Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: Indian Languages Must Find Their Legitimate Position in Education
By
Saquib Salim, New Age Islam
11 November
2022
Today on 11 November, the nation pays tributes to the illustrious freedom fighter and the first Education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad by celebrating it as National Education Day. Apart from displaying his portraits in public places and naming institutions after him, how much does an Indian know about his vision of Indian education? Do we realize that the present education policy resonates with the ideas expressed by Azad?
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad as India's first Education Minister
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After
taking over as education minister Maulana Azad held a press conference for
declaring his objectives. Speaking of the education system developed by the
British, he said, “There is (equally) no denying that this system has led to
the creation of a small intelligentsia separated from the mass of the Indian
people. It has also at times tended to divorce the educated class from the
currents of India’s traditional life. Dazzled by the achievements of the West,
it has at times encouraged a tendency to disown or look down upon our national
heritage.”
A few
months later addressing the students at Patna, Azad said, “our educated young
men had lost themselves in imitating the English, in their language, dress,
manners, etc. They were not mindful of their heritage. Some of them felt
ashamed to talk to their countrymen in their language. They were ever ready to
quote Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, and Wordsworth but they felt no love for
Valmiki, Kalidasa, Khusro, or Anis.”
A Slice of
History
Azad told
the press, “It is universally recognized today that a system of national
education is one of the fundamental tasks which any government faces. Not only
is the existing condition of society determined by the quality of individuals
composing it but its future as well. Nothing has a more important bearing on
the quality of the individual than the type of education imparted.”
He attacked
the education system set up by the colonizers. Speaking at the convocation of
Patna University, Azad said, “I am not one of those who are the products of
English universities. I am fully disconnected from them and as such can take a
detached point of view and understand your needs and requirements.”
Maulana
Abul Kalam Azad planting a sapling at IARI campus, New Delhi
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Azad
believed that education in India should be completely decolonized and a
national curriculum with pride in Indian civilization should replace the
existing system of education. He said, “It was not proper for you to lose
yourself in the slavish love of western civilization or literature to the
extent that you might forget the grand and proud civilization of your country”.
Azad
believed, “we can say with pride and glory that it is the main trait of our
ancient civilization and that we have been steeped in it for thousands of
years. In other countries, differences of thought and action led to mutual
warfare and bloodshed but in India, they were resolved in a spirit of
compromise and tolerance….. The highest school of Vedantism flourished side by side
with agnosticism and atheism. Today the world is wonderstruck at the vast
all-comprehensive nature of Indian philosophy. There is no school of
philosophical thought which is not found here. What we do not find is the clash
of opinions or the breaking of heads merely because of the differences of
opinion.”
Not that
Azad was against modernity. He said, “It would be wrong to put yourself in a
cage so that no ray of the light of western learning and civilization may enter
it. Do not forget that you can seal all your worldly possessions within
national and geographical limits but no seal can be put on learning and
civilization. They are outside the pale of boundaries, and seals are of no
avail there. For them, there are no territorial limits.”
Maulana
Azad was a strong votary of Hindi as the national language. When he was asked
to address students at the Patna University convocation in 1947, Azad started
the address in Hindi. Till then every convocation address used to be in
English. While breaking the norm, Azad asked the students if he should
apologize for breaking the norm and address them in an Indian language. He
replied to himself: “If an apology was needed, it was only for the adoption of
a language forced upon us by the course of historical events. Even in our own
country, we were made to give up our languages and adopt the language of a
foreign country.”
He said
that English as a medium of instruction makes students put in an extra effort
to learn an alien language, “No Indian language but English which was foreign
to us was made the medium of instruction, the result was that modern education
in India began to be imparted in an un-Indian way. The Indians had to shape
their minds in artificial and not in natural moulds? Not only did they have to
change their language but also their minds.”
Maulana
Azad further said, “The position that English occupies today in our educational
and official life cannot be sustained in the future. Indian languages must find
their legitimate position.”
Today when
the government is being asked to promote Hindi in higher education, we should
go back to Azad as he said: “In five years the Indian language will have to be
so developed as to adapt itself to the official language. Its use may be
encouraged gradually so that in the sixth year it may completely replace
English.” in the education sector, “in the sixth year all branches of higher
education should be handled through our regional languages.”
In 1951
addressing the First All India Conference on Letters, Azad said, “we have to
pay special attention to the question of Hindi. We have accepted it as our
national language, and the Constitution provides that it must take the place of
English in 15 years. It is therefore essential that Hindi should develop
sufficient strength and wealth to fulfill this important role”.
He said: “A
language which we have chosen to be our national language must attain a status
commensurate with that dignity. As nationals of India, it is, therefore, our
duty to try to enrich the literature of Hindi and see that first-rate
literature is produced in it.”
The present
governments are facing criticism for surveying Madrasa not knowing that it is
derived from Azad’s education policy. He believed that in India religious
education should not be left to private entities and no government supervision.
He said, “What will be the consequence if the Government undertakes to impart
purely secular education? Naturally, people will try to provide religious
education to their children through private sources. How these private sources
are working today or are likely to work in the future is already known to you.
I know something about it and can say that not only in villages but even in
cities the imparting of religious education is entrusted to teachers who though
literate are not educated. To them, religion means nothing but bigotry. The
method of education, too, is such in which there is no scope for a broad and
liberal outlook.”
Today
writing history with a nationalist vision is seen as a volatile issue. Maulana
Azad believed that after independence India needed to have its national
history. At several places, he asked scholars to reassess the already used
historical sources to write history in a neo-colonial context.
In his
words, “we must see that there is no wrong perspective of a nation’s history
and culture nor a failure to encourage the highest ideals in national character
and civilization. Unfortunately, this has happened in India”. Somewhere else he
urged the Indian historians, “It is for you, historians and archivists, to
prepare a programme of work. Let your labours yield material for writing a full
history of India throughout the ages, in which the story of cooperation and
common endeavour, the development of civilization and culture, and the growth
of arts, philosophy, religion, and humanity will be told in all their wealth.
That and not the mere record of wars and conflicts, of dynasties and kings, is
the true history of India.”
A cursory
look is enough to understand that the present education policy resonates with
the dream of Maulana Azad and thus pays true tribute to the first Education
minister of free India. India is on the path of decolonizing history,
education, culture, and language and is ensuring its nationalization as
envisioned by Maulana Azad.
Source: Maulana
Azad Wanted De-Colonization Of Indian Education
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/maulana-abul-kalam-azad-india-curriculum/d/128377
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