Traveling Through India on the Himsagar Express

These young men had very little education. With some difficulty, Kumar, who was twenty-six, could write in Hindi his name and a brief description of the work that he did. In the years preceding independence, while in a British jail in Ahmednagar Fort, the future Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had bemoaned in his magisterial “The Discovery of India” that “of our millions how few get any education at all.” He added this hopeful note: “If life opened its gates to them and offered them food and healthy conditions of living and education and opportunities of growth, how many among these millions would be eminent scientists, educationists, technicians, industrialists, writers and artists, helping to build a new India and a new world?” That desirable future hasn’t come to pass. The “haves” get educated and also find opportunities abroad as doctors, engineers, scientists; a large section of the “have-nots,” on the other hand, often remain trapped in virtual illiteracy. More than half of India ... Read full article.