Skip to main content

Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan – Celebrating Teacher’s Day in India

Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan-Great
While the world celebrates international Teacher’s Day on the 15th of October, India celebrates it on the 5th of September, which is also the birthday of the famous teacher, academic philosopher and the second President of India, Mr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishan.

About Dr. S Radhakrishnan

Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was born in the year 1888 in a well-known religious state in Chennai, then called Madras. He was the second son of Veera Samayya, a tehsildar in a zamindari. It was a middle-class, respectable Hindu Brahmin family.
He graduated with a Master’s Degree in Arts from Madras University. In partial fulfillment for his M.A. degree, Radhakrishnan wrote a thesis on the ethics of the Vedanta titled “The Ethics of the Vedanta and Its Metaphysical Presuppositions”, which was a reply to the charge that the Vedanta system had no room for ethics.
The Origin of Teacher’s Day
Since 1962, 5th of September has been celebrated as Teacher’s Day in India. Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakhrishnan was a philosopher and a teacher par excellence. Some of his students and friends approached him and requested him to allow them to celebrate his birthday. In reply, Dr, Radhakrishnan said, “Instead of celebrating my birthday separately, it would be my proud privilege if September 5th is observed as Teacher’s day”. The request showed Dr.Radhakrishnan’s love for the teaching profession. From then onwards, his birthday is observed as Teacher’s Day in India.
What did he Do
He showed how western philosophers, despite all claims to objectivity, were biased by theological influences from their wider culture. In one of his major works he also showed that Indian philosophy, once translated into standard academic jargon, is worthy of being called philosophy by western standards. His main contribution to Indian thought, therefore, is that he placed it “on the map”, thereby earning Indian philosophy a respect that it had not had before.
Dr. Radhakrishnan was of the opinion that only the right kind of education could solve many ills of the society and the country. He wanted to bring in a change in the educational system by improving the quality of education and building up a strong relationship between the teacher and the taught. In his opinion, teachers should be the best minds of the country; they should not merely instruct but should gain the true affection of pupils, and the respect for teachers cannot be ordered but it should be earned.
After 1946, his philosophical career was cut short when his country needed him as ambassador to UNESCO and later to Moscow. He was later to become the first Vice-President and finally the President (1962-1967) of India. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1954. The University of Oxford instituted the Radhakrishnan Chevening Scholarships and the Radhakrishnan Memorial Award in his memory. He also received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1961.
Even as the president Sarvepalli remained a humble man. It was an open house at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and people from all sections of society were welcome to meet him. In addition he accepted only Rs. 2,500 out of his salary of Rs. 10,000 and donated the remaining amount to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund every month. He remained a teacher in many ways and even adopted the authoritative tone of a headmaster in many of his letters to his ministers. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan passed away on April 17, 1975.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Shaheed Bhagat Singh

Bhagat Singh a great martyr of Punjab, popularly referred as Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagt Singh, was born on 28 September 1907 at the village of Banga, Lyallpur district (now in Pakistan). Considered to be one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement. He had a spirit of martyrdom since his childhood. In the leaflet he threw in the Central Assembly on 9 April 1929, he stated that  It is easy to kill individuals but you cannot kill the ideas. Great empires crumbled while the ideas survived. Less known facts about Bhagat Singh Bhagat Singh was a great actor in college and took part in several plays. Most notable plays he was praised in were ‘Rana Pratap’, ‘Samrat Chandragupta’ and ‘Bharata-durdasha’. At the age of 12, right after the Jalianwala Bagh incident, Bhagat Singh bunked school and went straight to the place of the tragedy. He collected a bottle of mud wet with blood of Indians and worship the bottle every day. As a child, Bhagat Singh o...
Post a Comment
Read more

India Fact Book – Facts About Indian People and Population

India is a country that leaves one spellbound with its alluring contrasts and striking features in all that it beholds! India is a 34,000 years old country with a rich legend and history. India is a country with a population of around 1.15 billion approximately. The current Indian population as on July 2009 is 1,156,897,766. India is the second most populated country is the world after China. Indian population has always been a major issue along with problems like poverty, illiteracy and unemployment. Almost 80.5% of the country men are Hindus. India also has one of the world’s largest Muslim populations amounting to 120 billion. The population also includes other castes like Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and Parsis. Scheduled castes amount to16.2% and scheduled tribes amount to 8.2% as per the 2001 Census. There are reservations for these special category people as they belong to the backward class and off late the increase in this quota has created a lot of controversy in t...
Post a Comment
Read more

10 Things You Didn’t know about Mahatma Gandhi

Father of the nation or ‘Bapu’ as he is lovingly called in India, spent his life working for the cause of freeing India for the British rule. Some believes that Gandhi policies still play a major role while some believes that Gandhi has no relevance today from the perspective of present Indian Scenario. Well I am not here to judge this. I have made a brief effort to let you know some facts about Mahatma Gandhi that may not be known to you, but they are quite interesting and surprising. Following are the 10 things you didn’t know about Mahatma Gandhi Gandhi always had a set of false teeth which he carried in a fold of his linen cloth. He used that set only when he wanted to eat. After meal he would again took the set of teeth out and put them back in his loin cloth. He was educated at London University and became an attorney. But the first time while making a speech in court, he was nervous and his knees trembled. He was also so frightened that he sat down with confusion and d...
Post a Comment
Read more