Muhammad Ali Jauhar

Muhammad Ali Jauhar (1878 - 1931) was a prominent political figure of British India. He was an outstanding journalist and a poet as well. He was the Pioneer of the Khilafat Movement and a dauntless fighter in the struggle for independence, Maulana Mohammad Ali was a fiery orator, and a courageous journalist.

He was educated at Aligarh and Oxford and like the Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, he also began his political career in the Indian National Congress and made great sacrifices. But after the publication of the Nehru Report which revealed the communal bias of those who held the reigns of that Hindu-dominated organisation, and disgusted with the attitude of Mr. Gandhi and his Congress, he broke away from them and worked for the Muslim League.

He revolutionized Muslim thought by his writings in English weekly Comrade, and in the Urdu daily Hamdard published by him. He was also a member of the Round Table Conference where he expressed his prophetic demand: "I would prefer to die on the soil of a country which is free, rather than return to a slave country". He never returned to his country and died soon after. He was buried in Bait-ul-Maqdis.