Ask a Teacher

Search



Difference between Gandhiji and Tagore views on education.
Rabindranath Tagore, who is yet to be analyzed in full as one of the world’s prime educational thinker and experimenter, approached education, as he approached life as a poet, with a totality of vision. The dominating purpose of Mahatma Gandhi’s vision was to ensure the production of character on a mass scale, characters which may develop individual possibilities freely within limits of one supreme ideal of ‘Truth, through self-reliance’ which it must accept and strive to realize in cooperation with brothers of the same ideology. It was in fact a war between right and wrong which had as much to be waged externally between one man and another, one class and another, as internally within the mind of each man.

 Rabindranath Tagore had not disregarded what one might call the operational aspect of truth, but in his system the main emphasis was on its manifestation. One eternal aim of human life is to know and to realize. The noblest ‘Sadhana’ in ancient India aimed at this communion of individual self with the universe around.

Education according to Rabindranath Tagore was a process through which the mind could grow and reach out of itself and establish a Yoga’, a community of spirit with man and nature. Necessarily, therefore, Rabindranath Tagore also emphasized character, but in a different manner. Whereas Mahatma Gandhi depended on a common mission as the chief factor in character building, Tagore depended on a common religion, the religion of man. A mission makes an urgent demand and usually obtains a quicker response. A religion is slow in its growth, though it brings in much more of human personality under its compass. In fact in both the views ‘truth’ is indispensable. One must know truth as it affects the life of the human race as also of the individual, in order to live and behave intelligently in the social context. And one must at the same time know truth independently of utilitarian purposes in order that individual mind may find its richest fulfillment. We are aware that the poet, the scientist, the prophet and even the historian to be in pursuit of truths which can not be harnessed to any utilitarian purpose.

Or we may say that whereas Mahatma Gandhi concentrated on the eternal problem of evil and evolved a philosophy of action, something like a simplified version of ‘Karma-Yoga’ suited to the needs and abilities of every man in India, Tagore centered his philosophy on the joy of life, the eternal ‘Ananda’ of realization and expression which did not exclude action, but in fact put fair amount of importance to it. Mahatma Gandhi tried to establish the everyday reality of life in his system and tried to save education from the danger of social ‘escapism’ of any sort. Rabindranath Tagore presented reality in its largest perspective yet attained by man, and tried to save education from the danger of all narrow limitations of place and time and people. Both their arguments were powerful, as both were philosophies, Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore lived with deep earnest in their real life. On a closer look it appears that Rabindranath Tagore had a much enlightened concept about education, and yet from the social perspective of emerging independent India, it seems Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of education was perhaps more relevant for India at that time.

We may have a look into Rabindranath Tagore’s own words on education to get an idea what he wanted to profess-“I prepared for my children a real ‘home-coming’ at my school in the Ashrama. Among other subjects learnt in the open air under the shade of trees they had their music and picture-making; they had their dramatic performances, activities that were the expression of life.

A large part of man can never find its expression in the mere language of words. It must therefore seek for other languages—lines and colours, sounds and movements. Though our mastery of these, we not only make our whole nature articulate, but also understand man in all his attempts to reveal his innermost being in every age and time. The great use of Education is not merely to collect facts, but to know man and to make oneself known to man.

It is the duty of every human being to master, at least to some extent, not only the language of intellect, but also that of the personality which is the language of Art. It is a great world of reality for man, – vast and profound,- this world which tends to grow along with his own creative nature.

Teaching of religion, religion of man- to be precise, can never be imparted in the form of lessons, it exists where there is religion in living, and to learn it one has to live it—Religion is not a fractional thing that it can be doled out in fixed weekly or daily measures as one among various subjects in school syllabus. It is the truth of our complete being, the consciousness of our personal relationship with the infinite. It is the true center of gravity of our life.”


comments powered by Disqus