The Other Classroom
Why India still needs Maulana Azad’s idea of social education

Jameel Aahmed Milansaar

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Maulana Azad understood that education does not end with schooling. Reviving his idea of social education is essential if India is to build informed citizens, resilient communities, and a more meaningful democracy.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s most enduring contribution to independent India was not confined to the expansion of schools, universities, or cultural institutions. It lay in a larger conception of education: as a condition of citizenship, a foundation of democracy, and a continuing public responsibility. On his birth anniversary, observed as National Education Day, it is worth asking whether India has retained that larger conception—or reduced education to credentials, competition, and employment.

Azad was independent India’s first Education Minister, serving from 1947 to 1958. He argued for free and compulsory education, the education of women, technical and scientific learning, and the building of national institutions in higher education and culture. Yet his vision was broader than formal schooling. He believed that a society could not be genuinely educated if its adults remained outside the reach of knowledge, literacy, public information, and cultural participation.

This was the idea of social education. Azad did not regard adult education merely as remedial instruction for those who had missed school. He saw it as a means of enabling citizens to understand their rights and responsibilities, participate intelligently in public affairs, improve their livelihoods, and engage with the cultural and civic life of the Republic. In his view, literacy was necessary but insufficient: the newly literate had to be drawn into a continuing process of learning, discussion, and informed participation.


That idea retains an uncomfortable relevance. India has expanded schooling substantially since Independence, and the National Education Policy 2020 explicitly frames education as a lifelong process. Government programmes such as ULLAS and NIPUN Bharat seek to widen access, strengthen foundational learning, promote inclusion, and support lifelong learning. But the measure of an educated society cannot be enrolment ratios alone. It must also be judged by whether citizens can read critically, access public entitlements, understand public policy, distinguish evidence from misinformation, and participate meaningfully in local democratic life.

The contemporary “other classroom” is therefore not simply a continuation of school. It may be a public library, a panchayat hall, a workplace, a self-help group, a community centre, or a digital platform. A worker may need digital and financial literacy; a farmer may need usable knowledge on climate, markets, and crop insurance; a parent may need help navigating a child’s education; an older citizen may need confidence in using online public services. These are not peripheral concerns. They determine whether formal rights become effective in practice.

Azad’s warning remains pertinent: literacy gained without continued opportunities for learning can fade. The modern equivalent is digital exclusion. A person may possess a smartphone yet remain unable to identify misinformation, apply for welfare entitlements, understand a health advisory, or participate in online civic processes. Access to a device is not the same as access to knowledge.

A renewed commitment to social education need not require a new bureaucratic apparatus. It requires the imaginative use of institutions that already exist. Schools can serve as community learning centres after regular hours. Public libraries can host reading circles, digital-literacy sessions, career guidance, and local history programmes. Panchayats and municipal wards can create accessible learning spaces on health, legal rights, financial inclusion, environmental safety, and local governance. Colleges and universities can open selected lectures, exhibitions, skill workshops, and cultural events to the wider public.

Culture must be central to this effort. Azad recognised that education is transmitted not only through textbooks but through theatre, film, music, public discussion, and shared civic experience. A local performance on water conservation, an exhibition on constitutional rights, or a community discussion on public services can cultivate civic imagination as effectively as a classroom lecture. Such activities also affirm that education is not merely instrumental; it is a means of enlarging human capacity and democratic consciousness.

The deeper issue is political. Azad held that democracy cannot function without an educated electorate. A democracy requires citizens able to question authority, assess competing claims, deliberate with others, and regard themselves as participants in a common public project. These capacities are not produced by examinations alone. They require sustained opportunities for reading, discussion, cultural engagement, and civic participation.

India’s education debate is often dominated by examinations, rankings, employability, and the language of marketable skills. These matters matter. But a society that treats education solely as a private investment in individual advancement risks neglecting its public purpose. Education must also cultivate informed citizens, critical judgement, social solidarity, and the capacity to participate in self-government.

On National Education Day, commemoration is easy. The more demanding tribute is to revive Azad’s larger educational imagination: to treat learning as a lifelong right, public institutions as sites of civic renewal, and every adult as a citizen capable of further growth. The “other classroom” is not a nostalgic idea. It is a practical necessity for a republic that wishes to be both literate and democratic.