Shaukat Ali Biography 
Shaukat Ali was an Indian politician in the pre-independent era, and also a freedom fighter and activist too. He is the son of India’s one of the first Muslim women to actively take part in politics - Abadi Bano Begum, fondly called Bi Amman. He, along with his younger brother Maulana Mohammad Ali Jouhar went on to become activists and participated in freedom struggle movement. They also became the leading figures of the Khilafat Movement & non-cooperation movement – their revolt against British.
Maulana Shaukat Ali was born on 10 March 1873 in Rampur, present-day Uttar Pradesh. His father Abdul Ali Khan was a senior official in the Rampur State, while his mother Abadi Bano Begum joined freedom struggle movement and active politics after her marriage. Ali had one sister and four sons, of whom his younger brother Maulana Mohammad Ali Jouhar went on to become a prominent figure in freedom struggle movement. He lost his father at a young age, and his mother faced a lot of hardships to educate her children in English medium school.
Ali completed his studies from Aligarh Muslim University and served in the civil service of the United Provinces of Oudh and Agra from 1896 to 1913, before he plunged into nationalist movement. He was a sportsman who lived cricket and has captioned his university team while studying at AMU. He helped his younger brother to publish Urdu weekly Hamdard and the English weekly Comrade. He started publishing articles provoking British, and it resulted in his jailing in 1919. He was re-arrested and imprisoned from 1921 to 1923, following his support for Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress during the Non-Cooperation Movement.
He opposed the 1928 Nehru Report and demanded separate electorates for Muslims. In 1936, Ali became a member of the All India Muslim League, and became close to Jinnah. Ali died on 26 November 1938 at the residence of Begum Mohammad Ali, the widow of his brother, in Karol Bagh.
Published: October 16, 2018
Updated: October 16, 2018
