He is also known for writing Raj Kapoor's films, including the Palme d'Or-nominated Awaara (1951), as well as Shree 420 (1955), Mera Naam Joker (1970), Bobby (1973) and Henna (1991).

[7] Abbas belonged to the Ansari family of Panipat, tracing its roots back to Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, a close companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and among the famed personalities that it produced we find: the 12th century Sufi saint Abdullah Ansari of Herat in Afghanistan; his maternal great-grandfather Altaf Hussain Hali, a student of Mirza Ghalib and himself an Urdu poet of repute; his paternal grandfather Khwaja Ghulam Abbas, one of the chief rebels of the 1857 Rebellion movement, and the first martyr of Panipat to be blown from the mouth of a cannon; his father Ghulam-us-Sibtain, among the first graduates from Aligarh Muslim University, who was a tutor of a prince and a businessman who modernised the preparation of Unani medicines; Abbas's mother, Masroora Khatoon, was the daughter of Khwaja Sajjad Husain, an educator keen on female education, having established the first school for girls in Panipat.

[9] He entered films as a part-time publicist for Bombay Talkies in 1936, a production house owned by Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani, to whom he sold his first screenplay Naya Sansar (1941).

Abbas interviewed several renowned personalities in literary and non-literary fields, including the Russian Prime Minister Khrushchov, American President Roosevelt, Charlie Chaplin, Mao-Tse-Tung and Yuri Gagarin.

Meanwhile, he had started writing scripts for other directors, Neecha Nagar for Chetan Anand and Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani for V. Shantaram.

In 1945, he made his directorial debut with a film based on the Bengal famine of 1943, Dharti Ke Lal (Children of the Earth), for the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA).

He wrote the story and screenplay for the controversial themed film in 1974 Call Girl directed by Vijay Kapoor, starring Vikram and Zahera.

He went on to write scripts for Jagte Raho and prominent Raj Kapoor films including Awaara, Shri 420, Mera Naam Joker, Bobby and Henna.

[17] The film depicted the contrast between the luxurious life of the rich in the four cities of Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Delhi and that of the squalor and poverty of the poor.

He claimed that his fundamental right of free speech and expression was denied by the Central Government's refusal to grant the film a 'U' certificate.