Until India achieved political independence in 1947, Indians across the country were inspired, indeed, fired, by a common ideal, so powerfully captured for the public imagination in the immortal words of Lokmanya Tilak: Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it!
After Independence, there were three major problems that confronted the nation: poverty and backwardness; illiteracy; and caste and communal divisions. It was our national responsibility to work to solve them.
There can be no true freedom without responsibility. We cannot sit back and say that the Government or the administration or the politicians have failed to solve our problems. It is as much our responsibility as theirs, to face these challenges and overcome them.
The task of nation-building, the stupendous work of achieving real development and progress is before us now. And once again, I recall the words of my Master: “New India will not be built in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha but in the home and in the school!”
My friends, do not imagine that I’m burdening the teachers with monumental duties and responsibilities. My point is this — we still have crucial lessons to learn; our young people need to be educated in the right manner, to face up to their duties and responsibilities and who better, than our teachers, to do what they are best at?
To take up this challenge successfully, to build responsible citizens and to build a new India, the teachers too, must have national goals and Indian values: only then they can pass these onto their students!
The teacher is a builder — a builder of men, a builder of minds, a builder of life. Let me remind you of the words of Edwin Markham, who asked:
Why build these cities glorious
If man unbuilded goes?
It is man who needs to be rebuilt. And who will build good human beings but the teacher? It is the teacher’s sacred task to build the lives of the students who come to him/her. In building their students, the teachers are building the future of the nation!
It is good to remember the wise words of Goethe:
“Look at a man the way he is, and he only becomes worse. But look at him as if he were what he could be; and then he becomes what he should be!”
*September 5 is celebrated as Teachers’ Day.
Dada J P Vaswani is a humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader
