Annie Besant-
Aruna Asaf Ali
Aurobindo Ghose
Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Shaheed Bhagat Singh
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
Chandrashekhar Azad
Dadabhai Naoroji
Gopal Krishna Gokhale
Jawaharlal Nehru
Lala Lajpat Rai
Lal Bahadur Shastri
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
Motilal Nehru
Dr. Rajendra Prasad
Rajiv Gandhi
Sardar Patel
Sarojini Naidu
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Subhas Chandra Bose
Veer Savarkar

Kasturba Gandhi
Madam Cama
Rajkumari Amrit Kaur
Sucheta Kriplani
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Ajmal Khan
Pattabhi Sitaramayya
Bipin Chandra Pal
Chittaranjan Das
Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari
Gopinath Bordoloi
Jayaprakash Narayan
K Kamaraj
Mangal Pandey
Mridula Sarabhai
Rani Gaidinliu
S. Srinivasa Iyengar
Sir Surendranath Banerjee

Annie Besant Biography----....
---Born: October 1, 1847
Died: September 20, 1933
Achievements: President of Theosophical Society of India; founded Home Rule League in 1916 and demand self rule in India; became first woman president of Indian National Congress.

Annie Besant was a prominent Theosophist, social reformer, political leader, women's rights activist, writer and orator. She was of Irish origin and made India her second home. She fought for the rights of Indian and was the first woman president of Indian National Congress.

Annie Besant was born as Annie Wood on October 1, 1847 in a middle-class family in London. She was of Irish origin. Her father died when she was only five. Annies mother supported the family by running a boarding house for boys at Harrow. As a young woman she traveled widely in Europe and this widened her outlook.

Annie Besant was married in 1867 to a clergyman called Frank Besant. But the marriage did not last long. They legally separated in 1873. Annie Besant had two children from the marriage. After her separation Annie began to question not only her long-held religious beliefs but the whole of conventional thinking. She began to write attacks on the Churches and the way they controlled peoples lives. In particular she attacked the status of the Church of England as a state-sponsored faith.

Annie Besant fought for the causes she thought were right, such as, women's rights, secularism, birth control, Fabian socialism and workers' rights. She became interested in Theosophy as a way of knowing God. Theosophical Society was against discrimination of race, color, gender and preached Universal brotherhood. To serve humanity at large was its supreme goal. It was as a member of Theosophical Society of India that she arrived in India in 1893.

She toured the entire country of India. It gave her first hand information about India and middle-class Indians who were affected more by British rule and its system of education. Her long-time interest in education resulted in the founding of the Central Hindu College at Benares (1898).

She also became involved in Indian freedom movement. In 1916, she founded Home Rule League which advocated self rule by Indians. She became the President of Indian National Congress in 1917. She was the first woman to hold that post. She started a newspaper, New India, criticized British rule and was jailed for sedition. After the arrival of Gandhiji on Indian national scene, differences arose between Mahatma Gandhi and Annie Besant. Gradually, she withdrew from active politics.

Annie Besant died on September 20, 1933 at Adyar (Madras). As per her wish her ashes were immersed in Ganga in Benares.

Aruna Asaf Ali Biography----..
---------Born: July 16, 1908
Died: July 29, 1996
Achievements: Aruna Asaf Ali played a leading role during Quit India Movement; elected as Delhis first Mayor; awarded the Lenin Prize for peace in 1975 and the Jawahar Lal Nehru award for International understanding for 1991; honored with Bharat Ratna in 1998.

Aruna Asaf Ali was a legendary heroine of India's freedom struggle. Her moment of reckoning came in 1942 during Quit India Movement and she rose to the occasion. She unfurled the national flag at the Gowalia Tank maidan to signify the commencement of the Quit India Movement and became a legend for thousands of youth that rose to emulate her.

Aruna Asaf Ali was born as Aruna Ganguly on July 16 1908 at Kalka (Haryana) in an orthodox Hindu Bengali family. She was educated at Sacred Heart Convent in La , and then in Nainital. After graduating from school, she taught at the Gokhale Memorial School in Calcutta. In Allahabad, she met her future husband, Asaf Ali,a prominent Congressman who was 23 years older than her. They were married in 1928 against parental opposition on the grounds of both religion and age.

As Asaf Ali was deeply involved with freedom struggle, after marriage Aruna Asaf Ali too plunged into it. Her first major political action was during the Salt Satyagraha in 1930 when she addressed public meetings and led processions. British Government charged her for being a vagrant and sentenced her to one years imprisonment. When political prisoners were released in the aftermath of Gandhi-Irwin pact, Aruna was not released. But a public agitation in favour of her release forced British government to release her.

She was arrested again in 1932 and put in Tihar Jail. In Tihar Jail she went on a hunger strike against the treatment meted out to political prisoners. Her protest caused an improvement in conditions, but she herself was moved to solitary confinement in Ambala. After her release, she dropped out of the national movement for 10 years.

In 1942 she attended the Bombay Congress Session with her husband, where the historic Quit India resolution was passed on 8th August. When the Congress leaders were arrested on the day after this resolution was passed, Aruna presided over the flag-hoisting ceremony at Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay. She provided the spark that ignited the movement. She became a full-time activist in the Quit India movement and went underground to evade arrest. Her property was seized by the Government and sold. The Government also announced Rs. 5000 reward for her capture. Meanwhile, she fell ill and on hearing this Gandhiji advised her to surrender. However, Aruna Asaf Ali surrendered herself only when the warrants against her were cancelled on 26th January 1946.

At the time of independence Aruna Asaf Ali was a member of the Congress Socialist Party, which until then had been part of the Congress framework. In 1948, however, the socialists, including Aruna, formed a socialist party of their own. In 1955 this group merged with Communist Party of India and she became a member of its Central committee and a Vice President of the All India Trade Union Congress. In 1958 she left the Communist Party of India and was elected Delhi's first Mayor. she rejoined the Congress party in 1964 but ceased to play any active part in politics. She was awarded the Lenin Prize for peace in 1975 and the Jawahar Lal Nehru award for International understanding for 1991. Aruna Asaf Ali died on died July 29 1996. She was awarded India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, and was honoured with a stamp issued by the Indian Postal Service in 1998.

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