A Matter of the Heart: Education in India – By Anurag Behar (Author)

Journey deep into the overlooked heart of rural India, past the glitzy private academies of metropolitan hubs and into the quiet, dust-swirled classrooms of our nation's most remote villages. In A Matter of the Heart: Education in India, celebrated educationist and social sector leader Anurag Behar delivers a profoundly moving, clear-eyed collection of essays. Compiled from over a decade of firsthand field observations, this volume serves as both a sobering look at institutional neglect and a glowing tribute to the resilient, grassroots educators who are quietly shaping India's tomorrow.Through a series of beautifully rendered field portraits, Behar—who spends half of every year traveling through India's most vulnerable regions—reveals a nation where the fundamental right to education is in a daily, grueling tug-of-war with basic survival. Yet, what shines through these pages isn't despair, but a deeply heart-warming reality of community empowerment. From single-teacher schools perched precariously on Kumaon mountain peaks to makeshift classrooms nestled deep within desert dunes, Behar introduces us to the ordinary people driving extraordinary change. Published by Westland Non-Fiction, this screen-free masterclass reminds us of a timeless truth: when it comes to true human learning, policy metrics mean nothing without genuine empathy.Rather than letting its sweeping policy insights and deep field anecdotes blur into a dense block of text, A Matter of the Heart anchors its analysis across four clear, scannable structural pillars: