Questions on Education with Mahatma Gandhi-I

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Questions on Education with Mahatma Gandhi-I

 

 

Having written the three articles on primary education, it is now easy for me to answer the following questions:

Q. 1. You once said reducing the burden imposed by English on students would amount to saving so many years of their life. If we interpret national education to mean nation-wide education, how much would be the burden imposed upon society? How much, that is, in terms of years?

A. Let me first explain the meaning of the phrase “reducing the burden imposed by English”. It is not my contention that students should not be taught English at all. But let us learn English as a foreign language in the same way that a Frenchman learns it. If we learn English only to that extent, we shall not have to carry the burden of thinking in English, speaking or writing it with correctness. In my opinion, at least five years of the student’s life are wasted in carrying this burden. Not only this. Because of the strain caused during these five years, his capacity to think is affected, he becomes enfeebled in the body and, like blotting-paper absorbing ink, he starts merely imitating in a superficial manner. How much a person would learn if he spent five years in getting the knowledge he needs through his mother-tongue! How much time he would save thereby! He would readily learn the best thoughts in his own language and be spared the burden of learning the difficult pronunciation of a foreign language.

Q. 2. Child education at one end and university education at the other are very expensive. Can these both be included in national education? Alternatively, do you have any scheme for providing equally solid education at a lower cost?

A. I have tried to show in those three articles how child education could become inexpensive, almost self-supporting. If we can fashion a university education which will aid primary education, it can be made inexpensive and students can acquire the necessary knowledge useful to the nation. If the phrase “solid education” implies education similar to that provided by Government schools, the question is irrelevant, as I do not regard that education as solid. The education given in the national university or primary schools is distinct from that provided by Government schools and is very often of a novel and original kind. It is therefore solid in its own way.

Q. 3. Advocates of tradition try to inculcate in pupils devotion for the guru. They tell the pupils that learning can be acquired only by pleasing the guru and in no other manner; that if one does not please the guru, does not serve him and attend on him he may out of slyness withhold knowledge; that one should always be flattering him to keep him from wicked in this way. Is this a definition of gurubhakti?

A. I am a believer in gurubhakti. However, every teacher cannot become a guru. The guru-disciple relationship is spiritual and spontaneous, it is not artificial, it cannot be created through external pressure. Such gurus are still to be found in India. (It should not be necessary to warn that I am not speaking here of gurus who give moksha.) The question of flattering such a guru just does not arise. The respect towards such a guru can only be natural; the guru’s love is also of the same kind. Hence the one is always ready to give and the other is always ready to receive. Common knowledge, on the other hand, is something which we can accept from anyone. I can learn a lot from a carpenter with whom I have no connection and of whose faults I am aware; I can acquire knowledge of carpentry from him just as I purchase goods from a shopkeeper. Of course, a certain type of faith is required even here. I cannot learn carpentry from a carpenter if I do not have faith in his knowledge of that subject. Gurubhakti is an altogether different matter. In character-building, which is the object? Of education, the relationship between the guru and his disciples is of utmost importance and where there is no gurubhakti in its pure form; there can be no character-building.

 

Reference;

Navajivan, 3-6-1928