Abul Kalam Azad; 11 November 1888 – 22 February 1958) was an scholar and a senior political leader of the Indian independence movement. Following India’s independence, he became the first Minister of Education in the government. In 1992 he was posthumously awarded India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.
–Josh Malihabadi (born as Shabbir Hasan Khan) (5 December, 1894 – 22 February 1982) was a noted Urdu poet born in British India. He was an Indian citizen until 1958, when he emigrated to Pakistan and became a Pakistani citizen. He wrote ghazals, nazm and Marsias under the takhallus (Josh).
Josh was born to an Urdu-speaking Muslim family of Afridi Pashtun origin in Malihabad,(Lucknow) United Provinces, British India. He studied at St Peter’s College, Agra and passed his Senior Cambridge examination in 1914. Subsequently, he studied Arabic and Persian and, in 1918, spent six months at Tagore’s university at Shantiniketan. The death of his father, Bashir Ahmed Khan, in 1916, prevented him from undertaking a college education. His family had a long tradition of producing men of letters. Indeed, his great-grandfather, Nawab Faqeer Muhammad Khan, grandfather Nawab Muhammad Ahmad Khan, paternal uncle Ameer Ahmad Khan and father Basheer Ahmad Khan were all poets with numerous works (poetry collections, translations, essays, …) to their name.
In 1925, Josh started to supervise translation work at Osmania University, in the princely state of Hyderabad. However, his stay there ended, when he found himself exiled from the state for writing a nazm against the Nizam of Hyderabad, the then ruler of the state.
Soon thereafter, he founded the magazine, Kaleem (literally, “interlocutor” in Urdu), in which he openly wrote articles in favour of independence from the British Raj in India. His poem Hussain aur Inquilab (Hussain and Revolution)won him the title of Shaair-e-Inquilaab (Poet of the Revolution). Subsequently, he became more actively involved in the freedom struggle (albeit, in an intellectual capacity) and became close to some of the political leaders of that era, especially Jawaharlal Nehru (later to be the first Prime Minister of independent India).After the end of British Raj in India (1947), Josh became the editor of the publication Aaj-Kal .
Kasturba Mohandas Gandhi (born Kastur Kapadia; 11 April 1869 – 22 February 1944) was the wife of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. In association with her husband, Kasturba Gandhi was a political activist fighting for civil rights and Indian independence from the British.