Academic freedom is the chant of the time, particularly in the context of globalisation and the gendered and restructured academia. But many scholars have not addressed what this freedom is all about in developing countries which are still very backward in education. This paper argues that academic freedom cannot be seen as part of the larger social freedom when it is concerned only with the freedom of a fortunate few who are in institutions of higher education and related learning centres and that seen from a human rights’ perspective academic freedom entails first universal access to education at all levels viewing development as freedom and then understanding the freedom of the stake holders at different levels of the academia. The paper first looks at the education systems in developed countries to see to what extent the education system in India varies from them. It then looks at various issues concerning Indian education. Its main conclusions are that Indian education is in disarray, only a fraction of the eligible population has any access to higher education, most of those getting enrolled for primary, middle, and secondary levels drop out, and such a dismal scenario leaves hardly any scope for a meaningful debate on academic freedom. By way of conclusion the paper argues that as Indian education has been mired in problems and many of these problems have been identified, African countries can learn a lot from India’s failures in reshaping its education systems.