On September 21, 1942, Aruna Asaf Ali was serving a prison sentence in the Central Jail in Delhi for her role in the Quit India Movement, launched on August 8, 1942. The British colonial government had arrested most of the senior leadership of the Indian National Congress within days of the movement's launch. Aruna, who had been hiding in a safe house, emerged to hoist the Indian National Congress flag at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Mumbai on August 9 — the symbolic launch of a leaderless uprising — and then went underground.

She remained underground for years, coordinating resistance activities while the colonial government placed a bounty of Rs 5,000 on her head. When the Congress leadership was released in 1945, she emerged. She never went to jail again.

Aruna Asaf Ali was born in 1909 in Kalka, Punjab, into a Bengali Brahmin family. She married Asaf Ali, a Muslim lawyer and Congress politician, in 1928 — an interfaith marriage that caused a social scandal and was contested by both families. She became active in Congress politics through her husband's network and was first arrested in 1930 for participating in the salt satyagraha.

After independence she served as the first mayor of Delhi, founded a publishing house, and organized labor unions. She received the Bharat Ratna — India's highest civilian honor — in 1997, the year she died.

Most accounts of the Quit India Movement begin with Gandhi's speech on August 8. Aruna hoisted the flag the next day after the entire leadership had been arrested and kept the movement coherent from underground for years. Her photograph was less frequently reproduced.