Chandrashekhar Azad

• Birth Anniversary of Chandrashekhar Azad was observed on July 23.
• Azad was born in 1906 in Bhabha village, Madhya Pradesh.
• He organized and led a band of militant youth during India’s independence movement.

Brief Biography

• Chandrashekar Azad completed his studies from Sanskrit Pathshala, Varanasi.
• Azad was drawn into the Indian national movement at a young age.
• When apprehended by the police at age 15 while participating in Mohandas K. Gandhi’s noncooperation movement (1920–22) at Banares, he gave his name as Azad and his address as “prison.”
• Although because of his age he was not imprisoned, he was given a severe flogging by the police.
• The Indian National Congress (Congress Party) soon lionized him, and he gained popularity among the Indian people.
• Azad was disappointed by Gandhi’s suspension of the noncooperation movement in February 1922, after several policemen had been murdered by a revolutionary mob at Chauri Chaura.
• After the suspension of the non-cooperation movement in 1922, Azad joined the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), a revolutionary organisation formed by Ramprasad Bismil.
• Azad was involved in the Kakori Train Robbery on August 9, 1925, against the British Raj.
• He was also involved in the shooting of JP Saunders at Lahore in 1928 to avenge the killing of Lala Lajpat Rai, and in the attempt to blow up the Viceroy of India's train in 1929.
• Azad played a key role in reorganizing the HRA as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association after most of the HRA’s members had been killed or imprisoned.
• Determined never to be captured by police, Azad was constantly on the move.
• On February 27, 1931, Azad arranged to meet a revolutionary at Allahabad’s Alfred Park (now Azad Park).
• He was betrayed to the police, who surrounded him as soon as he entered the park.
• After single-handedly fighting the police for a while with just a pistol and a few cartridges, Azad shot himself in the head, fulfilling his vow of dying as a free man and not as a British captive.
• The Colt pistol of Chandra Shekhar Azad is displayed at the Allahabad Museum.