“We must not for a moment forget, it is a birthright of every individual to receive at least the basic education without which he cannot fully discharge his duties as a citizen.”
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was the first education minister of independent India and the National Education Day is an annual observance in India to commemorate the birth anniversary of this #Inspiringpersonality.
Homeschooled and self-taught, he was running a library, a reading room and a debating society before he turned 12. Maulana Ji was fluent in Arabic, Bengali, Hindustani, Persian and English languages along with mathematics, philosophy, world history and science. Similar to other aspects of his life, Maulana Ji began his journalistic endeavours at the nascent age of 11 with a poetic journal Nairang-e-Aalam. He was also the editor of Al-Misbah and was contributing articles to various other magazines and Journals.
He was drawn to the independence struggle in 1908 whilst travelling to Northern Africa as he came into contact with several revolutionaries of the Young Turk Movement and Iranian revolutionaries. He became a fierce critic of both the British and conventional Muslim leaders in India. He opposed the partition of Bengal in 1905 and later became a supporter of the Khilafat movement. Mahatma Gandhi bridged the gap between the rebellion against British rule and the Muslims in India by supporting the Khilafat Movement as the leader of the National Congress Party and thus Maulana Ji was involved actively in the Indian Freedom Struggle.
Post-independence, he became a close confidant and an advisor to Prime Minister Nehru. He stressed educating the rural poor and girls as India’s first minister of education. He was the Chairman of the Central Advisory Board of Education and gave a push to adult literacy, universal primary education and diversification of secondary education.
