Book review; India Wins Freedom

Book Name; India Wins Freedom The complete version

Narrator; Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

Pages; 283

Published by; Orient Blackswan Private Limited

ISBN; 978 81 250 0514 8

Maulana Azad is a well known personality in the history of the Indian subcontinent. He was one of the longest serving Congress presidents. His work on literature and history is also remarkable. He was the first person to theorise that Cyrus the Great and the Quranic figure, Zulqarnayn were same. His literary works also contain poetry. Though his most well known quality was that he was a distinguished supporter of United India as a federal government.

The book was first published in 1959, it’s a part of three volume text that would never materialize because of Mualana’s passing away. In those two unpublished volumes he wanted to go into more detail about the events he had brushed over in the current version. But, as the fate would have it, we the history enthusiasts were robbed of those gems that would never materialize.

This complete version came out 30 years after Maulana’s death. He reasoned that the excluded material of almost 30 pages would be too harsh for some of his colleagues and information contained in those pages would not be well received by the people at the time.

The book was narrated by the Maulana to his friend in Urdu, and he made notes in English. So, in essence, it is a narrative. As the name of the book at first publication was ‘An autobiographical narrative’. However, the complete versions were sent to National library Calcutta and National Archives. It was only after thirty years of his death that the whole copy of the book would be made public.

In this book Azad tells us his experiences, mistakes and regrets of a period of almost ten years. The book starts off with a small detail about Maulana Azad himself, his family history, education, state of mind, his contact with the nationalist revolutionaries and his travels. But the actual start of this narrative is from the 1937 election.

Maulana Azad makes some very prophetic predictions in the book which would later take place. He tells in greatest detail about the events and news of the time, his comrades and his party. He goes on about this in the whole of the book. This is a must read for someone interested in the last decade of the British rule of India.

The book also sheds some light on very respectable personalities of that era. He is outright critical of Sardar Patel specifically and at times, points out his prejudice towards Muslims and other communities. The first objection that was raised was about chief ministries of Bihar and Bombay. Where he believes that people were shut down because of their backgrounds. He was very critical of Mr. Krishna Menon, he would’ve gone into detail about him in the next book had he not passed away.

There are a few places where Mualana mentions the "Khan brothers of NWFP”, his commentaries about his comrades from this side of the border are rather interesting. For someone from Pakistan it is something that is not taught in the schools. His views rang from friendly to critical, he points out their sincerity, but also he is vocal about the things he thought might be a somewhat defective.

His criticisms of Nehru and Gandhi have been never as extreme as that of Patel, at the final chapter he even blames him of negligence which led to Gandhi’s assassination. His views about Nehru are at times concealed in light hearted comments (though, that is to be expected as he was very close to him).

Throughout the book Azad points out many of his comrades and tells us about their dogmatic following of Mahatma Gandhi, though at times it felt like he himself was as devoted to the man as them, wherever he criticised Gandhi it was as though he was blaming someone else of misguiding him.

In the views of Azad, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was not the main creator of Pakistan, he thinks that the creation of Pakistan was the result of a chain of events that led to it. How Nehru’s comments spread mistrust in Muslim League when they had already accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan. Furthermore, he tells us how Patel became a supporter of partition after his personal issues with Liaqat Ali.

He is also of the view that Mountbatten was a supporter of partition because he wanted to make a name for himself in the history.

The book has a lot of great information and Maulana’s unique viewpoint on the issues of the time, but in some ways, as all the other autobiographical accounts it inflates his own personality above everyone else’s. But, that is to be expected from anyone, no matter how intellectually enlightened. At the end of the day he’s a human being. However, historians would know how discount for those.

It must be pointed out that Maulana Azad was as swift in his praise as he was in his criticism. He generously praises where praise is due. Even though he is very critical of Patel throughout the book, he said that maybe it would have been better if Patel was nominated as the next candidate for Congress Presidential elections.

The book is a great narrative, but it is in some ways incomplete as it was going to only one volume of bigger one. So, some events of importance are not discussed.

The first thing for a new reader to read should be the Appendix 1 as it tells us about the content that would not included in the first publication and the reason behind it.

In conclusion, it’s a gem of a book that everyone who is interested in the history of that time period should read.