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In 1932, she was again arrested and put in the Delhi jail
where she went on a hunger strike to
protest against the callous treatment of
political prisoners. Her demands were
Not to be republished
conceded, but she was transferred to
Ambala jail, where she was kept in solitary
confinement. After her release, she stayed
away from the movement for ten years.
©KTBS

Something Aruna Asaf Ali
significant happened
in 1942. She attended the Bombay
Congress Session along with her husband
during which the Quit India resolution
was passed on 8 August. The Committee
had planned the hoisting of the tricolour
at Gowalia Tank Maidan but the British
got wind of the plan and arrested the top

Asaf Ali leaders including Gandhiji a few hours
before the event. What followed is best
described in her own words.
“My husband and I were not in the least surprised, when
in the early hours of August 9th, the police knocked on the door
of the flat where we were staying. When they announced Asaf
Saheb’s arrest, I asked, “What about me”?
“There’s no warrant for you, ma’am”, I was told.
I persuaded the British sergeant who had come in a taxi with
a couple of policemen to let me accompany them to the railway
station to see off my husband. Dawn was about to break and
there was a cordon around Victoria Terminus to keep crowds at
bay. As I walked along the platform, I saw Maulana Azad sitting
at a window in a compartment of the special train and stopped to
talk to him. As Congress President, he was to unfurl the tricolour
at a public gathering at Gowalia Tank Maidan at 8 a.m. I made
up my mind on an impulse, “I am going there”.

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