Which Universities Did Maulana Azad Help To Establish?

I like picturing Azad walking through a new campus and arguing with engineers over classrooms versus labs—he had big practical priorities. When people ask me ‘which universities did he set up?’ I prefer to answer with the broader truth: he helped establish and institutionalize the national framework that made many modern universities and premier institutes possible.

On the shortlist: the first wave of Indian Institutes of Technology (the movement that began with IIT Kharagpur in 1951) came out of policies and support he championed. The University Grants Commission became a statutory body in 1956 largely because he pushed for central coordination and funding for higher education. AIIMS in New Delhi (established mid-1950s) also received the kind of ministerial backing that Azad provided. During his ministry, India also saw the birth of several cultural and scholarly academies—Sangeet Natak Akademi, Sahitya Akademi and Lalit Kala Akademi—that bolstered arts and research on par with academic institutions.

So, while he wasn’t always the lone founder of a single university building, Maulana Azad’s role was foundational: he created the policy environment, the institutional machinery and the political will for universities and premier institutes to be set up and thrive. If you’re tracing institutional histories, his decade as Education Minister is where a lot of modern higher education in India really began to take shape.

I get a little excited talking about this because Maulana Azad was one of those old-school visionaries who quietly built the scaffolding for modern Indian higher education. As India’s first Education Minister (1947–1958) he pushed for a national system that could support research, technical training and cultural growth. That meant he wasn’t just signing paperwork—he championed and helped set up several central institutions and bodies that shaped universities across the country.

Concretely, he played a major role in the creation of the University Grants Commission (UGC) which came into statutory existence in 1956; that body has been crucial for funding, coordinating and maintaining standards in Indian universities. He also strongly backed the idea of national-level technical institutes, and his tenure saw the founding of the first Indian Institutes of Technology (with IIT Kharagpur opening in 1951). During the same era he supported the establishment of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi (1956) and helped found cultural and scholarly academies such as the Sangeet Natak Akademi (early 1950s), Sahitya Akademi (1954) and Lalit Kala Akademi (mid-1950s). These weren’t all ‘universities’ in the strict sense, but they formed the ecosystem that helped universities flourish.

Beyond the headline names, Maulana Azad also worked to strengthen institutions like Jamia Millia Islamia and was instrumental in laying the groundwork for national educational planning bodies and curriculum efforts (precursors to things like NCERT). If you love reading old plaques or debating campus histories, his fingerprints are everywhere—he was that quiet force that pushed India from fragmented institutions toward a coordinated higher-education system, and that legacy still feeds students and scholars today.

When I try to give a quick, practical list to friends, I say Maulana Azad was the driving minister behind the creation of a bunch of the key institutions that made modern Indian universities possible. He was the first Education Minister (1947–58), and under his watch the University Grants Commission became a statutory reality (1956), and the first Indian Institutes of Technology began to appear (with IIT Kharagpur in 1951). He also gave strong support to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS, mid-1950s) and helped set up cultural academies like the Sangeet Natak Akademi and Sahitya Akademi in the early-to-mid 1950s.

So even if you’re asking for ‘which universities’, it’s helpful to think of him as the architect of the system: he didn’t only start single campuses—he built the national structures and policies that allowed many universities and premier institutes to be established and flourish. If you want to dig deeper, checking histories of IITs, UGC, AIIMS and the 1950s cultural academies will show his fingerprints pretty clearly.