RADHAKRISHNAN - THE EDUCATIONIST

DR. D. ANJANEYULU

(Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, educationist, philosopher and statesman, was born on 5th September 1888 and died in May 1975)

Radhakrishnan was a teacher all his life, whatever he did, wherever he was, at home or abroad. (An ‘educator’, the Americans would have it, in their supposed search for the simpler and more direct form in expression!) Basically, he was doing the same thing, whether it was in a college classroom, (in Madras, Mysore or Calcutta) university auditorium, (in Waltair, Banaras or Oxford) Upper House of National Parliament (in Delhi) or the Assembly Hall of an International forum in Geneva or Paris. And he made a splendid job, of whatever he was called upon to do.

One can easily venture to make the statement that Radhakrishnan was a ‘born teacher’, if ever there was one. (Not because his birthday is observed under official auspices as ‘Teachers’ Day’). But then, one might be confronted with the general question whether a teacher is born or made. Not an unnatural question, when we realize that in recent years poets are, in fact, made in academic workshops in American Universities, even in the newer and more enterprising of Indian Universities. But, talking of teachers who have a call, not merely a calling, we may still be justified in distinguishing those who are born, like V. S. Srinivasa Sastri and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, from the common or garden variety (who form the vast majority), who are made in pedagogic (training) institutes.

While it is an admitted fact that Radhakrishnan came to the academic study of philosophy by accident, he came to the teaching profession by conscious choice, by deliberate intent. ‘I cannot say that service of the alter, I am not a philosopher because I could not help being one.’ He said that in ‘Fragments of a confession’, asking himself: “That philosophy became the subject of my special study, was it a part of my destiny, was it the result of my character or was it mere chance?”

That there is nothing like pure chance or mere accident in life, that there is more in life than meets the eye, other and unseen forces being always at work-are all aspects of quite a different matter. But there was no room for raising or answering such questions in his choice of teaching as a profession, and also as a mission. Maybe there was, in the Indian context, a close relation between “Poverty and Philosophy,” which forms a chapter heading in the brilliant, perceptive, unsentimental, objective, authoritative and well-documented biography by his son, Dr. S. Gopal.

He was about 21, when he became a teacher, joining Presidency College in 1909, in somewhat peculiar circumstances to quote his son and biographer,” ... there being no suitable vacancy, Radhakrishnan was appointed to a substantive post of sub-assistant inspector of schools in an area far from the city but directed to fill a temporary vacancy as Malayalam Master in Presidency College at Madras on a salary of Rs. 60-80 per month. He knew no Malayalam, but was expected to teach philosophy. So he joined official service and started, for want of anything else, on a teaching career.”

Soon after that he was deputed to the Teacher’s Training College at Saidapet to obtain a diploma in teaching. According to some of his colleagues and contemporaries (including M. K. Rangaswami Iyengar) here, we learn that Radhakrishnan happened to deliver a series of lectures on Psychology, in place of the regular professor, which he did rather reluctantly, because of his innate shyness. They were extremely well received, in fact eagerly lapped up. These class lectures were later put together in a slim booklet of about 75 pages, titled “Essentials of Psychology”, which was printed at the Clarendon Press in Oxford and brought out in 1912 by the Indian Branch of the Oxford University Press as its publication. This has been re-issued a few years ago in connection with his birth centenary, with the Third impression coming out a little later.

All the essential qualities of an able teacher are amply reflected in this booklet (clear thinking, logical analysis, lucid exposition and a lively style, with a gift of happy phrase. And all these are achieved with admirable brevity and characteristic wit and brilliance.

Commenting on ‘Education’, at the close of his introduction to “Essentials of Psychology,” Radhakrishnan says:

“The basis of educational theory is psychology. Education has for its aim the complete and harmonious development of the different functions of man. What those are and how they develop are problems of psychology. Every educator must have a full knowledge of the nature of the mind which it is his business to bring into fullness and maturity. A knowledge of a child-mind is, therefore, necessary for a teacher. Again, any method of teaching opposed to psychological principles is false. Psychology thus affords toe negative touchstone of the true method of teaching.”

That Radhakrishnan had a keen insight into the student mind and was quite en rapport with the student community of his day is eloquently testified by many of his former pupils, few of whom may be alive today. The late Khasa Subba Rau (founder editor of the English Weeklies, Swatantra and Swarajya), an undergraduate student of Presidency College, had vivid recollections of Radhakrishnan’s innovative and unconventional method of handling the classes. He would normally come ten minutes late to class, complete the allotted lesson in 20 minutes, spend about five or ten minutes eliciting tit-bits from the students about local political and public affairs, and ask them to spend the rest of the hour in the library.

Not that he was neglecting his prescribed duties. Nor that he was not taking his subject or his wards seriously. Far from it he did all that was expected of him as a conscientious teacher; maybe even more. It is Khasa again, who wrote of him ‘Men in the Lime light’ He said:

“As a teacher he used to give “notes”, and if you read them, well, you had no need to read anything else from any book on the subject they dealt with; for in the art of extracting substance from chaff from out of the pages of the most voluminous of books, and condensing it into the smallest imaginable compass, he is an adept without a peer.”

It was almost the same experience, wherever he went, Presidency College in Madras, Mysore University, Calcutta University or Banaras Hindu University. The response of the students (as also members of the teaching staff, with a few exceptions of those affected by “sour-grapism”) was not only totally favourable, but vigorously enthusiastic. In Mysore, at the time of farewell, the students unleashed the horses and dragged his coach to the railway station. In Calcutta, on more than one occasion, in academic bodies and public meetings he was chosen to preside, in preference to a dyspeptic and loyalist Vice-Chancellor.

His popularity as a lecturer was so unparalleled that it sometimes led to unprecedented situations. Describing one such, the late K. Iswara Dutt (Editor of Twentieth Century and Leader) wrote;

“There on the Marina in Madras, as ‘the low sun makes the colour’, men and women who go for a stroll or drive present an impressive spectacle. Occasionally, a visitor finds one more impressive when a vast concourse of people on the sands is addressed by one of the Ciceros of the day. One day, years back, a slim, clear-cut white-turbaned figure, not looking a politician even by the farthest stretch of imagination, was seen addressing a large gathering of young men, Presidency College facing the waters having no hall large enough to hold the meeting. Rarely, if ever, has such a contingency of shifting the scene to the beach arisen when a professor was to speak.”

It is worth noting here that the audience comprised not only the current students of the college but some celebrated former students, as well, like professor C.V. Raman. If Raman was by universal acclaim, a creative researcher in the field of physics, Radhakrishnan could, likewise, be described, with equal justification, as a creative teacher in the field of humanities, philosophy, religion and culture, in particular. He was not only a great populariser of a subject, hitherto considered dry, abstract and abstruse, but a resourceful, imaginative, innovative interpreter, for the benefit of the students and other listeners.

At last, two or three features stand out as particularly striking in this creative method of teaching:

(1) Introduction of the comparative method, where it was not widely adopted, or not thought of at all, except by a few modern thinkers like Russell and Carpenter. The comparisons used by him include those between Indian and European thought, Vedic and Upanishadic on one side and classical Greek on the other, between one religion and another, especially between Hinduism and Christianity, in view of his close familiarity with Christian theology and Indian metaphysics. When each system of thought and belief considered itself sui generis and smugly self-confident in its self-sufficiency, this method of comparison and contrast served to aid a clearer understanding, proceeding, as it did, from the known to the unknown.

(2) Adoption of an inter-disciplinary approach was particularly enlightening to students, with a nodding acquaintance with other subjects like History, Politics and Literature and none at all with philosophy. Radhakrishnan had an admirable flair for drawing examples and parallels from a variety of sister disciplines, to present Indian philosophy in a wider and sharper perspective. His up-to-date knowledge through English and more than ordinary familiarity with Sanskrit Literature and the classics of Telugu and Tamil stood him in good stead in this task.

(3) Contemporary sensibility, with a classical background served to strengthen Radhakrishnan’s position, in his conscious effort to reconcile the past with the present. It fitted him for his self-chosen role as a creative interpreter, very different from that of a faithful chronicler of facts and a narrow, literal-minded commentator of sacred, traditional texts. The philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore and the personality of Mahatma Gandhi were not isolated from the world of academic thought, for him, but formed part of a living heritage, the latest and maturest fruits of a dynamic socio-cultural tradition, going back to Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa, Buddha, Mahavira and Kabir.

It may be recalled here that when Radhakrishnan started teaching philosophy, over eighty years ago, there was in the University curriculum no academic discipline, like Indian philosophy, or hardly any, It was all European philosophy, of which Radhakrishnan was equally a master, on familiar, even friendly, terms with the thought, not only of Plato and Aristotle, but of Kant and Hegel, Neetzsche and Schopenhauer, Bosanquet, Bergson and Bradley.

His monumental two-volume work on Indian Philosophy, had contributed substantially to the earning and establishment of a secure place for ‘Indian Philosophy’ in the curriculum of Indian Universities. He earned it a respectability in the modern context and served to ‘popularize’ it, without diluting, distorting or degrading it, rather like what Rusell did for Western philosophy and Haldane did for modern science.

A practical idealist and a progressive liberal in matters educational and cultural, Radhakrishnan had his feet firmly on the ground, though his lofty turbaned head might have touched the clouds. He could be nothing less as the teacher of the nation and the society and nothing more as an educational administrator. He always underlined the primacy of free enquiry.

As Vice-Chancellor at Waltair or Banares, Radhakrishnan was known for his inimitable flair for spotting promising talent. He it was who appointed brilliant young men, like Humayun Kabir, Hiren Mukerjee (Oxford) and V.K.R.V. Rao (Cambridge) to their first or early jobs at Andhra University. Similarly at Benares, where he encouraged many bright young men and women, who later made a mark in the academic world.

His devotion to liberal values, as an intellectual, could be seen in the number of thought-provoking works on Marxism and Socialism (though he was by no means a Marxist himself) which he was able to bring with him (because of his privileged position as member of the Committee for Intellectual Cooperation at Geneva) for addition to the Andhra University Library. (The process was unfortunately reversed later, after he left the place). At Benares, he did his best to relax the rules of a hidebound cultural tradition. In relation to women, for instance, who were not allowed to study the Vedas or modern disciplines like Political Science.

If a University is expected to be universal in intent, if not quite in practice, Indian national Universities like BHU must be truly ‘national’, as well as Indian. He looked upon this University as an instrument of national integration long before this concept began to be propagated under official auspices. Radhakrishnan’s effort was always to shape it on broad-based ideals. He wanted Religious Studies to include Christianity and Islam as well as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

The report of the University Education Commission under Radhakrishna’s Chairmanship was, perhaps, his greatest contribution to education in free India. It covered a wide range of subjects, like falling academic standards, status and salaries of teachers, de-linking of jobs from degrees, religious education, medium of instruction, reservation of seats for the backward, among other things.

Though the report was unanimous, not all its recommendations were accepted or implemented. The only major and immediate result of the recommendations, according to Dr. Gopal, was the establishment of the U.G.C., with substantial benefits to the autonomy and development of Indian Universities.

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