Saifuddin Kitchlew was a Muslim Indian freedom fighter, barrister, politician and a critic of Pakistan Movement. ⁣
⁣
Kitchlew was born to a Kashmiri Muslim family in 1888. He went to Islamia High School in Amritsar, later obtaining a B.A. from Cambridge University, and a Ph.D. from a German university, before practising law in India.⁣
⁣
On his return he established his legal practice in Amritsar, and soon came in contact with Gandhi. In 1919, he was elected the Municipal Commissioner of the city of Amritsar. ⁣
⁣
He took part in the Satyagraha movement and soon left his practice to join the freedom movement, as well as the All India Khilafat Committee.⁣
⁣
He is most remembered for the protests in Punjab after the implementation of Rowlatt Act in March 1919, after which on 10 April, he and another leader Satyapal, were secretly sent to Dharamsala. A public protest rally against their arrest and that of Gandhi, on 13 April 1919 at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, led to the infamous Jallianwala Bagh massacre.⁣
⁣
He was the founding leader of Naujawan Bharat Sabha (Indian Youth Congress), which rallied hundreds of thousands of students and young Indians to nationalist causes.⁣
⁣
He started an Urdu daily Tanzim and was instrumental in the establishment of Swaraj Ashram in January 1921 at Amritsar to train young men for national work and to promote Hindu-Muslim unity.⁣
⁣
He was also the chairman of the reception committee of the Congress session in Lahore in 1929-30, where on 26 January 1930 the Indian National Congress declared Indian independence and inaugurated a revolution aimed to achieve full independence.⁣
⁣
In 1947 he strongly opposed the acceptance of Partition of India.⁣
⁣
He was the founder president of the All-India Peace Council. He was also Vice President of the World Peace Council.⁣
⁣
Kitchlew moved to Delhi after his house burnt down during the partition of India riots of 1947, spending the rest of his life working for closer political and diplomatic relations with the USSR. ⁣
⁣
He was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize (now known as Lenin Peace Prize) in 1952.⁣
⁣
A colony in Ludhiana, Punjab, popularly called Kitchlu Nagar, is named after him. ⁣