Name: Raj Kumar
Country: India

Year: 2025
Volume: Volume-15, Issue-1 (Jan-June)
Page Number: 398-405
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20460592

ABSTRACT
This paper examines Lala Lajpat Rai’s conception of “national education” as a project of national regeneration and explores its relevance for contemporary Indian educational reform, especially the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020). Anchored in a close reading of The Problem of National Education in India (1920) and related writings, the study reconstructs Rai’s multi layered critique of colonial education as producing clericalism, economic dependence, psychological inferiority, and cultural alienation, and shows how he links these effects to the wider logic of imperial domination. It then analyses his positive programme of national education—rooted in Indian civilization yet open to modern science—centered on moral–character formation, vocational and technical training, women’s education, and democratic citizenship, while also acknowledging limits in his treatment of caste, gender, and religious pluralism. Methodologically, the paper combines intellectual history and