Happy Teacher’s Day!

Why do we celebrate Teacher’s Day on 5th of Sept? Because it’s Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s Birthday! Apart from being a Statesman and Philosopher, what’s so special about this First Vice President and Second President of Independent India? Well, read on and you might just get the hint! If you don't, you will need many more teachers to learn lessons of ‘Being Human’… 

“It is wrong to think that man is in the grip of determinism either of Karma or biology or environment. He is endowed with the power of choice. He can rebel and protest against unjust social order. The ethical basis of democracy is faith in the significance of man. The human person is not a mere wave on the ocean of history which fancies that it pushes the flood while it is carried on by it ... Man can cause new currents to surge up in history. It is from history that we learn nothing. Will man learn lessons from history and live with responsibility towards future?

The saga of scientific progress is spectacular and breath-taking. But morally the world has not registered an inch of progress since the birth of man. Man’s greed and selfishness increased in proportion to his material advancement. Consequently there is no guarantee that he will make a right choice and make the world safe for future. This should not be deemed as pessimism and that the world is steadily heading towards a certain doom. One bright thing about man, which ought to be borne ever in mind, is that he is different from nature and hence utterly unpredictable. No external force or necessity can ever drive him to the wall. He is essentially free, living in a dark cozy cell. He is the king of infinite time and space. His potentialities are unlimited. He can transcend his own limitations if only he wills…"

The end-product of evolution, according to Dr. Radhakrishnan, is a morally evolved society shaped evenly by freedom and responsibility. He calls it Brahmaloka. It is his equivalent of Gandhi’s Ramarajya. His ideal man is a holy man; a saint, not a genius or a man of power. His ideal man reshapes human institutions with freedom coupled with responsibility with compassion which embraces all. He does not work merely for his own salvation; he accepts to uplift the entire society around him. Thus he works for Sarvamukti – liberation of the community as a whole. He transcends his own limitations. Hence, he is unique and uninvolved.

“History”, says Radhakrishnan, “is a matter of unique individuals involved in unique events. It is those, who stand outside history that make history.” Dr. S. Radhakrishnan thought of an ordered society in which equality, liberty and fraternity are a really realized reality, a society, a haven of freedom, dreamed of by Rabindranath Tagore in his famous lyric beginning “Where the mind is without fear…!”

Radhakrishnan was awarded several high awards during his life, including a knighthood in 1931, the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award in India, in 1954, and honorary membership of the British Royal Order of Merit in 1963. Radhakrishnan believed that "Teachers should be the best minds in the country...".

Now believing that Teacher is someone who Enlightens, Inspires and Elevates you, the choice couldn't have been better, I guess...!

Way to go...