This book is a political analysis of the role of adult education as an agency of cultural and ideological significance in India from the turbulent period in the 1940s onward. The introduction examines the roots of education in India, the English studies courses that developed when India was a British colony, and continuation of colonial educational policy after India's independence. Chapter 1 surveys the history of British educational involvement in India's educational system from the missionary clause of 1678 through Independence in 1947. Chapter 2 focuses on Gandhi's educational ideas and his basic education policy. The ideology of Nehru and the Congress Party and its application to education are explained in chapter 3. Chapter 4 surveys the various educational strategies of postcolonial India under the Five Year Plans and considers the policy of social education in relation to "nation building." The nonformal revolution in education in the 1970s and the National Adult Education Policy of the late 1970s and 1980s are outlined in chapter 5, and the subsequent radical populist approaches to adult education are traced in chapter 6. Chapter 7 traces movement toward a transformative pedagogy within the context of Nehru's pragmatism, Gandhi's romanticism, and the tradition of British liberal adult education. Contains 153 references. (MN)