aruna asaf ali

I had the privlege of intimately knowing the legendary freedom fighter from Bengal, Aruna Asaf Ali. She was very close to our family because she and my father were colleagues. She was a close associate of Ajoy Ghosh,Dange, Jyoti Basu and other Communist leaders. She quit the Communist Party because she found it to be pedantic,academic and devoid of revolutionary fervour. She found the CPI leaders to be relying more on writings of Marx,Lenin,Stalin,Mao and Trotsky rather than making an independent assesment of the ground realities in India and trying to solve them in a practical manner. She found the comrades and their business associates living a life of luxury and comfort while mouthing revolutionary slogans.
She along with other left-leaning journalists set up two periodicals,Patriot, a newspaper and Link a journal in Delhi.. All her life she abhorred violence and injustice against the poor. Through her writings and Dr.A.V Baliga Trust she tried to bring the plight of millions of the poor and wretched of India to public notice.
She stood for strong Indo-Soviet friendship and strove tirelessly for that which earned her enormous respect in India and Russia.
She also served as Ambassador to the US for a brief period and was even the mayor of Delhi.She unsuccessfully contested parliamentary elections independently from W.Bengal.
She stood for decency,values,reconciliation,tolerance,right to dissent, consensus and unity in National politics. May her soul rest in peace!