Subject: [world-vedic] EDUCATION From: M P Bhattathiry Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 06:41:48 +0530 To: vediculture@yahoogroups.com HOW STATE OF EDUCATION CHANGED IN INDIA SOURCE. http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=21880 Tagore's warning that a totally state-sponsored education system only retarded independent thinking and creativity is relevant even today. Tagore's grew up at a time when the newly established universities of Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai were busy bringing out Macaulay's brown sahibs. The elitism of the British education policy was reflected in the rejection of Gokhale's primary education bill in 1912. Santiniketan was established in 1909 and similar private initiatives were evident in the establishment of the Dayanand Anglo-vedic College in Lahore, which eventually spread over entire North India. Sir Sayyed Ahmed Khan's Aligarh Muslim University, Madan Mohan Malaviya's Benares Hindu University and Swami Shradhananda's Gurukul at Hardwar are among such initiatives. The Swadeshi movement between 1905 and 1908 brought in an enthusiasm for nationalist education. Under Aurobindo's stewardship the National College was established. However, after the Swadeshi movement receded the only meaningful survival was the Bengal Technical Institute, which later became Jadavpur University. But one lasting effect of the Swadeshi movement was the effort made towards adult education. As a consequence night schools and colleges sprang up in which political leaders took active part. But the neglect of primary education continued. British India had a literary rate of only 5.6 per cent and a very limited higher education available mostly to the urban-based middle class. Tagore's major emphasis was to go beyond the curricula imposed by a foreign government. This is the primary reason for lack of any original thinking emanating from our centres of advanced learning. To prove his point Tagore gave the example of the Irish experience. In Ireland, a British-controlled education did not bring any benefit and the students were subjected merely to Saxon-oriented curricula. The English language was imposed at the primary and secondary school level replacing Irish. There was even a ban on teaching Irish history and society. Tagore found this in the Indian situation. Till they were 19 and 20 years of age their life was spent in an exercise which was creatively futile. The British attempted to make Indians British just as they attempted with the Irish. In a different context, Tolstoy writing about the Czarist educational system pointed out that there was an attempt to teach subservience and conformism, which rather than leading to advancement of knowledge led to a triumph of mediocrity. What Tagore emphasised was the fact that merely copying the European way of teaching could not yield any positive result. There was need to innovate in accordance with the aspirations of our country and its historical, cultural and social evolution. An elitist education system, which was not in consonance with the society and its people, would be counter-productive. It would fail to develop any link with one's society and thus remain artificial and irrelevant. Tagore contrasted this artificially imposed Western education with the ancient Indian educational system. Unlike the present state-sponsored education, the basis of ancient Indian education was that it was independent, self-sustaining and intimately linked with human existence. Living with the guru and his family in natural surroundings gave the young impressionable mind an opportunity to develop in a spontaneous manner. This was unthinkable in modern India and the result was the emergence of mechanical individuals rather than thinking human beings. Tagore also cautioned against a major drawback of the ancient Indian educational system: it was restrictive. He emphasised the need for an open space, clear blue skies, natural surroundings as a precondition for developing both mind and body. Such an atmosphere existed in pre-British period and its absence explained the basic reason for the failure of the modern Indian educational system. For Tagore, education was not just about training to get a job but to develop human capacities and thinking. It was a quest for knowledge that would create self-confidence and self-reliance. He desired a system that could be sustained without government patronage. Merely bookish knowledge would not advance knowledge. It needed to be accompanied with practical experience and emphasis on self-development. Technical education by itself would remain incomplete unless it was linked with life itself. Since Tagore accepted change as inevitable, he wanted education to reflect it within a natural environment. But the aimlessness of modern education in India was unable to face this challenge. He also advocated similar curricula for both men and women and added that this similarity would not detract women from their intrinsic nature, namely their love for children. An ideal basis of educational system in India ought to incorporate studies of Vedic literature, the Purans, Buddhist and Jain literature along with the more recent ones that emanate from Islamic, Parsi and European civilisations. This allowed the evolution and a social acceptance of a universal order. What India lacked was faith in universal values and that led to narrowness, a feeling of dependency developing into sycophancy and localism. Tagore gave a call to get out of this localism and build an educational system which would emphasise human unity and universal cooperation. This idealism led him to initiate the project of Visva Bharati. He even asserted that even if we were deficient in resources we could always make it up in human resources by building up modern centres of learning in the tradition of Taxila, Nalanda and Vikramshila where the very best from distant lands came and enriched themselves by quality and meaningful education. His criticism of the Soviet educational system also emanated from a belief that totally state-sponsored educational system would retard independent thinking and creativity. Tagore warned that the contemporary university system did not reflect Indian society and as a consequence it was not conducive to developing personality and independent thinking and producing the best in one's area. The educational system did not unite the mind with the heart, creating a void. Visva Bharati was a symbolic attempt to bridge this gulf by creating a cooperative basis of sharing knowledge.