Her Role in The Freedom Struggle

Early association with Indian Independence Movement

Aruna Asaf Ali played a significant part in the Indian Independence Movement. After getting married to Asaf Ali, she joined the Indian National Congress and took part in the Salt Satyagraha's public processions. She was detained on the accusation that she was a vagabond and consequently not released in 1931 under the Gandhi–Irwin Pact which guaranteed liberation of all political prisoners. When Mahatma Gandhi intervened, her fellow female prisoners who had initially refused to leave the facility unless she was also released gave in. A public uproar led to her release.

She was imprisoned at the Tihar Jail in 1932, where she went on a hunger strike to protest the indifference shown to political prisoners. Although her efforts led to an improvement in the Tihar Jail's circumstances, she was transferred to Ambala and forced to endure solitary imprisonment. After being freed, she didn't engage in much political activity, but towards the tail end of 1942, she joined the underground movement, she participated actively. 

Rise to Prominence during the Quit India Movement

The Quit India resolution was adopted by the All India Congress Committee at the Bombay session on August 8, 1942. The government's response was to detain all of the Congress Working Committee members and prominent leaders in an effort to thwart the movement's success. The Congress flag was raised at the Gowalia Tank Maidan on August 9 by the young Aruna Asaf Ali, who also presided over the remainder of the session. The movement officially began at this point. At the session, the cops opened fire on the crowd. Due to her courage in the face of peril, Aruna was termed the Heroine of the 1942 campaign and, in her later years, the Grand Old Lady of the Independence struggle. India's youth expressed their desire for independence through unannounced protests and demonstrations that took place across the nation despite the lack of clear leadership.

She had an arrest warrant issued for her, but instead of surrendering, she fled and began an underground movement in 1942. Her belongings were taken and sold. In the meantime, she co-edited Inquilab with Ram Manohar Lohia, a monthly magazine of the Congress Party. She urged the youth to join the revolution instead of engaging in pointless debates about violence and non-violence in a 1944 issue as she urged them to take action. The phrase "the Political children of Gandhi but recent students of Karl Marx" was used to describe leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan and Aruna Asaf Ali. For her capture, the government offered a reward of 5,000 rupees. She became ill and spent some time hiding in Dr. Joshi's Hospital in Delhi's Karol Bagh. She received a handwritten note from Mahatma Gandhi asking her to come out of hiding and give herself up because her job had been completed and she could use the reward money to further the cause of the Harijans. She didn't come out of hiding, nevertheless, until the 1946 withdrawal of the arrest warrant. She displayed the Mahatma's note in her drawing room, which she loved. Gandhi, who was in the height of the drive for Pakistan at the time, criticised her for her support of the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny, which she considered as the single most important movement uniting Muslims and Hindus.

Post-Independence, Mayor-ship, and Career in Publishing

She belonged to the Congress Socialist Party, a caucus of Congress Party members who had socialist sympathies. In 1948, she joined the Socialist Party after becoming disenchanted with the Congress Party's socialist agenda. But she and Edatata Narayanan left that gathering, and they travelled to Moscow with Rajani Palme Dutt. Early in the 1950s, they both joined the Communist Party of India. She experienced a personal loss when Asaf Ali passed away in 1953.

She participated in the establishment of the National Federation of Indian Women in 1954, the CPI's women's wing, but she quit the organisation in 1956 after Nikita Khrushchev disavowed Stalin. She was chosen as Delhi's first mayor in 1958. For social welfare and development in Delhi, she worked closely with secularists and social activists from her era like Krishna Menon, Vimla Kapoor, Guru Radha Kishan, Premsagar Gupta, Rajani Palme Joti, Sarla Sharma, and Subhadra Joshi.

In the same year that they founded Link Publishing, she and Narayanan also launched Patriot, a daily newspaper, and Link, a weekly. Because of the support of political figures like Jawaharlal Nehru, Krishna Menon, and Biju Patnaik, the magazines rose to prominence. Later, due to internal politics, she left the publishing company. She was shocked to see that her allies' creed had been replaced by greed. She maintained a good relationship with Rajiv and Indira Gandhi despite having doubts about the emergency.

At age 87, she passed away in New Delhi on July 29, 1996.