Introduction
By the 19th Century when great men like Ramakrishna Paramahans and Swami Vivekanand came on the scene, India as a nation had, perhaps,reached the lowest point in its decline. One of the evident areas of degeneration was education. With British administration gaining control, the indigenous education system was destroyed without anything to replace it. This led to mass ignorance and illiteracy. Where a new system was put in place, it destroyed indigenous languages, knowledge systems and culture and replaced it with something alien that removed the students emotionally from their roots, created alienation and bred an intense sense of inferiority about their own cultural heritage and traditions. It is ironical that almost sixty eight years after the country’s independence the demand for English language is so palpably strong, not as the learning of an additional language required as an international lingua franca, but as the medium of instruction. Inextricably linked with language is the culture of the people which in turn, is connected with the individual’s rootedness in the soil of the country. The elite who were educated in the new education system lost their moorings in India and aped the west in all aspects of their lives holding their own people in contempt. They became part of the bureaucracy in British India and became the head of governance structures in post-independence India. They propagated the western norms blindly which led to the masses to also aspire to them blindly. The hallmark of education became the ability to speak English and to live a westernized lifestyle. Macaulay succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
Decline of Indigenous Education
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy speaks about the products of the new education as early as 1908:
Speak, to the ordinary graduate of an Indian University-he will, hasten to display his knowledge of Shakespeare; talk to him of religious philosophy– you find that he is an atheist of the crude type common in Europe a generation ago, and that not only has he no religion but is as lacking in Philosophy as the average Englishman; talk to him Indian music–he will produce a gramophone or a harmonium, and inflict upon you one or both; talk to him of Indian dress or jewellery he will tell you that they are uncivilized and barbaric; talk to him of Indian art–it is news to him that such a thing exists; ask him to translate for you a letter written in his own mother tongue-he does not know it. He is indeed a stranger in his own land.
In this context it would be useful to examine what was the state of education before British administrative control of India and what causes led to its downfall. Seminal work has been done on this by Dharampal in The Beautiful Tree. He refers to what Mahtma Gandhi pointed out in his lecture delivered to the Royal Institute of International Affairs on 20th October, 1931,
I say without fear of my figures being challenged successfully that today India is more illiterate then it was fifty or hundred years ago because the British administrators when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were began to root them out. They scratched the soil… and left the root like that and the beautiful tree perished.
The reasons for the decline and disappearance of indigenous schools have been pointed out by the British officers themselves. These have been also cited by Dharampal. A.D. Campbell, the Collector of Bellary, in his report to the Government of Madras, dated 17.8.1823 on the state of education said,
I am sorry to state that this is ascribable to the gradual but general impoverishment of the country. The means of the manufacturing classes have been, of late years, greatly diminished by the introduction of our own European manufactures, in lieu of the Indian cotton fabrics. The removal of many of our troops, from our own territories, to the distant frontiers of our newly subsidized allies, has also of late years, affected the demand for grain. The transfer of the capital **of the country, from the native governments’ and their Officers who liberally expended it in India, to Europeans, restricted by law from employing it even temporarily in India and daily draining from the land has likewise tended to this effect. . . The greater part of the middling and lower classes of people are now unable to defray the expenses incident upon the education of their off spring, while their necessities require the assistance of the children as soon as their tender limbs are capable of the smallest labour. Of the 533 institutions for education now existing in this district, I am ashamed to say, not one now derives any support from the state.
Similar state of affairs were noted by Adam, a Baptist missionary who came to Bengal in 1818, as also by Leitnerwho was for some time the Principal of Government College at Lahore and Acting Director Public Instruction, Punjab in 1882, among others.
The people were impoverished because of the colonial exploitation of the economy and so could not support education as they had done earlier. Not only that they were unable to send their children to school as poverty compelled them to put every working hand to earn as soon as possible, even at a very tender age. Hence, children were made to work as early as they could to bring in some income to the family. Besides, wherever the British put an education system into place, it was very expensive and beyond the reach of the common man. It was also very alienating. Further, the management of schools was far from satisfactory which aggravated the situation. As Adam says:
In the report of 1st July 1835, mention is made of an English school at Bauleah, the capital of this district, but no information was then possessed respecting it… The school was established in July 1833 and placed under the care of an English teacher receiving eighty rupees per month, with an assistant receiving twenty rupees and Bengali teacher receiving eight rupees. The English teacher in addition to his salary had a bungalow built for him at a cost of eight hundred rupees which he occupied rent-free; and a school house was built at an expense of one thousand and two hundred rupees. With economical repairs and proper care, both the houses might last fifteen years. The expense of books, pens, papers, ink, and a sweeper to keep the school house clean, was estimated on an average at twelve rupees per month. The current monthly expenditure thus amounted to one hundred and twenty rupees.
As Dharampal points out, the consequences of uprooting Indian education and replacing it by an alien rootless system that too not properly managed, not only led to the obliteration of literacy and knowledge but also destroyed the social balance. It is no wonder that education formed a part of the nationalist agenda articulated by the most ardent nationalist of the time like Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Mahtma Gandhi and Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, among others.
Manifesting the Perfection Within
What was Swami Vivekananda’s vision of education? What did it mean to him? What for him, was the purpose of education?“Education” said Vivekananda, “is the manifestation of the perfection already in man”. All knowledge then is nothing but what a person discovers or unveils by taking the cover off his own soul which is a mine of infinite knowledge. Lest we think that he is only talking of matters spiritual, the example that Vivekananda gives is of Newton and his discovery of the force of gravity. Gravity, as he says, was not something lying in a corner waiting to be discovered by Newton. Its recognition was alreadythere in his mind. Newton only observed an external phenomenon and came to a conclusion by rearranging all the previous links of thought to uncover a new link, the law of gravitation. Therefore, “All knowledge and all powers are within” as Vivekananda says.
This implies thatno one can really teach another. Each of us has to teach himself or herself. The external teacher only offers the suggestion which arouses the internal teacher to work to understand things. Just as the small seed has the potential to give rise to a large banyan tree, the mind has immense potential to grasp and create the most complex of things. A child cannot be taught just as a plant cannot be grown; only conditions can be created to protect and nourish the plant so that it may grow. And it is not only teachers who have to realize that children can only learn and grow according to their own potentialities and at their own pace, the parents too have to give their children free scope for growth otherwise they become stunted. As Vivekananda puts it, “If you do not allow one to become a lion, one will become a fox”. Hence liberty is a prerequisite to growth. No one, not even parents, can work out someone else’s salvation. They cannot presume to know everythingand take charge of someone else’s spirit, even if it is their own children.
The purpose of education is not to stuff the brain with information that remains undigested and runs riot throughout an individual’s life. Education, to use Vivekananda’s words is “life-building, man-making, character-making”. Learning the ideas of others by rote, and that too in a foreign language that one does not really understand, is not education. In any case, what does such an education equip one for? A clerkship? To become a civil servant, lawyer or any other profession? But does such an education teach the common mass of people how to equip themselves for the struggle of life? For Vivekananda, the end of all education and all training is to make a person grow in a way that he is able to meet the challenges of life with equanimity. For this to happen, education must,above all, develop the strength of character and mind to face the ups and downs of life.
Formation of Character
The character of any man is but the aggregate of his tendencies, the sum total of the bent of his mind as these evolve in his journey of life. It is impacted by the challenges that life poses in front of him. Part of our energy is used in preserving our bodies. Beyond that, every particle of our energy is being used to influence others,whilesimilarly being influenced by them. As we experience pain and pleasure, they leave an imprint on us and mould our character. We are what our thoughts make us. Words are secondary to thoughts. Thoughts live and travel by themselves and through words. If a person has good thoughts his speech will be good and he will do good work. Good work motivatesa person to do even better. Similarly, bad thoughts lead to bad actions and these too have a way of multiplying. Great occasions and great crises arouse a person to great actions. But only that person is truly greatwhose character remains great at all times even in adversity and irrespective of where he is.
Both good and evil mould character, but at the end of the day, pain and adversity are greater teachers than happiness. If we study the great characters that the world has produced, it was adversity that taught them more than happiness and wealth. The blows of life bring out the inner fire more than praise. Buffeted by the storms, when hope seems lost, the light within gleams. Help does not come from outside but from within. And it gives courage and strength to undo or deal with the mistakes made.
Therefore, the ideal education and training is to develop the strength within, and thus pave the way for the growth of man. An internally strong person is a dynamo of power who, when he is ready, can do anything and everything he likes. And yet we spend time in our teaching on polishing the outside and neglecting the inner core. Philosophers and religious teachers who may not seem very sophisticated have succeeded in moving nations and countries. This is because they do not touch only the intellect, they touch the very being of a person.
Developing the Personality
How can such a personality be developed? The science of yoga is one path that can be used. It has uncovered laws which develop personality. By proper attention to those laws and methods, each one can grow and strengthen his personality. These laws are much finer than the physical laws. According to Vivekananda,
There are no such realities as a physical world, a mental world; a spiritual world whatever is, is one. Let us say, it is a sort of tapering existence, the thickest part is here, it tapers and becomes finer and finer; the finest is what we call spirit; the grossest, the grossest, the body. And just as it is here, in the microcosm, it is exactly the same in the macrocosm. This universe of ours is exactly like that; it is the gross external thickness, and it tapers into something finer and finer until it becomes God. And the greatest power is lodged in the fine, not in the coarse.
For example, muscles have great power but it is the fine nerves that give the muscles their power. If any one of these tiny nerves is cut off, the muscle loses its power. And the nerves derive their power from something finer; that is thought. Often we can see the movement of the muscle but are unaware of the movement of the mind, or thought, that made the muscle move because it is so subtle that we may not even be conscious of it. Therefore, control of thought is self-mastery.
This strengthening of personality is needed by everybody – householder, rich, poor, women, men of business, spiritual man or whoever else. But how can thought be controlled? The aim must be to control even the fine movement of thought because only then can thought can be controlled at the root;even before it has become thought, and so necessarily before it has become action. When this mastery is gained, it becomes possible to control the whole existence. If we can find a method by which we can analyse, investigate, understand and finally grapple with the finer powers, the finer causes, then it is possible to have control over ourselves. And the man who has control over his own mind assuredly can control every other mind. “That is why” says Vivekanand, “purity and morality have been always the object of religion; a pure, moral man has control of himself. And all minds are the same, different parts of one Mind. He who knows one lump of clay has known all the clay in the universe. He who knows and controls his own mind knows the secret of every mind and has power over every mind”.
Attaining Knowledge
How does one attain knowledge? There is only one way and that is by developing the powers of concentration. From the illiterate to the yogi, all have to use concentration to attain knowledge. The chemist needs concentration in his laboratory as does the astronomer as he peers into his telescope. The professor, the student and the workman, all need concentration. A man polishing shoes will do them better if he concentrates, just as a cook will make better food when he concentrates. Even someone only interested in making money will be more successful if he concentrates, as will be the one worshipping God if his mind does not wander. As Vivekananda points out, the main difference between men and animals is that while human brings can concentrate, the animals can’t. Animals are trained through repetition followed by predictable outcomes while human beings learn through their power of concentration and so can deal with unpredictable outcomes and innovate. The attention of the highest evolved man is not diverted by any distraction while the least evolved person is easily distracted. All success in any field depends on concentration.
The question is how to develop concentration? The practice of meditation leads to concentration. What is the difference between the two? Concentration is to direct all one’s powers to a single point to solve a problem. Meditation is to watch one’s mind so that one becomes aware of the flitting of one’s thoughts and then learn to control this so that the mind can learn to focus on one thought or work at a point of time. Both together are means of controlling the mind, so that it becomes one’s servant and not one’s master. The two essential ingredients to successful learning are concentration and detachment. What is detachment? It is the ability of the mind to step back and see a situation objectively without personal involvement, without allowing even a trace of self-interest into it. Once the instrument or mind is perfected, that is, it can look at something objectively, focus on the issue and remove any self-interest from it, it can collect facts at will.
The Teacher and the Taught
There are certain conditions necessaryfor learning. The qualities of both the teacher and taught are important. Students must have purity of character,a real thirst for knowledge, andperseverance to acquire it. Purity in thought, speech and action builds a strong moral fibre and prevents distractions from the path of seeking knowledge. As forthe thirst for knowledge, it is an old law that we get whatever we want or seek. None of us can getother than what we fix our hearts upon. As Vivekanand says, “Theremust be a continuous struggle, a constant fight, anunremitting grappling with our lower nature, tillthe higher want is actually felt and victory isachieved. The student who sets out with such aspirit of perseverance will surely find success atlast”.
With regard to the teacher, it is not relevantwhether he knows the scriptures of all religions or not. He should haveimbibed the spirit of the scriptures. The whole worldreads the Bible, the Vedas and the Koran butthey are all only words, syntax, etymology, philology the dry bones ofreligion. The teacher must go behind all this to grasp the essential concepts and communicate them to his students. The teacher who deals too much in wordsand allows the mind to be carried away by the force of words loses the spirit and it is the knowledge of the spirit that lies behind the scriptures that alone constitutesthe true teacher. This holds true not only for the scriptures but for any subject or discipline. It is one thing to know, for example, the rules and laws of commercial transactions, but another to know the concepts and spirit behind them. The former will lead to a mechanical implementation and may cause much injustice. The latter will create a more compassionate and caring attitude that would be helpful in the larger sense. But a teacher can only develop this attitude of caring if he fulfils the second condition that is that the teacher like the taught must have purity of character.
Purity of character is neededin a teacher because truth cannot be acquired for oneself, or forimparting to others, without the purity of heart and soul. It is the teacher’s character that impartsvalue to his words. The function of the teacher isnot mere classroom transaction. It goes far beyond. It is the transference of something from the teacher to the taught which is notthe mere the stimulation of existing intellectualfaculties in the taught. Something real and appreciable comes from the teacherand goes to the taught. Therefore, the teacher mustbe pure. The third condition is in regard to themotive. The prime motive of a teacher cannot be money or quest for name or fame.He must work out of love. The rest is subsidiary. Teaching is not simply a profession; it is a passion, a love of learning, a love for the student and for humanity. It is a spiritual force that can only be transmitted throughlove. Any selfish motive, such as the desire for gainor name, will immediately destroy the conveyingmedium.
Educating the Masses
For Vivekananda, one of the greatest national sins of India was theneglect of the masses which had led to her downfall. No amount of politics, he felt, would be of anyavail until the Indian masses are once more welleducated, well fed and well cared for.One yardstick to measure the advancement of a nation was to see what was the proportion of educationand intelligence that hadspread among the masses. The chiefcause of India’s ruin was themonopolising of educationbya handful of people. The only service that we can do for the people is to give them education to developtheir individuality. Their eyes have to be opened to what is going on inthe world around them, and then they will develop the ability and strength to work outtheir own salvation which will also lead to the salvation of the nation. This idea of self-reliance Vivekananda repeatedly asserts because he is clear that no outsider can help people who have no capacity to help themselves.Peoplehave to understand and be convinced thatthey can do it and are not inferior to anybody else. This is the only help they require from us, the rest will inevitably follow.
Education which teaches people to become self-reliant and self-sufficient has to be imparted in the languageof the people, that is, inthe vernacular. This will make them understand the importance of an education that leads to their growth. Once the aspiration for education is implanted, they will get the information themselves. However, one thingmore is essential, and this is culture. Emphasizing the importance of culture Vivekananda says, that massesmust be given culture for “Until you can give them that, there can beno permanence in the raised condition of themasses”. The majority of people have been so engrossed in their struggle for existence, that they have had no time oropportunity for the awakening of knowledge.They have worked so long like machines andthe clever educated section of society has taken advantage of them for so long, appropriating the substantialpart of the fruits of their labour that they have had no time, inclination or means to inculcate the fine aspects of life through culture. But times havechanged. The poor exploited masses are gradually realizing their condition and uniting againstit. The upper classes will not be able torepress the lower for much longer. In their own self-interest, it will become imperative for the higher classes to help thelower to get their legitimate rights.
To spread education among the masses, three things are necessary. The first is to feel from the heart because intellect or reason goes only a fewsteps and then stops. But inspiration comes through the heart and loveopens impossible gates. The second is to go beyond talk and to try and find a solution. In the path of that solution, there will be many impediments, including from one’s family, community and others. These test one’s steadfastness and sincerity of purpose. The third is work. While one feels and knows the solution, the only way to ameliorate the situation is to work towards doing so.
Conclusion
Hence, for Vivekanand, the decline of India was inextricably connected with the decline of education and of condemning the masses to ignorance. The indigenous system was dismantled by the British without replacing it with anything viable. Indian economy became a colonial economy exploiting the people for the aggrandisement of the coloniser. What replaced the indigenous system of education was both beyond the means of the impoverished masses and alienating for those who could afford it. Two aspects of education were very important for Vivekanand purity of thought and of purpose both in the teacher and taught. He saw education as a means of uplifting the masses but in a way that made them self-reliant and able to withstand any hardship while improving their own lot and serving the nation.