Since Independence, India’s education system has been shaped by tall leaders. At the portal of freedom stands Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the scholar-revolutionary who served as India’s first education minister for eleven years (1947–1958). At the other end sits Pralhad Joshi, a five-term Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Karnataka, who took charge as India’s new education minister a few days ago on July 26, 2026. Almost 80 years have elapsed between the two. The stark contrast between the two reveals much about how India’s educational vision has altered.India’s first education ministerAzad was taught at home by his father, Maulana Khairuddin, who selected his teachers. Though Azad never received formal schooling, he was proficient in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi, English and French through private study. By age 16, he had completed studies in philosophy, mathematics and algebra. Also at age 16, he joined the guerilla movement Jugantar and Anushilan with Shyam Sundar Chakravorty and Rash Behari Ghosh. Azad was a rare combination of high learning, deep intellect and revolutionary activity – a profound thinker, interpreter of religion, upholder of secularism and one of the prime builders of the modern Indian state.He was also one of India’s earliest political thinkers to define and enunciate the idea of a secular democracy. He believed that Indian nationalism had to be anchored on Hindu-Muslim unity and built on secular concepts of politics and statehood. Azad’s commitment to Hindu-Muslim unity was absolute. Just as a Hindu can say with legitimate pride that he is an Indian as well as a follower of Hinduism, so can a Muslim proudly claim being Indian and a follower of Islam. So can a Christian, Sikh, Jain or Buddhist. In 1923, while serving as Congress president, he said:“If an angel were to descend from the heavens and proclaim from the heights of Qutab Minar that India will get Swaraj (freedom) within 24 hours provided she relinquishes Hindu-Muslim unity I will relinquish swaraj rather than give up Hindu-Muslim unity. Delay in attainment of swaraj will be a loss to India, but if our unity is lost it will be a loss for entire mankind.”As the first education minister, Azad laid the foundations of India’s educational architecture. He spoke of a national system of education, which many decades later became the bedrock of the National Policy on Education. Among the institutions he founded were the University Grants Commission, Sangeet Natak Akademi, Sahitya Akademi, Lalit Kala Akademi, Indian Council for Cultural Relations, All India Council for Technical Education and the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Kharagpur).Azad believed that a truly liberal and humanitarian education could transform a nation’s outlook and set it on the path of progress. He championed free and compulsory primary education for all children up to age 14, insisting that a nation’s real wealth lay not in its banks but its primary schools. All educational programmes, he insisted, must be carried out in strict conformity with secular values and within the constitutional framework.Why Pradhan’s replacement is not really a replacementEighty years later Pralhad Joshi became India’s 32nd education minister following the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan amid the NEET-UG paper leak controversy. He holds this portfolio as an additional charge alongside consumer affairs, food and public distribution as well as new and renewable energy.Joshi holds a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from K.S. Arts College, Hubballi, affiliated with Karnataka University, Dharwad. He is a five-time Lok Sabha MP for Karnataka’s Dharwad constituency. His political journey began through grassroots activism and organisational work with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He has also expressed concerns regarding declining Hindu population, which could ‘endanger’ the country’s secular character.Joshi has faced severe censure from opposition leaders for his questionable decisions. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have labelled him a ‘defender of rapists‘ for supporting the release of convicts in the 2002 Bilquis Bano gang-rape case, which took place during the Gujarat carnage.Joshi’s appointment has been viewed by political analysts as consistent with the BJP’s approach of placing leaders who seek to further the party’s and the RSS’s ideological and cultural agenda through education. This idea is reinforced by his longstanding association with the RSS, which has traditionally viewed culture and education as key arenas for advancing ideological propaganda.The stark contrast between the twoThe contrast between Azad and Joshi could not be starker. In Farsi, there is a saying: “Che nisbat khaakRa ba alam paak”(How can dust compare to the sacred realm?)Azad was a scholar-intellectual who shaped India’s education system from scratch, building institutions that would serve generations. He was a man who dedicated his life to Hindu-Muslim unity and Indian nationalism.In 1947, he addressed Muslims from the ramparts of Jama Masjid in Delhi. The partition of India was a fundamental mistake, he said, and that inciting religious differences inevitably led to the devastation witnessed by all. Three beloved rahbars (guides) were vehemently opposed to partition: Mahatma Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Azad. “Over my dead body,” said Gandhi and the other two breathed the same words.Joshi, by contrast, enters the domain of education at the precipice of crisis; student suicides, students with pellet wounds and lacerations, demanding accountability.Azad’s vision was inclusive and pluralistic – he believed that education was the means to build a united, secular and progressive India. Joshi’s statements, on the other hand, suggest that secularism exists because of Hindu majority. His concerns about Hindu population decline echoes the mindset of the current dispensation.Azad’s strongest statement on secularism and education captures the essence of his philosophy. He said, “The primary aim of any system is to create balanced minds which cannot be misled.” This simple yet profound statement encapsulates his belief that education’s purpose is not to indoctrinate but to liberate the mind – to create citizens capable of independent thought, resistant to prejudice and division.The eight decade journey from Azad to Joshi is not a chronological transition. It is a philosophical one. From India’s first education minister, who saw secularism and Hindu-Muslim unity as non-negotiable principles, to India’s 32nd education minister, as India reflects on its educational future, the contrast between the two is phenomenal.Azad, for the second time, as Congress president in 1940, said, “Our shared life of a thousand years has forged a common nationality. Such moulds cannot be artificially constructed. Nature’s hidden anvils shape them over centuries. The mould has been cast and nature has set her seal upon it. We have now become an Indian nation. United and indivisible.”We the people of India – Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians – all have to join the Gen Z and its rage. As Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet, said:“Do not go gentle in the good nightRage rage against the dying of the light.”Syeda Hameed is a writer and the founder chair of the Muslim Women’s Forum.