The Colonial Period

Dharampal, in his book The Beautiful Tree, has pointed out the excellent state of health of the educational system in India before the coming of the British. During the 19th Century a great debate took place regarding the direction of the educational system. The orientalists among whom were several Britishers, in particular, Maj.Elphinston promoted the idea of an educational system based on our own culture in local schools, and mass educational programmes to be carried out in Indian languages, and in Sanskrit and Persian. However, many modernists of that period, including leading Indians such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, preferred the establishment of western education, and the use of English. These views of the modernists were very forcefully expressed by Lord Macaulay, and accepted by the Governor General in 1835. Macaulay, accepting some of the criticisms of his opponents, believed in the "downward filtration" theory of education which is very similar to the 20th Century economic "trickle-down" theory of development experts. We are all aware that neither downward filtration nor trickling-down has occurred in education, or in poverty alleviation, and in fact there are clear, substantive and structural reasons for this not happening.

Indian Leaders in Education

Four great Indian leaders, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, Mahatma Gandhi, and Rabindranath Tagore, criticized and rejected the western approach to Indian education. While their theories and approaches are very similar to each other, it is Rabindranath Tagore with his experiments in Shantiniketan, and Viswabharati University, who did the most for setting a new trend in education; while Swami Vivekananda concentrated on national resurgence through the Ramakrishna Mission movement; Sri Aurobindo on spiritual regeneration; and Mahatma Gandhi on achieving Swaraj.

Tagore's Principles

In summary, the principles of education most suited for our country enunciated by Tagore are as follows:

1. All educational processes should be rooted in our own cultural traditions. As he put it: "Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is not freedom for the tree".

2. The medium of instruction must be through one's own mother tongue. This was stated repeatedly by all Indian leaders, and mentioned by Tagore before the Saddler Educational Commission of 1917. This principle has been repeated several times after Independence, but despite such concurrence of views, our society has failed to achieve this basic measure in education.

3. Tagore was highly appreciative of the Guru-Sishya Ashram type of education. In this he echoes Sri Aurobindo's view that the most important method of education is "soul-to-soul contact" between Guru and Sisya.

4. Linked to the above, Tagore placed great importance on children learning in a natural environment, and said that nature herself was our greatest teacher.

5. The educational process should be one of self-discovery, and free creation.

6. The educational process should incorporate the act of playing, and the joy that playing brings.

7. Education should be linked to working, and learning a craft. This point was repeatedly echoed by Mahatma Gandhi, and he emphasized the importance of crafts, and economic independence, as central to education policy.

8. The school should be integral to Society. This is a view supported by all our thinkers, and even by Lord Curzon, who also placed great importance on rural primary schools located in their environment.

9. Intellectual education should be linked with the arts and crafts which deal with human emotions.

10. Education should also involve spiritual or religious education, which meant for Tagore the comprehension that we are an integral part of cosmic infinity. Gandhiji once said: "True education should result not in material power, but in spiritual force".

11. Education should lead towards an understanding of the brotherhood of man. It is interesting that the Navodaya Vidyalayas (NPE 1986) also talk of bringing children together from different areas, castes, and cultural backgrounds to strengthen national unity.

12. Tagore saw villages as the real source of our national vitality, just as Mahatma Gandhi did. He also felt the need for Gram Swaraj. Essentially, Gandhiji and Tagore agreed on the following priorities for the nation:

a) Rejection of the caste hierarchy; b) Hindu Muslim unity;

c) Constructive work in villages; d) Education through constructive social work, and through working at a trade or craft; e) Revival of village crafts; and f) Self-government at the village level.

13. Neither Gandhi nor Tagore rejected scientific development, or material progress. Both wanted a very much higher standard of living for the masses than existed in their times. They saw clearly that the Western method of education would maintain inequalities, and was incapable of achieving development, or political freedom. Tagore saw that those who had "lost the harvest of their past had also lost their present age". He also said that "political freedom does not give us freedom, when our mind is not free". The key question was how to assimilate Western values, science and knowledge, within an Indian cultural, educational framework that would deliver us from poverty and ignorance.

14. All the great Indian leaders saw the Western form of education as enslaving, and denying us true knowledge. They feared Western aggression, and the way by which the West excluded the great masses of the people, and swallowed up other cultures and knowledges. Tagore accused the West of exclusiveness -it fell upon the resources of other people, and it was "cannibalistic" in its tendencies.

Western Reformist Educators

Four Western educators had very similar views to our Indian leaders. Maria Montessori promoted the individual, creative development of children. Rudolf Steiner, as much as Froebel, through his schools, promoted an awareness of the unity of humanity, and an acceptance of the unity of humanity with the cosmos. Pestalozzi emphasized the dignity of labour through education, and the connection between community service, and healthy families and societies. The more radical educationists of the post-World War II period, such as Paul Goodman, Ivan Ilich, and Paolo Friere, have expanded on the earlier Western critic of their own educational methods, but linked their criticism to class contradictions, and the issues of oppression, and exploitation, which have become evident to all after World War II. However, in terms of the Indian context, we need not go farther than the four great Indian thinkers who have explored, and identified, what should be the key principles of education in India. Tagore encapsulated in his work the most important views of Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, and Mahatma Gandhi, as well as adding his own invaluable perspective.

The Causes of Failure

We have had several educational commissions since Independence, from Dr.Radhakrishnan's University Education Commission in 1948-49; Dr.Laxmanaswamy Mudaliar's Commission of 1952; the Kothari Commission of 1964; and the later NPE reports of 1968 and 1986. There is nothing important that these have added to the earlier views.

However, despite so much clarity, and lukewarm political support, there has been massive failure in providing relevant education to our children, or even in offering some education to the great majority. This is reflected by around 70% illiteracy in rural areas. Even more striking is the failure to have Indian languages as the major medium of instruction in our educational system. Such a profound failure is also linked to the national failure to remove poverty or control population.

If we look at the language issue, the following points strike us as meaningful:

(1) The study of subjects in Indian languages has not been promoted by developing teachers, books, or other educational material, including educational films, in Indian languages.

(2) The study of Indian languages has not been promoted by making the languages easier for every-day interaction. On the contrary, pandits have made Indian languages almost as remote from the common person as English is.

(3) The ruling elite, which has a preserve on English, does not wish to dilute its power.

All this brings us to see that the principles of Indian education today are based on the same exclusivity that was feared, and rejected by Gandhi and Tagore.

Further, all our schemes towards promoting Indian languages, poverty alleviation, or even birth control, are focused on distant benefits coming to people, provided they accept immediate sacrifices, and hardships. Clearly, sacrifices, and hardships over the last forty or fifty years have not resulted in any benefits for the masses. There is no reason why the people should continue to accept or support such policies. Therefore, any new plan must involve immediate appreciable benefits before it can involve people's participation. The only way we can have a programme giving immediate benefits to people is by designing programmes that do not reinforce exclusivity. Hence, there have to be programmes that are designed and controlled by people's own organizations at the village or mohalla level. These would include developing Indian languages in the spoken manner, and teaching in accessible ways. The key points identified by Tagore as essential elements in Indian education could be considered in the formation of non-formal educational programmes designed by village or local people, and controlled by them, through sangams or people's associations, for the benefit of their children, and adult learners.