Maulana Azad: A Life

aulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958) was an Islamic scholar, freedom fighter, freethinker, journalist, and independent India's first education minister. Born into an orthodox family of famed Islamic scholars, Azad was deeply influenced by the pan-Islamic philosophies of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Jamaluddin Afghani. Azad had no formal education, but he was an autodidact who taught himself about culture, philosophy, languages, and literature. As a teenager, he successfully published several magazines and newspapers and went on to publish the immensely popular Urdu weekly Al-Hilal through which he tried to persuade Indian Muslims to shake off the shackles of British rule. He became inspired by Gandhi's non-violent civil disobedience movement and was extremely critical of the Muslim League's communal politics. He joined the Indian National Congress and was elected its youngest president. As president, Azad fought against the fissiparous politics of the Muslim League as well as the oppressive British regime. After Independence, he reinvigorated India's formal education system and laid the foundations for scientific and cultural learning in India. He pioneered free and compulsory elementary education and adult literacy programmes.