It goes without saying that the teachers are the key figures in the field of education. It is but proper that we briefly touch upon a few fundamentals in this context.

 

 

To start with, what does ‘education’ connote in the modern sense of the term? It is to draw out the latent faculties in man. Merely stuffing pieces of information into the brain is not education. Making man’s brain a lumber room is not its aim. Recognising and bringing out the diverse talents and genius in man has been taken to be the cornerstone of education everywhere. And this has yielded substantial results too. We can find men of great achievements in several fields of arts and sciences in various countries.

 

But, we the Hindus have gone further. With us, the bringing out or the manifestation of the Inner Personality of man, is the essence of education. Life is not a mere bundle of passions. We say, there is an Ultimate Reality within us. To realise and manifest that Supreme Reality is the basic aim of our system of education. Our great sages and tapasvis have given detailed instructions with regard to the procedures to do that. And the teacher has a vital role in executing them.

 

 

To start with, he has to inculcate in the students the ten principles of Yama and Niyama. Ahimsa (non-injury), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (non-coveting), Brahmacharya (continence) and Aparigraha (non-acquisition) form the five Yamas. Shoucha (purity), Santosha (contentment), Tapah (penance), Swadhyaya (spiritual study), and Ishwara Pranidhana (offering of one’s actions to God) form the five Niyama. Even if a small number of students in a school imbibe the spirit of Yamas and Niyamas, they will be able to spread a healthy atmosphere so that others also will follow them in course of time.

 

These principles need to be told to the young minds in an interesting way. When I was in the middle school we had a teacher. Apart from his school teaching, he used to tell us various stories from our ancient puranas in a very interesting and instructive style. I was able to learn a lot from my mother also. My mother was not an ‘educated’ woman. I used to read out for her from our religious literature, like Mahabharata and Ramayana. Thereby I myself have immensely benefited.

 

It is such stories that have been, over centuries, building up our tradition and character as a people. There is a lot to learn from them. For example, there is the story of Jabali. Here is a boy who adhered to truth under all circumstances. When he approached a teacher with a request to be accepted as his pupils the teacher asked him to what gotra he belonged. The boy went home and repeated the teacher’s query to his mother Jabala. She said, "Well, I conceived you when I was serving as a maid servant in a master’s house. I do not recollect who your father is. Tell this to your teacher." The boy went back and recounted his mother’s reply word to word to the teacher. The teacher said to him, " You are the right type to receive education. You have the rectitude of character and the courage to tell the truth." Thereafter the boy came to be known as Satyakama Jabala.

 

 

But today most of us are oblivious of that wealth of anecdotes and allusions. Most of our young men do not even know that we have an ancient history, rich with excellences in all fields of life. In the absence of this positive and healthy content in education it is no wonder that our students take to reading vulgar and obscene magazines. Their methods of studying subjects also betray a lack of serious effort and the will to understand. Study of text-books and reference books by standard authors is given a go-by. ‘Short-Notes’ and ‘Questions and Answers’ have become the fashion of the day. Private tuition appears to the students to be another such easy way to pass. A teacher should, in fact, feel it an insult to his calibre and devotion to duty if his students are required to take tuition from others. The effect of all such short-cuts on the students’ minds has been ruining of his initiative, will and ability to understand. It is also often found that the teachers too encourage such things. Some teachers actually goad their students to come to them for private tuition. This will affect the student’s morale. An impression will be created in their minds that one need not do one’s duty honestly and could find some other crooked avenues for earning. It is this loss of moral integrity that makes students take to immoral means to get through the examination when all other ‘short-cuts’ fail.

 

 

All these perversions have to be nipped in the bud and the great qualities of head and heart planted in the young minds right from the elementary school stage. This can be done only when we draw upon the limitless storehouse of our ancient as well as modern literature which depicts our sublime national ethos and our mighty national heroes and events. Especially, our young men must be made to feel proud of being born in the great lineage of Rishis and Yogis. If we have to live up to their legacy, we must live as Hindus, we must appear as Hindus and also we must make ourselves felt by the whole world as Hindus. It is only when we learn to respect ourselves, our national customs and manners that we can hope to command respect from the outside world also. In fact the world wants us to be true to ourselves and not to become mere carbon copies of some X,Y or Z.

 

 

Once a Frenchman came to me. He was invited for food. He gladly sat on the floor and took our food just like us with fingers – no spoon, no fork, no tables. He said that he relished it all the more, and remarked: "When we come to you we must know and experience your ways and specialities of behaviour and customs. Otherwise where is the fun in our coming all the way to your country?

 

Once the Akhila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishat, a student organisation, had taken up a project to bring some students form NEFA and give them education in Poona and some other places in Maharashtra. The plan was to accommodate them in homes so that they could imbibe our culture and feel emotionally attached to our motherland and our people. When the organisers of the project came to me, I advised them not to lodge those students in westernised homes. They must reside in homes where the light is lit before the deity every morning and evening, where our festivals and customs are very much alive, and where they can imbibe our cultural norms. It is through such samskars that our vast concourse of people spreading over vast regions of this land have maintained their identity as a single national entity amidst all the turmoils and have lived as an immortal nation.

 

The Edinburgh Review wrote as far back as 1872 that ‘the Hindu is the most ancient nation on the earth and has been unsurpassed in refinement and culture’. But unfortunately, the children of such an ancient and great race themselves have fallen a prey to foreign propaganda and forgotten their ancient history and heritage. Such a society with its roots pulled out form its past can never hope to build a bright future for itself.

 

 

Once, during one of my visits to Delhi, I happened to meet Sri M.C. Chagla. He was then the Minister of Education at the Centre. He had just returned from a visit to Russia. He narrated his impression of how the youth there appeared to be serious in their studies and imbued with great ambitions of establishing their supremacy in all fields of life. He then asked me, " Well, I have not been able to understand what is wrong with our youth, why our students are given to strikes, indiscipline and disorder. But I find that in your organisation the young men are disciplined and dedicated. So, could you suggest some remedy for our youth problem?"

 

I asked him, "Well, have you placed any great ideal before the students?" He replied, "I must confess, no!" I then said, " Without a noble ideal to inspire them, how can we expect our students to imbibe discipline and dedication to higher values in life? It is such high idealism that can make them restrain their wild impulses, and direct their bubbling energies into constructive, nation-building channels. And inculcation of national idealism should have to start with the teaching of our true history in schools and colleges. Our children will have to be taught that they are born in a land of great heritage, that their forebears had set up the highest standards in material as well as spiritual achievements. Then only they too will be enthused to strive to attain the same or even greater heights.

 

"However, in our schools we teach the very opposite. The most glorious period of our history is denoted as dark ages; periods of slavery are glorified. The exploits of aggressors are eulogised and not the inspiring role of our freedom fighters. Our history is for the most part occupied by the Muslim period and, later, the British period. If this is how we teach our children – that they had nothing great in the past, that they have been a beaten people always, that it was only after the advent of Moghuls and, later the English, that this nation began to look forward – in short, that they had no past worthy of pride and no ancestors worthy of emulation, can we expect anything worth while from them?

 

"However, if you were to speak in glowing terms of the achievements of the Hindus in the past, and of their heroism and self-sacrificing zeal in their struggle against the foreigners – whether they were Greek, Muslim or English – you will be immediately branded as "communal"! Therein lies the hitch, the real crux of the problem!" Sri Chagla fell silent for a minute and confessed that it was so.

 

 

And what has been the outcome of this self-humiliating and stultifying type of education? Some years ago, one Dr. Chaturvedi was to visit Germany. There was an Indo-German Association, which sent him an invitation. As soon as he got down at the airport dressed like a European the people were taken aback. But they consoled themselves with the thought that it might be to protect himself against the cold. They took him through decorated streets, with four main arches named after the four Vedas, in which he was supposed to be proficient. For he was a "Chaturvedi"! A young lady, the secretary of the Association spoke in chaste Samskrit welcoming him. There was one more speech – that too in Samskrit. In reply, the ‘learned’ Doctor spoke in English on a subject, which had no relevance whatsoever to the welcome speech! The simple reason was, he did not know a word of Smaskrit, let alone the Vedas. The cat was out of the bag. All further programmes were cancelled and the ‘learned’ Doctor was unceremoniously asked to fly back by the next plane.

 

In contrast, see how our great ones have behaved. When Swami Ramatirtha reached the shores of America, the co-passengers were all in a hurry to take out their luggage and depart. However, the saffron-clad sannyasi sat tranquil and unperturbed, enjoying the scenery all round. An American gentleman who happened to be at the port accosted him and enquired where he wanted to go, where his luggage was, whether he had any introductory letter and so on. Ramatirtha replied that he carried no luggage, no money and, much less, any introductory letter. The American, dumbstruck, asked, "How then do you manage to carry on in this foreign country? Is there no friend, no one of your acquaintance here?" To this Ramatirtha just smiled and, placing his hands affectionately on the shoulders of that American, said, "Of course, I have one, and that is yourself!" At this, the American gentleman felt deeply touched, and in truth became his ardent friend and admirer and made excellent arrangements for the Swami’s sojourn in America.

 

 

But such depths of love and wisdom can be touched only if we start getting the necessary training right form our infancy. For that, the right type of atmosphere has to be created from the elementary school stage itself. Once I went to a school in Nasik. Hundreds of pictures were put up on the walls of the corridor. But all of them were scenes depicting battles and such other things form Europe and elsewhere. Not one was from our history or our epics. I asked the Headmaster how these pictures could inculcate the right spirit in our younger generation.

Why not have the pictures of the battle of Haldighat, of Panipat, etc.? To that he remarked that one should not have a narrow outlook limiting one’s horizon to the boundaries of one’s own country. Such perverted notions of internationalism and similar other high platitudes will only play havoc on our young minds.

 

Without the firm base of nationalism, to speak of humanity and internationalism would be losing at both ends. And so far as our national philosophy and heritage is concerned it has always embraced within its fold the highest good of all humanity. As such, preaching of our nationalism, even in its most intense form, will never divert the minds of our children form the highest values of human welfare. On the contrary, it only strengthens these human values.

These are some of the broad hints which the teachers, as mouldres of young minds, may usefully keep in mind.