A report in the formation of a task force by HRD Ministry to formulate a national education policy, based on the feedback from villages and blocks, points to the government’s indifference towards educational reform. President Pranab Mukherjee, in his 65th Republic Day address, described corruption as a form of “cancer that is eroding democracy and weakening the foundation of the State.” Such malady as rampant corruption, violence, terrorism, social vices and unrest has brought the country’s culture, tradition and peace to the brink of damnation. Incidentally, mankind has a deeper dimension beyond the body and the brain. The mere enactment of laws and the creation of vigilance entities as the Lokpal are not sufficient as correctives to address such maladies.
To understand the reasons behind the present mindset of the masses, it is necessary to recall Lord Macanlay’s address in the British Parliament in February 1835 ~ “I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such moral values, people of such calibre that I do not think we would even conquer this country, unless we break the backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture. For if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose self-esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.”
Thus it was that in the scheme of education under the British, India’s traditional moral lessons in matters religious were virtually jettisoned. The contemporary worthies, with myopic vision, hailed the new education system, believing that moral principles and values had outlived their utility in the era of scientific renaissance.
Swami Vivekananda had grasped the baneful effects of the absence of proper coordination and harmony among the various faculties of body, brain and mind in the British system of education. He had pointed out unambiguously that religious lessons, preaching moral principles were the life of Indians that form their character and when removed, the country will die under the weight of immorality in spite of social reforms, scientific advancement and material gains. He stressed the need for adequate facilities to stimulate the spiritual instincts of boys and girls in the new materialistic education. This was reaffirmed by Mahatma Gandhi who maintained that unless the body, brain and mind went hand in hand with the in-parallel awakening of the soul; all materialistic development would be lopsided.
The continuation of the legacy of “raj education” in independent India has heightened desires, multiplied wants, miseries, clashes, conflicts. In the net, the soul of society has been destroyed. The supreme edifice of philosophical thoughts has been pulled down to the level of sordid utilitarianism. This has undermined the process, the very foundation of their cultural life. It has dislodged people’s love for their language and literature, their appreciation of the arts and worst of all, their faith in traditions and religions. The malignant maladies are the crude manifestations of Vivekananda’s foreboding.
India continues to make do with deficient colonial education in schools, the main platform for mass education. The country has been ranked 126th out of 175 in the 2006 Human Development Report. “The education,” said Vivekananda, “which does not help the common masses of people to equip themselves for the struggle of life, which does not bring out their strength of character, spirit of self-sacrifice and philanthropy and the courage of a lion, is as worthless as a Dead Sea apple.” He described real education as the one which enables one to stand on one’s legs, helps him to manifest the perfection already in him. It has to be a creative force in life and must be based on religion to seek fulfillment through the service of humanity in a spirit of worship. He emphasised a scheme of education that includes imparting scientific knowledge and rendering moral lessons to hold up the Indian religious spirit, meet the national temperament and balance the national character. He stressed that a healthy social order can never be built without a strong moral character of the masses. “Education”, according to Vivekananda, is “a training by which expressions of will are brought under control and become fruitful.”
There is no time for more pious platitudes with regard to educational reform. Urgent steps are necessary for the incorporation of Vivekananda’s ideals in the school curriculum, indeed to rectify and reform mass education. The recovery of traditional knowledge from religious scripts in depth and fullness, its reinstatement in forms adapted to the present needs and practical applications of the knowledge, so gathered, to the development of a healthy economic life and a new social order must constitute the guiding principle of the system of education that is to be evolved and given to the masses for their well-being.
The committee on Religious and Moral Instruction that was previously set up by the Union education ministry had recommended that “the cure of growing maladies and ills of the society lies in deliberate inculcation of moral and spiritual values from the earliest years of lives.” Human faculties and character are in a formative stage right from the time one is a toddler up to the teenage level.
If mass education has to be geared for cultural emancipation, school education should be reformed, specifically to include moral science subjects that will implant in the plastic minds of young boys and girls spiritual and virtuous instincts and develop in them a strong moral character. They should be taught to imbibe a set of virtues and values like truthfulness, honesty, integrity, love, respect, faith, to tolerance, gratitude, devotion, piety, forgiveness, modesty, fellow-feeling, selflessness, services to others etc. by inculcating the uplifting gospels that have been recorded in the ancient scriptures. Provision of weightage on proficiency certificate, pertaining to moral science subjects in future placements in life, might be a way to awaken their parents to the need to accord importance to moral and value education. This will help build up a healthy united society with a strong ethical foundation. Incidentally, in the roadmap unveiled by the President last June, education is a conspicuous exclusion. It appears that the BJP, a party based on faith and culture, is not anxious to change the legacy of materialistic colonial education which is at the core of the present social maladies. Until school education, the main platform of mass education, is reformed to make it ‘man-making’ based on the ideals of Swami Vivekananda, the Prime Minister’s dream of a rising India, embellished with pristine glory, cannot be realised.
To understand the reasons behind the present mindset of the masses, it is necessary to recall Lord Macanlay’s address in the British Parliament in February 1835 ~ “I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such moral values, people of such calibre that I do not think we would even conquer this country, unless we break the backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture. For if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose self-esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.”
Thus it was that in the scheme of education under the British, India’s traditional moral lessons in matters religious were virtually jettisoned. The contemporary worthies, with myopic vision, hailed the new education system, believing that moral principles and values had outlived their utility in the era of scientific renaissance.
Swami Vivekananda had grasped the baneful effects of the absence of proper coordination and harmony among the various faculties of body, brain and mind in the British system of education. He had pointed out unambiguously that religious lessons, preaching moral principles were the life of Indians that form their character and when removed, the country will die under the weight of immorality in spite of social reforms, scientific advancement and material gains. He stressed the need for adequate facilities to stimulate the spiritual instincts of boys and girls in the new materialistic education. This was reaffirmed by Mahatma Gandhi who maintained that unless the body, brain and mind went hand in hand with the in-parallel awakening of the soul; all materialistic development would be lopsided.
The continuation of the legacy of “raj education” in independent India has heightened desires, multiplied wants, miseries, clashes, conflicts. In the net, the soul of society has been destroyed. The supreme edifice of philosophical thoughts has been pulled down to the level of sordid utilitarianism. This has undermined the process, the very foundation of their cultural life. It has dislodged people’s love for their language and literature, their appreciation of the arts and worst of all, their faith in traditions and religions. The malignant maladies are the crude manifestations of Vivekananda’s foreboding.
India continues to make do with deficient colonial education in schools, the main platform for mass education. The country has been ranked 126th out of 175 in the 2006 Human Development Report. “The education,” said Vivekananda, “which does not help the common masses of people to equip themselves for the struggle of life, which does not bring out their strength of character, spirit of self-sacrifice and philanthropy and the courage of a lion, is as worthless as a Dead Sea apple.” He described real education as the one which enables one to stand on one’s legs, helps him to manifest the perfection already in him. It has to be a creative force in life and must be based on religion to seek fulfillment through the service of humanity in a spirit of worship. He emphasised a scheme of education that includes imparting scientific knowledge and rendering moral lessons to hold up the Indian religious spirit, meet the national temperament and balance the national character. He stressed that a healthy social order can never be built without a strong moral character of the masses. “Education”, according to Vivekananda, is “a training by which expressions of will are brought under control and become fruitful.”
There is no time for more pious platitudes with regard to educational reform. Urgent steps are necessary for the incorporation of Vivekananda’s ideals in the school curriculum, indeed to rectify and reform mass education. The recovery of traditional knowledge from religious scripts in depth and fullness, its reinstatement in forms adapted to the present needs and practical applications of the knowledge, so gathered, to the development of a healthy economic life and a new social order must constitute the guiding principle of the system of education that is to be evolved and given to the masses for their well-being.
The committee on Religious and Moral Instruction that was previously set up by the Union education ministry had recommended that “the cure of growing maladies and ills of the society lies in deliberate inculcation of moral and spiritual values from the earliest years of lives.” Human faculties and character are in a formative stage right from the time one is a toddler up to the teenage level.
If mass education has to be geared for cultural emancipation, school education should be reformed, specifically to include moral science subjects that will implant in the plastic minds of young boys and girls spiritual and virtuous instincts and develop in them a strong moral character. They should be taught to imbibe a set of virtues and values like truthfulness, honesty, integrity, love, respect, faith, to tolerance, gratitude, devotion, piety, forgiveness, modesty, fellow-feeling, selflessness, services to others etc. by inculcating the uplifting gospels that have been recorded in the ancient scriptures. Provision of weightage on proficiency certificate, pertaining to moral science subjects in future placements in life, might be a way to awaken their parents to the need to accord importance to moral and value education. This will help build up a healthy united society with a strong ethical foundation. Incidentally, in the roadmap unveiled by the President last June, education is a conspicuous exclusion. It appears that the BJP, a party based on faith and culture, is not anxious to change the legacy of materialistic colonial education which is at the core of the present social maladies. Until school education, the main platform of mass education, is reformed to make it ‘man-making’ based on the ideals of Swami Vivekananda, the Prime Minister’s dream of a rising India, embellished with pristine glory, cannot be realised.
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