India Movement, 1942.She was 87 years old at the time of her death.

Early life

Aruna Asaf Ali was born at Kalka, British Punjab, but it is now in the state of Haryana into a Bengali Brahmo family. She was educated at Lahore and Nainital. She graduated and worked as a teacher, She taught at the Gokhale Memorial School in Calcutta. She met Asaf Ali, a leader in the congress party at Allahabad and married him in 1928, despite parental opposition on grounds of religion (she was a Brahmo while he was a Muslim) and age (a difference of more than 20 years).

Freedom struggle: early days

She became an active member of Congress Party after marriage and participated in public processions during the Salt Satyagraha. She was arrested on the charge that she was a vagrant and hence not released in 1931 under the Gandhi-Irwin Pact which stipulated release of all political prisoners. Other women co-prisoners refused to leave the premises unless she was also released and gave in only after Mohandas K. Gandhi intervened. A public agitation secured her release.

In 1932, she was held prisoner at the Tihar Jail where she protested the...
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