National Education Day 2021: India’s First Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad:

National Education Day commemorates the birth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad served as the first education minister of independent India from 1947 to 1958. He was posthumously honored with India’s highest civilian award – Bharat Ratna in 1992. Every year, since 2008, November 11 is celebrated as National Education Day. To mark the birth anniversary of India’s first education minister Abul Kalam Ghulam Muhiyuddin.

A revered scholar, poet, journalist, and above all, a freedom fighter, Maulana Azad was instrumental in laying the foundations of some of the best educational institutes in India. Azad played a great role in the establishment of the University Grant Commission (UGC). The late education minister who transformed the education system of India.

He was a transcending figure on the Indian political scene and opportunity development. And a researcher appraised high in the domains of Urdu Literature. National Education Day celebrates his passion and commitment to the field of education.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad supported Non-Cooperation Movement started by Gandhiji and entered Indian National Congress in 1920. He elected as the president of the special session of the Congress in Delhi (1923).  At an age of 35, he became the youngest person to serve as the President of the Indian National Congress. After his release, he again became the president of Congress in 1940 (Ramgarh) and remained in the post till 1946.

Which place to born for Maulana abul kalam Azad ?

Azad was born on 11 November 1888 in Mecca, then a part of the Ottoman Empire, now a part of Saudi Arabia. His real name was Sayyid Ghulam Muhiyuddin Ahmed bin Khairuddin Al Hussaini, but he eventually became known as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Azad’s father was a Muslim scholar of Afghan ancestry, who lived in Delhi with his maternal grandfather. As his father had died at a very young age. A Bengali Muslim of Afghan origins who came to Arab during the Sepoy Mutiny and proceeded to Mecca and settled there. He came back to Calcutta with his family in 1890 when Abul Kalam was two years old.

Azad home-schooled and self-taught. Following fluency in Arabic as a first language, Azad began to master several other languages including Bengali, Hindustani, Persian, and English. He was also trained in the Mazahibs of Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali fiqh, Shariat, mathematics, philosophy, world history, and science by tutors hired by his family.

” EDUCATION IS THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON WHICH YOU CAN USE TO CHANGE THE WORLD”

As a young man, Azad composed poetry in Urdu, as well as treatises on religion and philosophy. He rose to prominence through his work as a journalist, publishing works critical of the British Raj and espousing the causes of Indian nationalism. Azad became the leader of the Khilafat Movement, during which he came into close contact with the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi. Maulana Azad arrested in 1930 for violation of the salt laws as part of Gandhiji’s Salt Satyagraha. He put in Meerut jail for a year and a half.

Founder of Jamia Milia Islamia University

In October 1920, Azad elected as a member of the foundation committee to establish Jamia Millia Islamia at Aligarh in U. P. without taking help from the British colonial government. He assisted in shifting the campus of the university from Aligarh to New Delhi in 1934. The main gate (Gate No. 7) to the main campus of the university named after him. He is responsible for shaping the modern education system of the country. He is also responsible for building the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). The IIT, IISc, School of Planning and Architecture, and the University Grants Commission established under his tenure as the education minister. The most prominent cultural, literary academies also built including the Sangeet Natak Academy, Lalit Kala Academy, Sahitya Academy. As well as the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.