“ When we think we know, we cease to learn.”
—Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
The most outstanding educationist of the 20th century, who strived throughout his life to enlighten his fellow citizens’ minds, is Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. But it would be a great mistake if we consider him merely a prominent educationist as his contribution towards the nation encompasses his philosophical, religious and political viewpoints, which helped to shape the perspective of what he refers to as “The Emerging World Society” and calls upon the masses “to work for this new order with all the strength and capacity for suffering we possess.”
Dr. Radhakrishnan was born on September 5, 1888, to a Telegu-speaking Brahmin family of Sarvepalli Veerasawamy and Sithamma in Tiruttani of North Arcot district in the erstwhile Madras presidency (now in the Tiruvallur district of Tamilnadu). Tiruttani, a famous pilgrimage centre and Radhakrishnan’s family being Smarta in religious orientation, helped him gain an early knowledge of Shankaracharya’s doctrine of Advaita.
Dr. Radhakrishnan’s primary education was at K.V. High School in Tiruttani. In 1896, he was sent to Hermannsburg Evangelical Lutheran Missionary School, where he first encountered non-Hindu Missionaries whose teachings, like his own religious heritage, strongly emphasised personal spiritual experience. Between 1900 and 1904,
Dr. Radhakrishnan entered Elizabeth Rodman Voorhees College in Vellore, where he was introduced to Dutch Reform Theology, which criticised Hinduism as intellectually incoherent and ethically unviable. In this atmosphere,
Dr. Radhakrishnan realised that he had to bring forth a unique defence mechanism to protect his religious tradition.
In the year 1904, Dr. Radhakrishnan entered the Madras Christian College, and this filtered his experience in two ways: first, he was introduced for the first time to European philosophy, and the second key factor was that it was in this college that he got a brilliant scope to make a thorough and comparative study of Hinduism in connection with the European religious traditions.
Dr. Radhakrishnan’s contribution to the study of Indian philosophy consists of his two-fold vision: first, on the ground of metaphysics, he adopts Shankaracharya’s doctrine of Advaita. Still, he very clearly refutes the illusionist interpretation of Maya by focusing on the world’s reality. The second key point mainly concerns his epistemological point of view where he explains Intuition in terms of varieties of experiences which ultimately contribute to a knowledge of the real.
Dr. Radhakrishnan published his M.A. thesis “The Ethics of the Vedanta and its Metaphysical Presuppositions” at the age of 20 to defend Hinduism against the charge of Western critics for its intellectual incoherency and ethical inviability. This earned him serious commendations from one of his most prominent adversaries at one point in time: A.G. Hogg— Dr. Radhakrishnan’s mentor philosopher and Prof. William Skinner, the then acting Principal of Madras Christian College. With the latter’s recommendation, Dr. Radhakrishnan secured a temporary teaching post at the Presidency College of Madras.
Dr. Radhakrishnan’s deep understanding of his cultural as well as religious heritage gave a strong push to his career. In 1918, he was selected as the Professor of Philosophy by the University of Mysore, where he taught at its Maharaja’s College, Mysore. In 1921, he was appointed as a Professor in Philosophy to occupy the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta. He represented the University of Calcutta at the International Congress of Philosophy at Harvard University in September 1926. During this lifetime,
Dr. Radhakrishnan was invited to Oxford twice—once in 1926, to deliver Upton Lectures, which were incorporated in his The Hindu View of Life (1927) and in 1929 for the second time to deliver Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College which were published under the title An Idealist View of Life.
Dr. Radhakrishnan’s shift to Calcutta, coupled with his growing feeling of seclusion from his native land, offered him a broad scope for putting his own literary calibre into practice. During 1921 and 1927, he published the two volumes of his ‘Indian Philosophy’. World War I and its aftermath, the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919, and rapidly growing civil disobedience made him study Rabindranath Tagore’s works.
For Dr. Radhakrishnan’s unflinching services to education, he was knighted by George V in June 1931. He, however, ceased to use this title after the independence of India and preferred instead his academic title, “Doctor”. From 1931 to 1936, he acted as the Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University. In 1936, Dr. Radhakrishnan was named Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics at the University of Oxford—the first Indian to hold such a prestigious post at Oxford. In the same year, and again in 1937, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1939, Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya invited him to succeed him as the Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU), where he served till January 1948.
Dr. Radhakrishnan’s entry into the political scenario of India in the later years of his life was not entirely governed by his own choice but rather by the active indulgence of his friend, philosopher and guide Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who gave him the scope to exercise his ideals in a broader spectrum. In 1946, with a strong back-up from Pt. Nehru, Dr. Radhakrishnan was elected as a member of the Constituent Assembly, where he stayed until 1949 and intervened on minority issues and objective resolution debates. Dr. Radhakrishnan was also a member of the Drafting Committee formed on August 29, 1947, under the chairmanship of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and played a crucial role in the formation of the Indian Constitution. In 1948, the University Education Committee invited
Dr. Radhakrishnan to serve as its Chairman. Accordingly, a report of the said Committee was submitted the following year, ultimately laying the foundation of the University Grants Commission in 1956. In 1949, Pt. Nehru appointed him as the Indian Ambassador to Moscow—a post he kept until 1952. From 1946 to 1951, Dr. Radhakrishnan also served as the Chairman of the Indian delegation and sat on the Executive Board of the newly established UNESCO.
Dr. Radhakrishnan was also the first Chairman of the Rajya Sabha of Independent India for two consecutive terms from 1952 to 1962 and established the Upper House’s position as the apex legislative chamber. In 1952, he was elected as the first Vice-President of India and in 1962 became the second President of India. These positions, to a great extent, helped him realise his dreams about Independent India. It is worthwhile to recall his famous speech in the Constituent Assembly on January 20, 1947, wherein he had said: “If India gains freedom, it will be used not merely for the well-being of India but it will be used for Viswa Kalyana—for world peace—and for the welfare of mankind.”
At the end of his Presidential term, Dr. Radhakrishnan retired to his home at Elliot’s Road, Madras (now renamed as Dr. S. Radhakrishnan Road). He stayed there for the rest of his life and breathed his last on April 17, 1975. Throughout his life, Dr. Radhakrishnan was conferred numerous awards and honours. He received the Bharat Ratna in 1954, the UK Order of Merit in 1963, the Sahitya Akademi fellowship in 1968 and a few months before his death the Templeton Prize in 1975.
In spite of his multiple contributions to nation-building, it is chiefly as a teacher that he always wanted himself to be remembered. During his term as the President of India, Dr. Radhakrishnan once pleaded to his students who were keen to celebrate his birthday: “Instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be my proud privilege if September 5 is observed as Teachers’ Day.” Since 1962, September 5 of every year is celebrated as the National Teachers’ Day in our country. Every year on this occasion, the Ministry of Education, Government of India, confers National Award to Teachers (NAT) to encourage and appreciate them for their extraordinary contributions to education. This year, the President of India, Ms. Droupadi Murmu, conferred NAT 2023 on 75 teachers across the country at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, to mark the 135th birth anniversary of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.
