India Wins Freedom has at last won its own freedom. The full text of this autobiographical narrative was confined, under seal, in the National Library, Calcutta, and in the National Archives, New Delhi, for thirty years. In 1958 the ‘narrator’ Maulana Azad and his ‘writer’ Humayun Kabir had offered for publication a slightly abridged and revised version which left out ‘incidents and reflections mainly of a personal character’. That version underwent three large printings in the first year of publication and has been reprinted many times since then.

What we now have is the complete text, released in September 1988 by a court directive. Not only have all the words and phrases of the original been reproduced; the original tone and temper have been fully restored. The text now reveals that the controversy that has simmered for so long about the hitherto unpublished pages was fully justified. Those who have read the earlier version will quickly note the points on which this account differs from the earlier one. Those who have not read the earlier volume will find the present one as new and alive as it was when completed and put away in 1958.

Many of us may not agree fully with Maulana Azad’s forthright views on persons and events of the period (1935-48) but we shall be compelled to admire anew the honesty and courage of a great son of India.