Perspectives from Beyond the Ringside View

The road in Delhi which connects the Turkman and Delhi Gates of Shahjahanabad is, as we know, named after the prominent Congress leader and freedom fighter, Asaf Ali. On the other side this road extends to the Ajmeri Gate. This was, and still remains, a major financial and commercial hub. The Delhi Stock Exchange is located here, and there is the elegant Delite Cinema which survives as one of the few stand-alone movie theatres in the capital. Aruna Asaf Ali resided here in a small flat not far from Delite Cinema till she was unceremoniously evicted a few years before she passed away in 1996. Those of the younger generation frequently tend to assume that the thoroughfare is in fact named after Aruna Asaf Ali. Even elders might not recall that the nondescript statue which stands close to the Delhi Gate, a pathetic specimen of public art, is that of Asaf Ali. In the seventy years that have elapsed since his death in 1953 he has completely faded from the city’s memory. And yet he was among the leading political figures of Delhi during the national movement, with an all-India stature (though certainly not the same as that of his contemporary, Dr. MA Ansari).