Saifuddin Kitchlew

Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew (15 January 1888 – 9 October 1963) was an Indian independence activist, barrister, politician and later a leader of the peace movement. A member of Indian National Congress, he first became Punjab Provincial Congress Committee (Punjab PCC) head and later the General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee in 1924. He is most remembered for the protests in Punjab after the implementation of Rowlatt Act in March 1919, after which on 10 April, he and another leader Satyapal, were secretly sent to Dharamsala. A public protest rally against their arrest and that of Gandhi, on 13 April 1919 at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, led to the infamous Jallianwala Bagh massacre. He was also a founding member of Jamia Millia Islamia. He was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize (now known as Lenin Peace Prize) in 1952.

Early life Saifuddin Kitchlew was born on January 15, 1888 in Amritsar, in the Punjab Province of British India into a Converted Kashmiri pandit family of the Kitchlew clan, to parents Azizuddin Kitchlew and Dan Bibi. His father owned a pashmina and saffron trading business and originally belonged to a Kashmiri Pandit family of Baramulla, who had converted to Islam from Hinduism. His ancestor, Prakash Ram Kitchlew, had been forcefully converted to Islam and his grandfather, Ahmed Jo migrated from Kashmir to Punjab in the mid-19th century after the Kashmir famine of 1871.

Kitchlew was first exposed to Indian nationalism after public outcry over the Rowlatt Acts. Kitchlew was arrested with Gandhi and Dr. Satyapal for leading protests in Punjab against the legislation. To protest the arrest of the trio, a public meeting had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh, when General Reginald Dyer and his troops fired upon the unarmed, civilian crowd. Thousands were killed, and Thousands were injured. This act was the worst case of civilian massacre since the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and riots broke out throughout the Punjab.

Political mainstream Kitchlew rose in the Congress Party, heading its Punjab unit before rising to the post of AICC General Secretary, an important executive position in 1924. Kitchlew was also the chairman of the reception committee of the Congress session in Lahore in 1929–30, where on 26 January 1930, the Indian National Congress declared Indian independence and inaugurated an era of civil disobedience and revolution aimed to achieve full independence.

Kithclew was a founding leader of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha (Indian Youth Congress), which rallied hundreds of thousands of students and young Indians to nationalist causes. He was a member of the Foundation Committee of Jamia Millia Islamia, which met on 29 October 1920 and led to the foundation of Jamia Millia Islamia University.

He started an Urdu daily Tanzim and was instrumental in the establishment of Swaraj Ashram in January 1921 at Amritsar to train young men for national work and to promote Hindu-Muslim unity. Throughout the 1930-1934 struggles, Kitchlew was repeatedly arrested, and in all spent fourteen years behind bars.

Kitchlew supported a united Indian nationalism against British colonial rule and opposed the partition of India, holding that a divided India would weaken Muslims, both economically and politically.

He died on 9 October 1963, survived by a son, Toufique Kitchlew, who lives in a Lampur village on the outskirts of Delhi, and five daughters. While four of his daughters married men from Pakistan, one daughter, Zahida Kitchlew, was married to the South Indian music director M. B. Sreenivasan who worked mainly in Malayalam and Tamil film industries.

Legacy A colony in Ludhiana, Punjab, popularly called Kitchlu Nagar, is named after him. India Post released a special commemorative stamp featuring him in 1989. The Jamia Milia Islamia created a Saifuddin Kitchlew Chair at the MMAJ Academy of Third world Studies in 2009. Kitchlu Chowk in Amritsar, at the intersection of Mall Road and Court Road, is named after him; there is a small bust on a pillar at the intersection.