Maulana Abul Kalam Azad-the Educationist

Introduction:- “A normal human tendency is to forget the past and march ahead.” On August 15,1947, at the dawn of the midnight hour, India emerged as an independent democracy with the world’s largest constitution. Over the time, India has emerged as a fountain of knowledge for the world, be it in the field of academics, technology, culture, etc. Indian software engineers, doctors, professors, etc are scripting a phenomenal story of growth round the globe. In the US too, Indians are making an incredible impact in the form of Bobby Jindal, Fareed Zakaria, Sanjay Gupta, eleven Indo-American Nobel Laureates, Late Kalpana Chawla, etc. This has been made possible through their sheer hard work and the quality education imparted to them. At this juncture, we must not forget the contribution made by one of the earliest architects of India’s freedom struggle and it’s focus on education was a Muslim scholar- Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Maulana Azad, also known as Mir-i-Karawan, was a man of enormous tastes, a remarkable person by any standards. He was a freedom fighter, a journalist, a scholar, a politician and a statesman. He was born in Mecca on November 11, 1888 in a family of traditional Islamic scholars, who taught Islam in Mecca and Calcutta. He received a traditional education in Islamic Sciences. But in his early teens, he realized that much of his education was religious indoctrination. So, he rebelled against it, declared his intellectual freedom and took the pen name, ‘Azad’, meaning ‘free’.
Contribution Towards Education In Modern India:- Maulana Azad was a man of enormous tastes. Rated high in the realm of education, he has all along played a prominent role in keeping the education movement alive in this country. He became the first ‘Education Minister’ of free India. Packed with several achievements, he oversaw the establishment