Rafi Ahmed Kidwai
Kidwai on a 1969 stamp of India
Personal details
Born18 February 1894
Barabanki, North-Western Provinces, British India
Died24 October 1954
(aged 60)
Delhi, India
EducationAligarh Muslim University

Rafi Ahmed Kidwai (18 February 1894 – 24 October 1954) was a politician, an Indian independence activist and a socialist. Kidwai served as a Minister of Communications in the first Cabinet of Independent India (First Nehru Ministry). He hailed from Barabanki District of Uttar Pradesh, in north India.

Early life

Rafi Ahmed was born in the village of Masauli, in Barabanki district (now in Uttar Pradesh).[1]

Kidwai died in Delhi on 24 October 1954. He had heart failure after experiencing an attack of asthma while delivering a speech. His burial site, at his home village, was covered by a Mughal-style mausoleum. According to historian Paul Brass, "A formidable fund-raiser for Congress movements and elections, he distributed his largesse to all and sundry, but died in debt, leaving behind only a decaying house in his home village."[1]

Legacy

The Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award was created in 1956 by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to recognize Indian researchers in the agricultural field. Awards are distributed every second year, and take the form of medals, citations, and cash prizes.[2] In his famous autobiography, Jawaharlal Nehru mentioned that Rafi Ahmad Kidwai was part of District Congress Committee and had signed a book containing recommendations to solve agrarian problem in United Provinces of British India in 1931. Kidwai thus, looked at agricultural problems closely.

In November 2011, the Postal Staff College in Ghaziabad was named as the Rafi Ahmed Kidwai National Postal Academy.[3] There is also a street named after him in Kolkata.[4]

There is a street named after him in Wadala Mumbai.

The Parliament of India has a portrait of Kidwai in a Committee Room.[5]

Rafi Ahmed Kidwai also played a major role in donating 20 acres of the campus land and Rs. 100,000 for the radiotherapy machine for the establishment of cancer care hospital in Bangalore Karnataka state, India which is named after him - Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 "Kidwai, Rafi Ahmad (1894–1954)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/94954. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ↑ "Merits & Awards". icar.org.in. Archived from the original on 3 June 2008. Retrieved 3 September 2008.
  3. ↑ A. Kumaraswamy (31 October 2011) rename of the Postal Staff College India. Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India.
  4. ↑ "Kolkata Yellow Pages". Retrieved 13 December 2011.
  5. ↑ Rafi Ahmed Kidwai. rajyasabha.nic.in.
  6. ↑ "Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology". kidwai.kar.nic.in. Archived from the original on 6 December 2016. Retrieved 18 August 2022.

Further reading

  • M. Bassien, ed., Who's who in legislature, 1 (1953)
  • M. Weiner, Party politics in India: the development of a multi-party system (1957)
  • P. N. Chopra, Rafi Ahmad Kidwai: his life and work (1960)
  • S. Sunder and S. Shyam, Political life of Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant, 1: 1887–1945 (1960)
  • Sampurnanand, Memories and reflections (1962)
  • A. P. Jain, Rafi Ahmad Kidwai: a memoir of his life and times (1965)
  • P. R. Brass, Factional politics in an Indian state: the Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh (1966)
  • S. Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: a biography, 2: 1947–1956 (1979)
  • V. Menon, From movement to government: the Congress in the United Provinces, 1937–42 (2003)
  • M. Hasan, From pluralism to separatism: qasbas in colonial Awadh (2004)
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