“I don’t think anyone has the courage to say this thing,” Sinha said. “Did you know, he didn’t have a single University degree or qualification,” Sinha said during his keynote speech at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Memorial Lecture at Gwalior on Friday.

He said a lot of people, even educated people think he had a law degree. "He had no degree. Some people on the stage may have different views and argue differently but I speak on the basis of facts,” Sinha said.

“His (Gandhi’s) only qualification was a high school diploma, he qualified to practice law but didn’t have a law degree. He had no degree,” Sinha said with emphasis. ? “Let me clear to you that don’t indulge formal connection with a degree and what you think is education. A pure degree is no education”, he said.

He said, “just look how educated he (Gandhi) was, he became the father of the nation.”

Quoting Mark Twain’s famous, “I didn’t allow my schooling to interfere with my education,” Sinha asked the audience to think about Mark Twain’s quote and its meaning.

Sinha said around 1000 people have done PhD on Kabir Das. “Leave aside education he (Kabir) was not even able to write his own name,” Sinha said adding that Kabir recognized his inner self and became Kabir. “Sachin Tendulkar has no degree. He is a high school pass. He has got the biggest reward in the country. He was not playing cricket, he was playing ping pong,” Sinha said, adding one day Tendulkar realised that he belonged to cricket and since then he was every day in the cricket field.?

“See how he conducts himself. He has got the Bharat Ratna (the highest civilian award). Do you ever remember that Tendulkar has given any controversial statement? Has he ever said anything that has become controversial,” he said, adding that education is education when it allows one to recognize his inner self on the basis of his experience.