Maulana Abul Kalam Azad — A Firm Believer In The Unity Of India: But Do We Honour His Passion And Ideals?
By JS Rajput
07 November
2020
Quality education and
initiatives like Right to Education Act are fine but they are incomplete
without competent and qualified teachers, something he emphasised
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
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India celebrates
its National Education Day on November 11, the birth anniversary of Maulana
Abul Kalam Azad — a great scholar, freedom fighter, politician and a firm
believer in the unity of India — but do we honour his passion and ideals? Azad
is also remembered as our first Education Minister. Born in Mecca in 1888, his
family moved to Kolkata in 1890. He was self-taught and never went to school.
He started teaching at the age of 16 and continued his scholarly pursuits even
while in the thick of national politics. He wrote poetry, translated the Quran
and even authored several books.
Young Azad
was influenced by revolutionaries and was deeply impressed by Sri Aurobindo. In
1908, he visited Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Turkey and was pained to find that
while in these countries Muslims were fighting for freedom and democracy,
Indian Muslims were favouring the British, keeping away from the nationalist
movement. To change the Muslim mind-set, he started a journal, Al-Hilal, in
July 1912. He joined the Indian National Congress and became its president in
1923 at the age of 35. After the two-nation theory and the demand for a
separate nation for Muslims gained ground, Azad could envision its conceptual
fragility and disastrous future consequences for the nation, particularly for
the Muslims. Unfortunately, India was partitioned and even Mahatma Gandhi and
Azad had to become a party to it. What followed at the time of the Partition
and the near permanency of the India-Pakistan conflict clearly indicate how
sound and pragmatic ideas are sometimes lost in the political arena, resulting
in unimaginable damage to future generations. Both India and Pakistan are
perpetual victims of this scar.
Pakistan —
fully submerged in religious orthodoxy and ignorance — inflicted several
self-destructive wounds, suffered a couple of humiliating military defeats and
was even decimated. It is propagating worldwide terrorism, and ironically,
suffering its venomous consequences as well. Azad and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
are two outstanding luminaries of the freedom struggle, who presented the real
— liberal and dynamic — version of Islam before their countrymen. Had the
Muslim community paid heed to them, the world would not have been put under
debilitating violence, insecurity and distrust that have engulfed humanity
today.
The recent
murderous attacks in France have stirred diametrically opposite reactions,
indicating how serious the issues of religious bigotry, blind fundamentalism,
terrorism and global insecurity are. The only ray of hope lies in education,
formal education of the young and simultaneously the education of people in
positions of power and decision-making in their “trusteeship role” for the
generations ahead.
This year,
the National Education Day celebration could very well focus on the role of
education in achieving social cohesion and religious harmony. The recently
launched National Education Policy 2020 (NEP) has considerable connect with the
basic principles of Buniyadi Talim, which was proposed by Gandhi in 1937.
Delivering the presidential speech at the fourth session of the Central
Advisory Board of Education (CABE) on January 13, 1948, Azad, the then
Education Minister, said: “In connection with the scheme of basic education,
the question of religious instruction had cropped up at that time. Two
committees of the board pondered over it but they were unable to come to an
agreed decision. I should like this question to be reconsidered in the light of
the changed circumstances. For our country, this question has a special
meaning.”
A realistic
comprehension of the spirit and intent of Buniyadi
Talim was indeed missed by those under the influence of “all that was
Western and British.” To them, the existing transplanted system was doing fine.
So why disturb it? It is only now that the consequences of this approach are
before us: Unemployment, poverty, hunger, internal migration, neglect of
villages and farmers and much more.
Everyone
talks of a lack of moral, ethical and humanistic values. Corruption is a
consequence of diminishing emphasis on character-building. Luminaries like Azad
had anticipated such concerns. After posing the problem and putting it in the
context, Azad articulated its elements: “It is already known to you that the
19th century liberal point of view concerning the imparting of religious
education has already lost weight. Even after World War I, a new approach had
begun to assert itself and the intellectual revolution brought about in the
wake of World War II has given it a decisive shape. At first, it was considered
that religions would stand in the way of free intellectual development of a
child but now it has been admitted that religious education cannot altogether
be dispensed with. If national education was devoid of this element, there
would be no appreciation of moral values or moulding of character on human
lines. It must be known to you that Russia had to give up its ideology during
the last World War. The British Government in England also had to amend its
education system in 1944.” With a crystal clear comprehension, Azad was
convinced that the West felt the need of religious education as without
religious influences, people become “over-rationalistic.”
In India,
we are surrounded by “over religiosity.” How secularism is being interpreted in
India leaves much to be desired, clarified and comprehended to bring people of
varied religious affiliations to accept the equality of all religions: “Ekam
sat viprah Bahudha Vadanti” (There is only one truth, learned ones call it by
various names). What Azad articulated in the meeting on education has a global
contemporary relevance: “Our present difficulties, unlike those of Europe, are
not creations of materialistic zealots but of religious fanatics. If we want to
overcome them, the solution lies not in rejecting religious instruction in
elementary stages but in imparting sound and healthy religious education under
our direct supervision so that misguided credulism may not affect children in
their plastic age.”
Azad was India’s Education Minister for about
a decade. His concern on the issue of religious instruction indicates his
seriousness on social cohesion, religious amity, unity and integrity of the
country, and that all of these depend on the right approach to education in
human values and continued insistence on character formation. He was convinced
that Indians would like their children to get religious education. If the State
refused, they would do so privately. He was concerned that private sources were
already working and were entrusting religious education to those teachers “who
though literate are not educated. To them, religion means nothing but bigotry.”
To save the “intellectual life of our country,” Azad emphatically warned all
concerned not to entrust the imparting of early religious education to private
sources. Further, no national Government could shirk the responsibility of
moulding the “growing minds of the nation on the right lines” as it is its
primary duty.
Here, Azad
offers a global education policy guideline: Imparting quality education and
initiatives like Right to Education Act are fine but these remain incomplete
without a clear mention that such education shall be provided only by competent
and qualified teachers. Further, nothing that distorts the sensitive young
minds in any way shall be allowed to permeate the educational endeavour.
Education
must be free from vested interests that believe in the supremacy of any single
religion, which does not subscribe to the equality of all religions and refuses
to introduce transparency in their schools — in approach, content and pedagogy.
It is
well-known that schools of certain denominations are not preparing children for
a world of peace and tranquility, for acceptance of diversity, for social
cohesion and religious amity. And it is not a new phenomenon, as would be clear
from Azad’s description given over 72 years: “The method of education, too, is
such in which there is no scope for a broad and liberal outlook. It is quite
plain, then, that the children will not be able to drive out the ideas infused
into them in their early stage, whatever modern education may be given to them
at a later stage.” At this stage, it is a global phenomenon that terrorist and
fundamentalist organisations suffer no dearth of highly educated and
technically qualified and competent young people.
The
implementation of the NEP 2020 has begun in earnest. The growth, progress and
development of India would depend on the quality of its education and the level
of social cohesion and religious unity, seeds of which are to be sown in its schools,
classrooms and playgrounds. The NEP 2020 must equip every Indian to stand up
and repeat with full conviction what Azad had declared in 1940: “I am part of
this indivisible unity that is Indian nationality. I am indispensable to the
noble edifice and without me this splendid structure of India is incomplete. I
am an essential element which has gone to build India. I can never surrender
this claim.”
The great
visionary paved the path for every Indian to move ahead and in the process made
a singular contribution in the human march towards a world of peace,
non-violence and love.
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JS Rajput works in education and social
cohesion
Original Headline: Forgotten lessons of Azad
Source: The Daily Pioneer
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/maulana-abul-kalam-azad-—/d/123403