Schools and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- [e-mail];

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Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

 

Schools and Mahatma Gandhi

 

Government schools and colleges in Gujarat are getting emptied every day. Two professors of Gujarat College have resigned their posts and have joined an institution imparting national education. I congratulate them and hope that other professors will follow their example and join this national movement. From the students, however, I expect more. When they come out of the present schools and colleges, their teachers and professors are likely to follow them on their own. For them, the immediate problem is one of livelihood; for the students, it is a question merely of getting rid of a fascination. Two students of the Grant Medical College, Bombay, who were due for their final examination, left the College without taking the examination. Two others were reading for a post-graduate course. They were getting a scholarship of 50 rupees each; renouncing their scholarships, they have won their freedom and are now engaged in national education work. I do not feel concerned for these students. On the contrary, I think they have done the right thing and congratulate them. Many other students have left Gujarat College and I should like to see that College totally deserted. In my view, the most important education is to learn to be a man. As matters stand, our men have lost their manhood and our women their womanhood. If the whole nation were to declare with one voice that it would not have this subjection to foreign rule, then, in that declaration itself lays swaraj.

The nation cannot be prepared for this by degrees or stages. Those who get ready will do so overnight. It is, in fact, a kind of new birth. To recognize our state of slavery and to have the faith that we are, this very day, fit to be free from it : this is swaraj. In managing the affairs of our families, we realize what swaraj means. When we sincerely desire swaraj for the nation, we shall have it for the asking. The country will be free only when students are possessed with this intense desire for freedom. As things are, the first lesson the pupils learn is to know the might of the Empire and understand that it is thanks to the Empire that we live. No wonder that this is so. What else can you expect foreign imperialists to teach in their schools? So now, by asking the students to leave schools, I teach them the first lesson, that they save themselves from this and I appeal to parents to help me in this work. It does not matter if our young men remain uneducated or semi-educated. If they acquire self-respect, other things will follow. The truth is that if only a handful of students come out, they may have some reason to think before taking the step that, when large numbers of them leave, provision of national education is bound to follow.

 

Reference:

 

Navajivan, 10-10-1920