Maulana Azad, Mian Iftikharuddin, Jawaharlal Nehru and Bacha Khan

Maulana Azad, Mian Iftikharuddin, Jawaharlal Nehru and Bacha Khan
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Mian Iftikharuddin, Jawaharlal Nehru and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan are seen together in this undated photograph likely taken during the independence movement in the 1940s, at a meeting of the Indian National Congress.

Azad, who is considered among the greatest Urdu writers of the 20th century, went on to become India's first minister of education, in the cabinet of prime minister Nehru.

Bacha Khan eventually pledged allegiance to Pakistan and remained at the forefront of Pakistani politics, but he was looked at with suspicion and frequently arrested or forced into exile.

Mian Iftikharuddin joined the Muslim League in 1946, and became Pakistan's minister of refugees after partition. But when he began to advocate stern land reforms in Punjab, many in the Muslim League began to oppose him. Dejected, he resigned from the ministry in 1949. In 1951, he was thrown out of the party.

He formed his own Azad Pakistan Party, which later merged - along with Bacha Khan's Khudai Khidmatgar movement and other leftist parties - with the National Awami Party.

Mian Iftikharuddin owned the left-leaning newspaper Pakistan Times, with Faiz Ahmed Faiz as its editor from 1947 to 1951.