he
that laboureth right for love of Me
Shall
finally attain! But if in this
Thy
faint heart fails bring Me thy failure!
–THE
SONG CELESTIAL
THE SARGENT SCHEME
A
bold plan for educational reconstruction is before the nation in the Sargent
Scheme. Our first reaction to the bare outlines that have been released to the
public is a favourable one. The plan, for the first time in this country,
recognises the necessity for large scale planning on a nationwide scale along
lines that have become familiar to us in the recent history of Russia.
The
figures connected with the Scheme are staggering at first sight. It will cost
313 crores annually when it comes into full working order in about fifty years’
time. It provides for a thorough school medical service; elimination of
illiteracy, the provision of kindergartens where a large number of women
teachers will be employed, free elementary education and generous scholarships
for the secondary stage, continuation of state to adult education and provision
for technical instruction, including agriculture, are the main features
envisaged.
Any
scheme conceived from the central headquarters at New Delhi is bound to look
upon educational problems from an angle in which the nation as a whole is taken
into account. In the case of India, where a variety of traditions exist side by
side, any plan of public education is bound to appear insipid and commonplace
in camparison with plans made by private bodies. The modem educational tendency
is to stress importance of the individual child. In spite of the boldness which
chracterises the Sargent Scheme, the items fail to reach the subjective zones
of the personality of the child where the task of education may be said really
to begin.
India
must be able to afford a thorough-going plan of public and universal education
of a basic character. At the same time there must be ample scope to take into
account those aspects which make an attempt to reach the personality of the
individual child. The Scheme that is before us is not lacking in reference to
such aspect. It refers to the Technical High School, which it says is “an
important new idea aiming at giving an all-round education with a technical
bias for pupils of ability, so as to satisfy the aptitudes of those who want a
practical course and the need of industry and commerce for intelligent young
Workers.” This new type of school is what is most interesting in the Sargent
Scheme where it seems to come in line with plans formulated by the Nation
itself independently of the Central Government.
The
Inter-University Board which met at Hyderabad recently has blessed the Scheme
and “recommends for adoption as soon as possible the principle of compulsion
for all boys and girls for a period of eight years from the age of five……during
which period the pupils should have an opportunity of learning through activity
in arts and crafts……..The medium of instruction and examination in the High
School stage shall be the mother tongue.”
We
are glad that the claims of the “Wardha Scheme of Education,” which has been in
cold storage for sometime, have not been lost sight of by India’s leading
educationists. The Inter-University Board has also reiterated its faith in the
mother tongue medium in schools, and even in colleges wherever possible.
VIKRAMADITYA’S TWO-THOUSANDTH ANNIVERSARY
The
Two-thousandth anniversary of Vikramaditya who founded the Samvat Era, is being
celebrated this year. Not many countries outside India can indulge in the
luxury of celebrating a 2,000th anniversary! The Vikrama Era still holds the
field in North India, though the Christian Era has displaced it from public
memory so far, at any rate, as many English-educated Indians are concerned.
Vikramaditya was the beau ideal of a great ruler, wise, powerful and magnificent,
one who symbolises the longings and aspirations of the national genius. The
solidarity of Indian people, and the Indianisation of alien populations were
the great achievements of this illustrious ruler. His name was more a title,
which other great monarchs of India also delighted to assume. Sri K. M. Munshi,
who delivered an address on “Vikramaditya: Our Pillar of Fire” at the Cawnpore
celebrations on 9th December thus sums up Vikramaditya’s achievements:
“The
glorious empire of Magadha which Shishunaga founded continued till 79 B. C.
giving India the unity of social organisation and cultural outlook. But the
power of Magadha declined. The Barbarians–the Bactio-Greeks, the Parthians, the
Yueh-chis–broke into India. Then came this mighty Vikramaditya. No details of
his exploits have come down to us. But he drove out, repressed, absorbed the
Barbarians,–a mighty feat which, in the national mind of India, came to be
carved in letters of undying fire.
“Parasurama
was divine; he destroyed the enemies of Dharma; but was too fierce to be loved.
Sri Krishna was divine too; he stood for Dharma; but he wore no crown. Asoka
upheld Dharma but inherited an empire already rendered safe. But this
Vikramaditya became dearer, for he was human. He drove out the Barbarians; he
founded a political power of strength; he inspired literature and art; he
protected the Dharma; above all he looked after the needy and the distressed.
He was a wonderful composite of the shining memories of Parasurama and Sri
Krishna, of Buddha and Asoka; infinitely nearer to us by his more human and
therefore endearing light.
“Vikramaditya
henceforward became the beloved of the nation.”
In
the passing of Romain Rolland, the world has lost a rare idealist, and a great
citizen of the world. His was a voice that was raised again and again in the
cause of pacifism, of the value of the deeper verities of human life, and of
the unity of the human race behind the diversity of external forms and dividing
barriers of race, language and religion. He exercises a peculiar fascination on
the intelligentsia of this country, as much as the spiritual and ethical ideals
of India exercised, in turn, a fascination on him. He lived more or less the
life of a recluse, and it is to be regretted that he could not visit and
establish more personal contacts in a land which he did so much to interpret to
the Western world. His studies of Tagore and Gandhi, Ramakrishna and
Vivekananda who have moulded the thoughts and ideals of modern India more than
any other modern Indians have done, are remarkable for their insight and
perspicacity. These luminous accounts of modern Indian heroes may be said to
have provided the bridge over which numerous other Europeans on the Continent
found a correct approach to the heart and the genius of India. This is work for
which India will ever be profoundly grateful. The silent influence of the
labour of love such as Romain Rolland undertook may not bear immediate fruit
nor appear on the surface: and may be altogether on those who ride today on the
wave-crests of power. But ideas which embody truth win in the long run, though
the weeds of propaganda–which in the modern world grow thick and fast–appear to
choke up the still small voice of truth. Romain Rolland’s lone and even pathetic
figure amidst the turmoil and frenzy of European conflagration makes its own
mute and irresistible appeal to the idealists in every land.
PROHIBITION REVERSED
A
great urge for moral and social reform in the ‘dry’ districts of the Madras
Presidency has been frustrated by the decision of the Madras Government to
reverse the policy of Prohibition with effect from January 1944. The drive
against drinks and drugs has been among the major items in the campaign of
‘self-purification’ inaugurated by Gandhiji over twenty years ago. A
nation-wide impulse was generated amounting to a peaceful revolution; and many
unknown heroes, fired with the zeal to save their unfortunate brethren and
sisters from the grip of drink faced lathi blows and Worse and picketed liquor
shops and sustained the enthusiasm of the people for the reform. It is such
large impulses sweeping like tidal waves that lie at the back of all great
social reconstruction (as pointed out by Bertrand Russell, for instance). The
hostility and greed of vested interests and the apathy of administrators failed
to kill the spirit of reformers. As soon as the Congress ministries came into
power in several provinces, a beginning was made to introduce Prohibition by
stages. Rajaji, who has been the most indefatigable campaigner in the cause,
lost no time in getting the measure passed through the Madras Legislatures; and
before the measure was actually put into operation in the Salem District, he
undertook a tour through the area. Public memory is not so short that it could
have forgotten the jubilant scenes that were witnessed six years ago, that made
the Premier’s tour a triumphal procession marked by outbursts of tremendous
popular enthusiasm.
In
the light of these circumstances, the statements of leaders in Madras, opposed
to the Congress, which seek to make out that Prohibition was a fad of Rajaji’s,
and betray a feeling of personal prejudice against the Madras Premier, have
been the most unkindest cut of all. One can understand how the average
Britisher, with his special notions of individual freedom, looks upon the
failure of Prohibition in America, with a ‘I told you so’, and cannot
contemplate without a shudder any administration interfering with his
‘innocent’ craving for drink. Mr. J. B. S. Haldane, the distinguished
Bio-chemist, who has deigned to write an essay on “Mr. Gandhi and
Bio-Chemistry”, for instance, speaks from an exalted altitude of scientific
detachment of the deprivation of vitamin B present in toddy for the poor Indian
masses as a result of Gandhiji’s campaign. (How should Mr. Haldane understand
enough about the Indian dietary to know of the other possible sources of
vitamin B?) Far from being socially fashionable, drink has been anathema both
to the Hindu and Muslim and the better mind of India has never sympathised with
the drink traffic legalised by Government. The Government of Madras have failed
to appreciate the strength and tenour of deep-rooted public sentiment in India
in this matter.
One
of the gratifying signs of the rapidly growing picture production Industry in
India is the making of pictures with fine historical and biographical themes
and portraying the cultural life of India in a manner that will leave an
enduring impression on those who witness them. The making of such pictures
involves great labour–the collaboration of specialists and a highly cultured
and patriotic motive on the part of the directors and the financiers. We have
in mind pictures like Tukaram, Dnyaneswar, Bharat Milap, Tansen, Potana etc. Judging
by the way that all these pictures have had long and continuous runs in the big
cities, they must have been greatly successful from “box-office” point of view
also. This must be an inducement, therefore, to exploit the possibility of
similar themes of which the number is legion. One notices, however, that
occasionally pictures with a far different kind of appeal and pandering to the
baser instincts of human nature are offered for public entertainment, and bring
in quick returns. It is not that the public want such pictures: it is rather a
case where the producers guess that the public may be induced to want them.
Such pictures may pass the scrutiny of censoring boards, but they cannot escape
the censure of the more sensitive section of the picture-going public. Picture
Houses are fuller than ever now on account of the cheapness of money and
Pictures are a powerful instrument for good or evil. A great responsibility
therefore rests on the producers to maintain high standards: to be neither
tempted nor lead others into temptation with the excuse that that is what the
people want.