Falguni P. Desai, V. S. Patel College of Arts and Science, Gujarat, India
Abstract
As one of the earliest educators to think in terms of the global village and free education for all, Rabindranath Tagore’s educational pattern Loka-siksha has a distinctive understanding and suitability for education within multi-racial, multi-lingual and multi-cultural situations, amidst conditions of acknowledged economic discrepancy and political imbalance of contemporary times where education and cost are twined. The paper proposes to focus on Tagore’s philosophy on education an idea of extending equal right of education for all.
[Keywords: education, peace, Loka-siksha, philosophy,right.]
Introduction
Rabindranath Tagore’s Brahmacharyasram later renamed Path Bhavan in 1925 was established on 22 December, 1901. It will complete 100 years of its existencein 2001. It started its journey with five students—Rathindranath Tagore, Gourgobinda Gupta, Premkumar Gupta, Ashok Kumar Gupta and Sudhir Chandra Nun—and three regular teachers, Reba Chand, Jagadananda Roy and Shibdhan Vidyarnab apart from Brahmabandhab Upadhyay and Tagore himself. To explain the motive behind the foundation of the school, Tagore writes, “I suppose this poet’s answer would be that, when he brought together a few boys, one sunny day in winter, among the warm shadows of the tall straight sal trees with their branches of quiet dignity, he started to write a poem in a medium not of words”. [The prime moving force that compelled Tagore to establish the Brahmacharyasram is the restlessness of his creative mind. Tagore experts have also identified the reasons: conflict between romantic life of imagination and the life of action and sacrifice; the unhappy experience of school; the rigid routine of home education programme; his journey to the Himalayas with his saint-like father at the age of eleven; the enlghtened family environment; the acquaintance with Sanskrit literature and Upanishads; his visit to England at the age of 17; the Sudder Street experience of “the vision” at the age of 20; the socio-political conditions in India then and the Shelaidaha experience. Education is the instrument fashioned by men to achieve life’s goals. Tagore observes, “He who sees all being in his own self and his own self in all beings, he does not remain unrevealed, that should be the motto of our Indian educational institutions”. Tagore wrote “Siksar Herpher” in 1892 which was his first major writing on educational problems and delivered the convocation address to Gurukul Kangri in 1941, his last public utterance on education. By then he was not the same person if we take into account the change that had come over him. There are distinct phases of Tagore’s evolution, namely, the Brah-macharyasram or “turning back to past”, nationalism, internationalism, cosmicism and loka-siksha. Tagore emphasised different aims of education on different occasions. (Sensarma)
The Gitanjali (Song Offerings) brings together the ideals the poet kept before the nation, before mankind, and before educational institutions. Great seer Maharishi Debendranath Tagore was the architect of Santiniketan. Santiniketan, the abode of peace, evokes the image of a garden campus under an open blue sky where economic burden and education were unmerged. The story of the growth of flowers at Santiniketan is as old as the birth and growth of Santiniketan itself. It started with but a pair of chatim trees (Alstonia scholaris) on an open wasteland of eroded soil, stretching as far as the horizon. In the course of his travel to the Himalayas in 1863 for meditation, the Maharsi more or less accidentally visited this place. In the following words Tagore later described the place:
“A solitary world of red gravels enchanted by a play of light and shade, where there was no flower, no fruit, no vegetation and no abode of any animals.” (Ghose, 1961, p.158.)
Kathleen M. O’Connell (2003) a prominent scholar on Tagore examines that in Santiniketan the poet gradually brought the children into intimate contact with a band of inventive artists and thinkers who provided an incentive for them to express themselves in poetry, music and fine arts. These principles of the establishment did not remain stagnant but grew and developed with the intensification of Tagore’s own life. What at first started as a pioneer co-educational institution in India eventually developed into an international university known as Visva-Bharati, a centre of eastern study, and a summit of -the East and the West.
Professor HB Mukherjee writes, that although at different periods, in different contexts, he (Tagore) emphasized different ideas (as being) of fundamental importance, there is one strain of thought which we may observe running through all his educational utterances and activities either in bold, clear outline or in subtler concealed forms. It is the ideal of the development of all the innate faculties of an individual leading to an all-round, harmonious development of his personality”. This state of harmonious development is the state of complete manhood. Tagore’s originality in the field of education lies not in his aims but in the selection of activities. He prescribed a set of activities so that children going through consideration the organic wholeness of human individuality, economic self-sufficiency through self-employment and development of human faculties. Some of the prominent activities and conditions are: instruction through mother tongue scope of free reading other than textbooks — not for examination but for pleasure and joy; freedom of work; practice of simplicity, austerity but not poverty; self help, self-discipline, cooperative living, respect for guests, elders and women; a close contact with nature, teachers and society; learning Bengali, English, social studies, mathematics, science, gardening, craft, music, dance, drama; participation in games, daily prayer, campus cleaning and participation of elected students in self-government. In a nutshell, the steps to-wards complete manhood may be described as love and freedom leading to creative work that produces joy. The state of unadulterated joy is the state of complete manhood. (Sensarma)
Discussion
Ashok Agarwal (2009) advocate & social activist declares in his writing on The right of children to free and compulsory education bill, 2009 fails the test of constitutional mandate that:
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2009 (hereinafter referred to as RTE Bill, 2009) passed by the Parliament on 4th August 2009 though appears to be a progressive legislation but on examination thereof, it is not difficult to conclude that the same does not stand the test of constitutional mandate guaranteed under Article 14 (right to equality), Article 21 (right to life with dignity), Article 21-A (right to education) and Article 38 (right to social justice) of the Constitution of India. Undoubtedly, some of the provisions of the RTE Bill, 2009 are laudable. Section 3 talks of right to free and compulsory education and admission in a neighborhood school. Section 4 talks of admission of child in class appropriate to his or her age. Sections 8 & 9 talk of obligations of the government to provide compulsory education to children. Section 12 talks of obligation of the unaided recognized private schools to provide free seats to the extent of 25% to the children of the economically weaker sections. Section 13 (1) talks of “no capitation fee” and “no screening procedure” for admission. Section 14 talks of admission without insisting upon production of age proof. Section 16 talks of “no expulsion of a child”. Section 17 bans corporal punishment. Section 23 talks of formation of school management committees. Section 23 ensures recruitment of only qualified teachers. Section 25 talks of ensuring Pupil-Teacher Ratio as specified in the schedule. Section 32 talks of grievance redressed mechanism. On the other hand, several provisions of the RTE Bill, 2009 are meant to legalize and to perpetuate the existing unjust and discriminatory school education system based on socio-economic status. Section 3 (b) defines “capitation fee” means any kind of donation or contribution or payment other than the fee notified by the school. The import of this provision is that a school is free to notify any amount of fee whether needed or not and once it is notified, it will be legal. The Bill does not provide any fee regulatory mechanism to check the menace of commercialization of education. Moreover, the right of every child to receive free and compulsory education as guaranteed under Articles 21 and 21-A of the Constitution does not depend on the capacity of the parents to afford fee or not. Therefore, every child whether studying in private or State-run school, is entitled to free education. The State should bear the entire expenses even of the children studying in private-run schools. On the other hand, Section 8 disentitles a child studying in such private school even to claim from the State the reimbursement of expenditure incurred. The salient features of the Right of Children for Free and Compulsory Education Bill are — Free and compulsory education to all children of India in the six to 14 age group, No child shall be held back, expelled, or required to pass a board examination until completion of elementary education, A child who completes elementary education (up to class shall be awarded a certificate, calls for a fixed student-teacher ratio, will apply to all of India except Jammu and Kashmir, Provides for 25 percent reservation for economically disadvantaged communities in admission to Class One in all private schools, Mandates improvement in quality of education, School teachers will need adequate professional degree within five years or else will lose job, School infrastructure (where there is problem) to be improved in three years, else recognition cancelled, Financial burden will be shared between state and central government.
Observing the above amendment and linking them with Tagore’s philosophy we can say that for Tagore Education was the instrument fashioned by men to achieve life’s goals, unlinked to economic benefits. Tagore observes that he who sees all being in his own self and his own self in all beings, he does not remain unrevealed, and that should be the motto of our Indian educational institutions. Tagore wrote Siksar Herpher in 1892 which was his first major writing on educational problems and delivered the convocation address to Gurukul Kangri in 1941, his last public utterance on education. By then he was not the same person if we take into account the change that had come over him. There are distinct phases of Tagore’s evolution, namely, the Brahmacharyasram or turning back to past, nationalism, internationalism, cosmicism and loka-siksha. Tagore emphasized different aims of education on different occasions. The principle adopted by Tagore was that a man being a consumer must also be a producer. It looks as if he was anticipating Gandhiji’s Basic Education Scheme. The tragedy of Western education was succinctly put by Tagore he said that we teach the child Geography and rob him of his earth. We teach him grammar and rob him of his language. The child hungers for music and dance, but we thrust a load of facts into his reluctant brain. Students were not passive receivers of knowledge but discoverers of facts and principles. (Sensarma, 2001,p.1)
Maharsi passed away in 1905. But since 1901, with the prior consent of his father, Rabindranath had taken over the responsibility of reshaping the Ashram on the basis of his philosophy of education in which nature and forest had a predominant role to play as educators. This creative reshaping partly manifested itself in the establishment of the present Visva-Bharati, where the whole world meets in one nest and partly in the gradual unfolding of a scenario in which the garden with its trees and flowers provided the necessary backdrop. The love and care with which the poet took up the program of developing the garden which he had inherited from his father can be seen from the trees and flowers that abound at Santiniketan. It was Tagore’s long-cherished desire that in this short span of life with its smiles and tears, not wealth nor fame but a shelter at a corner of the earth under the shade of a tree where he could enjoy nature, the beauty of stars and fragrance of the chameli flowers from his window. The poet-did not want any pomp or grandeur to be associated with his memorial service. Instead he assigned the parting role to the dear trees of his garden —
“Let not the pomp of memorial meeting/create sorrow’s trance/May the forest trees at the gate of escape/raise the earth’s chant of peace/in the dumb cluster of foliage”. (Ghose, 1961, p.158)
In 1890 Tagore made a second trip to the United Kingdom, but came back after a month to look after the family estates. This responsibility opened up new vistas of inspiration for him. Whereas his previous literary work had been primarily based on imagination, he now came to acquire a direct and intimate experience of the wretched life led by the poor Bengali peasants. This new experience led to the composition of Galpaguccha [A bunch of stories] (1900), and the many letters he wrote to his niece, subsequently published as Chhinnapatra [Torn letters] and Chhinnapatravali [A collection of torn letters], considered to be landmarks in the writing of Bengali prose and in describing the countryside of Bengal. Tagore was overwhelmed by the economic, social and political misery in which the peasants lived. He gave a description of them at a later date: Our so-called responsible classes live in comfort because the common man has not yet understood his situation. That is why the landlord beats him. The money-lender holds him in his clutches; the foreman abuses him; the policeman fleeces him; the priest exploits him; and the magistrate picks his pocket. (Tagore,1917, p.116-7)
These conditions, he thought, cannot be changed by appealing to the religious sentiments of the landlord, policeman or money-lender. In human society, necessity is a greater force than charity. The first requirement therefore is that people should discover the bond that holds them together as a society. If there is one path likely to achieve this, it is education. Tagore realized from his own experience of the farmers’ attitudes and their social behavior that strength can be generated only in a self-reliant village society developing its own locus of power and its own momentum of growth through education. He turned again and again in various contexts to this theme of local self-reliance, local initiatives, local leadership and local self-government centering on co-operative ways of life. This could be the basis for reorganizing India’s fragmented rural society, and could serve as an instrument of welfare. Tagore realized that education and village councils or panchayats were the only available instruments of economic and social change, and that the villagers should obtain various forms of expert help from outside to accomplish this change. As he says that poverty springs from disunity and wealth from co-operation. From all points of view this is the fundamental truth of human civilization (Tagore, 1961, p.947).
As a young landlord managing his family’s rural estates, Tagore came to realize the possibilities of introducing education and co-operation to transform rural life. Thus he began to turn his thoughts towards the problems of education. He spoke publicly on ‘The Vicissitudes of Education’ in which he made a strong plea for the use of the mother-tongue. His first experiments in teaching also date from this period. He started his own school in Seliadah, the headquarters of his estate, to which he sent his own children to be taught by teachers in various subjects, including an Englishman to teach them the English language. The Brahmacharyasram (or Ashram) School was inaugurated on 22 December 1901 with only a few pupils, his son being one of them, and with an equal number of teachers. It was to be run on the pattern of teachers and pupils living together amidst natural surroundings and willingly accepting an austere standard of living, often working with their own hands. Of the five teachers, three were Christians—two of whom were Catholics and the third was his son’s English teacher from Seliadah. The orthodox Hindus were offended by this situation and he did not get any assistance from them. No fees were accepted from students, all expenses being borne by Tagore himself. In the course of time, this Ashram School expanded as the poet’s reputation grew. (Jha, 1994, p.603-19)
In his Shikhar Suwangeekaran [Make education your own] (1936), he returned to his recurrent theme of the unnaturalness of the system of education in India, its lack of links with the nation and its management which was in the hands of a foreign government. The working of the government, its courts of law and its education system were conducted in a language completely unintelligible to the majority of Indians. He contrasted the situation in India with what he had seen in the USSR and in Japan, where the governments had been able to educate their people within a very short time. Educating India’s entire population and restoring the flow of culture from the educated classes to the rural population would not come about unless the mother-tongue was adopted as the medium of teaching. (Jha, 1994, p.603-19)
Tagore was against any conspicuous emphasis on materials, buildings, furniture or books that imitated Western educational institutions in India. He thought that this would make education too expensive for the common people. He was against bookish learning. He Said
…books have come between our mind and life. They deprive us of our natural faculty of getting knowledge directly from nature and life and have generated within us the habit of knowing everything through books. We touch the world not with our mind, but with our books. They dehumanize and make us unsocial…. Let the students gather knowledge and materials from different regions of the country, from direct sources and from their own independent efforts. (Jha, 1994, p.603-19)
His ideals of his innermost life were education for all, love, peace and delight which found their full and natural expression whenever he came into contact with nature, the trees and flowers of his gardens. He asserts this repeatedly—
“That O tree is why I come and sit in front of you/ I want my words to grow easy/ I under your deep shade…./ Today in the twilight hour/ let all thoughts and sorrow of this life gather close to my consciousness, and blaze forth like the evening star the last utterance of this life —‘I love.” (Ghose, 1989, p.110)
Tagore’s immediate task was two-fold. On the one hand, he started the campaign of stopping the erosion of the soil and on the other he fought a more serious erosion – the mental erosion or rather corrosion which had set in as a result of the purposeless education of the west imparted in our schools and colleges…. because of his harsh comments on the Western education system, Government officials used all means to nip his efforts in the bud. Any one in his place would have succumbed to the tragedy. But not Tagore. He replied to the situation with harder work and a more steady determination to pursue his scheme. Tagore’s originality in the field of education lies not in his aims but in the selection of activities and equality in imparting it. He prescribed free of cost education with a set of activities so that children going through consideration the organic wholeness of human individuality, economic self-sufficiency through self-employment and development of human faculties. Some of the prominent activities and conditions are: instruction through mother tongue, scope of free reading other than textbooks not for examination but for pleasure and joy; freedom of work; practice of simplicity, austerity but not poverty; self-help, self-discipline, cooperative living…In a nutshell, the steps towards complete manhood may be described as love and freedom leading to creative work that produces joy. The state of unadulterated joy is the state of complete manhood. Music and drawing were added to create joy and an atmosphere to freedom. There was no structured instruction, ‘but there was lot of absorption’. To create opportunity for joy of discovery and inquiry, Tagore provided a powerful telescope to watch the sky Students worked on the kitchen garden, incidentally assimilating knowledge about Botany and Chemistry, with related Mathematics to keep accounts. (Ganguli,1961, p.19-30.)
In our country, India free of /low cost the holistic view of education that develops the whole self and not just the mental faculty was advocated most dynamically by Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore believed that peace from within and without can be attained with the love and devotion to nature and the natural. In his works we find the idea of conservation and preservation. To consider many studies on Michael Foucault and Edward Said (Sivaramakrishnan 2007) says that:
It is impossible to think of any social situation without relating it to the politics of power and oppression. And of course after the great movements in Feminist thinking it is virtually impossible to understand any situation without relating it to the ideas of gender and politics. In such a situation how could we relegate the idea of nature? What we understand by nature most certainly has a bearing on what we make of ourselves. And our understanding needs necessarily be holistic and not discriminative.
The thoughts of great thinkers like Tagore enabled us to understand the reflective implications of the natural environment of peace and tranquility and our ways of responding to it. Thus in our understanding of the world we live in we need to reorient ourselves with regard to the values and our ways of response. His aesthetics belongs to the order of values of which serenity as a value too forms a significant part. In fact the value which we attribute to the peacefulness cannot be seen distinct from our general -ethical frame of reference where education should not be attached only to finance.
The formation chosen at Visva-Bharati as an Indian, Eastern and Global cultural centre whose goals were: To study consciousness of mind of man diverse phases of truth. , To be intimate relation with one another through patient study and research, the different cultures of the East merging in to oneness. To approach the West from the stance of such a unity of the life and thought of Asia. To seek to realize in a common fellowship of study the meeting of East and West and thus ultimately to reinforce the essential conditions of world peace through the free communication of ideas between the two hemispheres. Good-fellowship and collaboration between the intellectuals and scholars of both Eastern and Western countries, free from all antagonisms of race, nationality, creed or caste and in the name of the One Supreme Being who is Shantam, Shivam, Advaitam1. Thus one attribute that distinguished Rabindranath educational theory is his approach to education as a poet where financial gains were insignificant. At Santiniketan, he affirmed, his aspiration and build a poem of peace and harmony via communion of nature and education. His sensitive vision leads him to style a system of edification which was all comprehensive. His broad and divine thoughts formulated a unique program for education in nature and creative self-expression in a learning climate congenial to global peace.
Tagore was familiar with many of these views, but all who knew the poet were aware that he was in no way indebted to them. His views were linked with the development of his own mind and spirit, and his profound understanding of India’s traditional educational experience and philosophy. His activity-oriented school for village children appears to have inspired Gandhi’s ideas on basic education. Tagore’s influence can also be seen in the report of the Kothari Commission on Education in India. In Tagore’s view, the higher aim of education was the same as that of a person’s life, that is, to achieve fulfillment and completeness. There was a lesser aim that of providing the individual with a satisfactory means of livelihood, without which a person would not be able to satisfy his/her basic requirements and thus fail to achieve either of these two aims. Tagore also imagined that the limitless development of man is possible only in an environment free from any kind of bondage. Apart from the scriptures, it would seem that he was influenced by the attitudes that arose in Europe during the Renaissance and the Age of Reason. (Tagore, 1929, p.73-74.)
In Tagore’s view, education was not intellectual development alone. It should also develop a student’s aesthetic nature and creativity. The quest for knowledge and physical activity in an agreeable environment were integral parts of the process. Freedom and creativity are linked in Tagore’s thought, one conditioning the other. The more people go beyond the limitations of their animal nature, the closer they come to humanism, freedom and unity and are then able to develop their creativity. This quest alone gives a meaning to life, and education is an effort to make life meaningful. Here the aims of the individual and those of the community have become almost one. Tagore did not neglect the lesser aims of life and education. In the colonial system of education that existed at that time the whole focus of education was on employment, to the complete neglect of the higher aims of life. His intention was to correct this wrong emphasis, without ignoring science, technology and agricultural sciences, as well as training in village crafts. Without these, it was not possible to revive the derelict life of rural India. Both categories of aims should thus be considered the objective of education. It was necessary, Tagore felt, to make the younger generation aware of their national cultural heritage and to grasp its significance for them. At the same time, education should bring children face to face with the cultures of other countries and persuade them to learn from them. Tagore put great emphasis on the use of a national language as the vehicle of education at all stages of education. He wanted Indian universities to integrate themselves with society and make an effort to educate people living in the countryside. He did not want education to remain confined to the cities and to particular classes of society. He was very much concerned with women’s education. His educational institutions have almost always been co-educational and the number of female students is conspicuously large at Santiniketan. He wanted women and men to be offered similar theoretical courses with separate practical courses for women, since their roles in life differed from those of men. Tagore considered teachers to be very important in any scheme of education. He wanted teachers to help young children to grow on their own as a gardener helps the young plants to grow.
Universal schooling of decent quality could be the single biggest move it makes towards future prosperity. Towards this end the government has mooted a Right to Education Bill which promises free education for every child in the 6-14 age groups. But it remains cagey about details, citing the Election Commission’s model code as the reason for not disclosing the full text. Education requires substantial, not just symbolic action. Merely passing laws, without sustained political attention that plugs yawning financial and administrative gaps in the school sector, is going to fail. One of the problems of taking a purely legislative view is to define who will be held responsible if a child doesn’t attend school. Will it be the local body, the state government, the Centre, the child’s guardians?
In Tagore’s philosophy of education we find the above mentioned agenda of Right to Education Bill that is free education for every child of decent quality could be the single biggest move we can make towards future prosperity. Tagore’s philosophy of education mentions no economic burden, equal educational opportunities for all as put forward in RTE, 2009. In Tagore’s idea of education the aesthetic growth of the mind was as important without economic burden as the intellectual–if not more so–and music, literature, art, dance and drama were given great prominence in the daily life of the school. In observance with his hypothesis of intuitive learning, Rabindranath never talked or wrote down to the students, but rather implicated them with whatever he was writing or composing. Students at Santiniketan were encouraged to create their own publications and put out several illustrated magazines. The children were encouraged to follow their ideas in painting and drawing and to depict idea from the many visiting artists and writers. The meeting-ground of cultures at Visva-Bharati, a learning centre where conflicting interests are diminished, economic differences melt, where persons work jointly in a widespread quest of truth and comprehend that artists in all parts of the world have created forms of beauty, scientists discovered secrets of the universe, philosophers solved the problems of existence, saints made the truth of the spiritual world organic in their own lives, not merely for some particular race to which they belonged, but for all mankind.
From the above discussion we can sketch out that though Rabindranath did not write a central educational treatise his ideas must be assembled through his various writings and educational experiments like that at Santiniketan should be implement collectively and universally. In general, he envisioned an education that was intensely rooted in one’s immediate surroundings but connected to the cultures of the wider world, upon agreeable learning and individualized to the personality of the child. He felt that a curriculum should orbit organically around nature with classes held in the open air under the trees to provide for a spontaneous appreciation of the variability of the plant and animal kingdoms, and seasonal changes. He felt that education is right of every child so in Santiniketan children sat on hand-woven mats beneath the trees, which they were allowed to climb and run beneath between classes. Nature walks and excursions were a part of the curriculum and students were encouraged to follow the life cycles of insects, birds and plants without economic considerations. Class schedules were made flexible to allow for shifts in the weather or special interest to natural trend, and seasonal festivals were created for the children by Tagore.
The present system of education is instrumental in the advancement in science and technology and has brought physical comforts to a few but it has failed to bring the peace and joy for which all of us are striving. That is because of the defects in our school education system. Our information-centered, non-creative school education system has failed to generate self-employment, develop a proper value system or devise a mechanism for reducing tension and discontent. Its consequences are alarming: unemployment, corruption, dishonesty, terrorism, disrespect for women and elders and adult tension. The final result is lack of peace and joy. We have no choice but to change our school education system. Tagore’s model of education is the only well experimented model in hand. Its relevance must be assessed before it is adopted. The aim of Tagore’s model is harmonious development of individual faculties. In present day conditions, its relevance can be established from psychological, intellectual, spiritual and social factors. Only harmonious development ensures proper development and leads to eternal joy or “anandam’. It helps generate self-employment opportunities, develop proper value system which can kill social evils like dishonesty, corruption and terrorism. The present school education system has failed to produce the desirable results. The time has come to switch to Tagore’s alternative model which is based on well established principles of child and social psychology. It is not the panacea but has immense potential for producing a new social order. So if Visva-Bharati, the state and central governments and intellectuals come forward to make an honest attempt to fulfil Tagore’s dream, it will be the highest tribute the country can pay to the poet in the centenary year of that experiment. Otherwise we may have to wait till a foreign country adopts this model and puts its own stamp on it. We will then have to borrow it as a “foreign product'”. (Sensarma)
In an essay entitled “A Poet’s School,” he emphasizes the importance of compassionate sense of interconnectedness with the surrounding world. He believed that we have come to this world to accept it, not merely to know it. We may become powerful by knowledge, but we attain extensiveness by compassion. The foremost education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in accord with all subsistence. (Tagore, 1917, p.116-17)
Conclusion
From the above discussion we can conclude that Tagore wanted to employ education as a tool of change to make India’s young men and women more rational and less subject to meaningless social and individual rituals. Tagore wanted young men and women of India to acquire a scientific temper; in other words, he wanted teachers to kindle productive doubt, the love of mental escapade, the courage and longing to surmount the world by enterprise and audacity in thought and indeed these were the qualities nurturing of which had made the West forge ahead. Tagore was against any form of physical punishment to impose discipline. He wanted discipline to come from within, from the pursuit of noble and high aspiration in life. The poet passed away in 1941. The two institutions specific to Tagore’s educational ideas and experiments still survive in the form of Patha Bhawan (the school section) at Santiniketan and in the form of Sikshasastra and Sri Niketan—of course, they have been modified a good deal over this long stretch of time. They form the core of the Santiniketan ideal. Visva Bharati survives too; it is now a central university and has changed considerably. While putting up the mandate like Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education, 2009, for flourishing accomplishments and preferred effect we require exploring and following the core of philosophy on education of great men like Tagore, so that we stand the test of time and achieve our factual accurate aspiration. In surfacing his holistic enlightening model, Rabindranath sought through various means to break down accessible obstruction and to promote interconnectivity between provincial and regional groups; between English-medium educated elites and those with little education, who conducted their lives in the dialect.
Note
1. For further information see Seventh mantra of Mundakya Upanishad, it means the voice of God.
References
Agarwal Ashok (2009) The Right of Children to Free And Compulsory Education Bill, 2009
Fails The Test Of Constitutional Mandate Retrieved August 2009 from The Right of Children
to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009: The Gazette of India Notification August 27,
2009 from Educationforallinindia.com website: http://www.Educationforallinindia.com/Righttoeducationbill2005.html
Ganguli, B. N. (1961). Human Factor in the Growth of the Rural Economy, Visva Bharati
Quarterly, 7, 19–30.
Ghose, S. K., (1961). The later poems of Tagore, Asia Publishing H Bombay, 158.
Ghose, S. K., (1989).The later poems of Tagore, English version, Sterling Publishers, New
Delhi, 110.
Jha Narmadeshwar (1994) Rabindranath Tagore, PROSPECTS: The quarterly Review of
Education, XXIV (3/4), 603–619.
O’Connell, K. M. (2003) ‘Rabindranath Tagore on education’, the encyclopaedia of informal
education, http://www.infed.org/thinkers/tagore.htm
Sensarma Alokenath (2001, Dec. 27) Unfulfilled Dream Tagore Model For School Education
Still Relevant The Statesman (Delhi) N24, http://el.doccentre.info/eldoc/n24_/27dec01s1.pdf
Sivaramakrishnan Murali Green Voices: Some Aspects of Ecological Criticism August
2007 from Countercurrents.org, Website: http://www.Countercurrents.org/murali310807.htm
Tagore, Rabindranath (1917) Personality. London: Macmillan & Co.p.116-17.
Tagore, Rabindranath (1929) Ideals of Education, The Visva-Bharati Quarterly, 2, 73-74.
Tagore Rabindranath, (1961) Asramer Rup-O-Vikas, Rabindra Rachani ( P.K.Gosh, Trans.)
Govt. of West Bengal: Birth Centenary Publication. ( original work published 1921), p.947.
Tagore, Rabindranath (1910) “Where The Mind Is Without Fear”. Retrieved on March, 2004
from poemhunter.com, website: www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/rabindranath_tagore_2004_9.pdf
Falguni P. Desai is Associate Professor, Department of English V.S. Patel College of Arts and Science, Gujarat, INDIA., She completed Ph.D from Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat in 2003 on “Use of Myths in plays of Girish Karnad & Wole Soyinka – a Comparative Study.”. She is interested in Comparative Literature, Indian English Literature &Vedic Studies, American transcendental literature with special reference to poetry and Feminism with special reference to eco feminism and Vedic literature. She has participated in various international seminars and conferences in several universities like Concordia University (Canada), Nanjing University (China), University of London and University of Cambridge and in many national seminars, conferences, workshops, Symposia in India. She has completed a UGC sponsored Minor Research Project on “Use of Myths in plays of Girish Karnad & Wole Soyinka– a Comparative Study” (1999-2001). She is a Fellow member of International Congress of Environmental Research, Bhopal, India. She has widely contributed to various refereed journals and editions. Email: psdesai69@yahoo.co.in
