About | Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

About > About | Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

Abul Kalam Muhiyuddin Ahmed Azad (11 November 1888 to 22 February 1958) was an lndian scholar and a senior political leader of the Indian independence movement. Following the lndia’s independence movement, he became the first Minister of Education in the Indian government. ln 1992 he was posthumously awarded India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

ln 1923, at an age of 35, he became the youngest person to serve as the President of the lndian National Congress..He served as Congress president from 1940 to 1945, during which the Quit India rebellion was launched. Azad was imprisoned, together with the entire Congress leadership, for three years.

Azad remained a close confidante, supporter and advisor to prime minister Nehru, and played an important role in framing national policies. Azad masterminded the creation of national programmes of school and college construction and spreading the enrolment of children and young adults into schools, to promote universal primary education.

As India’s first Minister of Education, he emphasized on educating the rural poor and girls. As Chairman of the Central Advisory Board of Education, he gave thrust to adult illiteracy, universal primary education, free and compulsory for all children up to the age of 14, girls education, and diversification of secondary education and vocational training. He oversaw the setting up of the Central institute of Education, Delhi, which later became the Department of Education of the University of Delhi as “a research centre for solving new educational problems of the country”.

Under his leadership, the Ministry of Education established the first Indian institute of Technology in 1951 and the University Grants Commission in.1953. He also laid emphasis on the development of the lndian lnstitute of Science, Bangalore and the Faculty of Technology of the Delhi University. Azad is remembered as amongst the leading Indian nationalists of his time. His firm belief in Hindu-Muslim unity earned him the respect of the Hindu community and he still remains one of the most important symbols of communal harmony in modern lndia. Find more. His work for education and social upliftment in lndia made him an important influence in guiding India’s economic and social development.

The Ministry of Minority Affairs of the central Government of India set up the Maulana Azad Education Foundation in 1989 on the occasion of his birth centenary to promote education amongst educationally backward sections of the Society. The Ministry also provides the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad National Fellowship, an integrated five-year fellowship in the form of financial assistance to students from minority communities to pursue higher studies such as M. Phil and PhD.