In Bihar, India, the number of illiterate people has increased during the last 5 decades despite the rise in the percentage of literacy. Reasons are lack of encouragement by the upper classes for education of the masses, lack of unity among lower classes to demand education as a matter of right, and a low base of development. The Mass Literacy Campaign carried out during 1938-47 is one of the most successful mass programs ever undertaken in the history of Indian adult education. It stands as an example of a social welfare program undertaken with the full cooperation and collaboration of governmental and nongovernmental agencies. Because the campaign created a group of well-educated and committed officials and a receptive atmosphere, the social education program of the 1950s could be implemented effectively. In the absence of a dynamic leader committed to adult education during the 1950s and 1960s and with the retirement of the well-oriented, dedicated body of officials created during the Mass Literacy Campaign, the progress of social education began to slow down. With the outbreak of wars and the subsequent economic crisis in the 1960s, the newly created adult education institutions were dismantled. When the centrally sponsored Farmers Functional Literacy Program was introduced in Bihar in the late 1960s, it failed miserably. Post-1978 developments in adult education promise a brighter future, since a number of adult education institutions have been established and liberal financial allocations made. (Appendixes include 13 tables, chapter references and notes, and a 36-item bibliography.) (YLB)