When Prof Romila Thapar speaks, the world listens. Unfailingly insightful, her words carry the wisdom of experience and the width of vision. Just as it was at the packed-to-the-brim auditorium at India International Centre at the launch of historian S. Irfan Habib’s biography of Maulana Azad, India’s first education minister.
The book titled, Maulana Azad: A Life celebrates the contribution of the leader who first turned the opinion of some revolutionary freedom fighters towards Muslims, then went on to awaken the community to the need to participate in a united struggle against the British. A little before Partition, he stuck his neck out against Muslim League’s demand for a separate homeland for Muslims and beseeched the beleaguered minority not to leave the trusted shores of India for the untried waters of Pakistan.
From the ramparts of the historic Jama Masjid in Delhi, he reminded the multitudes preparing to migrate to Pakistan immediately after Independence, “It was not long ago when I warned you that the two-nation theory was the death-knell to a meaningful and dignified life; forsake it. The Partition of India was a fundamental mistake. Where are you going and why?”
Irfan Habib with Dr.Romila Thapar | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
“Even though I was in school then, whenever we would get to know about the meeting of nationalist leaders in the vicinity, we would rush out. If somebody asked us the reason for our excitement, we did not know what to say. When I look back at those times, I realize, we had leaders who read, and actually wrote when they were put in jail by the British and one was being led by groups who were thinking about the problems.,” Prof. Thapar said.
“Maulana Azad advocated the idea of compulsory education for all Indians up to the age of 14. His argument was that basic education should be available to all, with an emphasis on rural and girl’s education. Citizens cannot discharge their duty to the state unless they are educated. By basic education, he did not mean memorizing basic questions and answers to them. The purpose of education is to learn to think,” she said about the man who set up the University Grants Commission besides literary and cultural bodies like the Sahitya Akademi, Lalit Kala Akademi and the Sangeet Natak Akademi, etc.
Habib’s book is a labour of love andpatience as the project ran into unforeseen delays. The idea germinated when he was the Maulana Azad Chair at the National University of Educational Planning and Administration in New Delh. Recalled Habib, “I focused my attention on Maulana though I had always admired him as a scholar of Islam and a committed nationalist. Through seminars and plays (directed by Sayeed Alam and starring Tom Alter as Azad) that I organized on his birthdays on November 11 every year, my understanding developed.” His birthday is celebrated as National Education Day.
“My idea was to bring Maulana back into circulation and restore him to his dignified place. There have been no books on him in recent years and he stays hugely relevant for all of us, for India and for proponents of cultural nationalism. I am happy to note a biopic on him is now being planned by young Kashmiri scholar Adnan,” revealed Habib who was gifted Maulana’s pen at the book launch, something he called, “the most memorable thing I will ever possess”.
.
