Our great nation has been led in the past by some great leaders. And their greatness was woven with a very fine thread, the thread of education. But education on its own isn’t visible from the degrees you get but the kind of society and country you create based on the values your education system has given.
The respect that India had for its sagacity and wisdom was due to the greatness of its leadership, scholarship, and erudition. The names mentioned are the ones that readily come to mind and are only a small sample of the great riches of leadership India had.
We now live in times where Prophets of other faith are denigrated. Let us ask, what is the benefit we have? And who really benefits? Does the country benefit?
India can therefore look back on its great leaders These educated stalwarts showed us the future. They built temples of education and temples of harmony. They were prophets of inclusivity.
And India has great leaders of the past. They include Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, whose massive statue has been built by the current government. It is called the statue of Unity built at almost Rs 3000 crores. It was called Unity because Sardar Patel was a unifier.
He unified all the princely states governed by rulers of all faiths. As Deputy Prime Minister Patel was known as the “patron saint of India’s civil servants”, as he formed the backbone of India’s civil service. All this came from his education.
Would Sardar Patel have agreed to the denigration of the Prophet and the remarks made about him?
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was a poet, scholar, and statesman, BJP’s most loved Prime Minister across parties and faiths. His words to one Chief Minister asking him to do his “raj dharma” (duty towards his country, state, and people), became one of the most immortal phrases in India’s political lexicon.
Vajpayee took everyone along and it was under his premiership that he accorded a State funeral to Bharat Ratna Saint Mother Teresa. Would Mr Vajpayee have been pleased with the kind of remarks hurled at the Prophet by a member of his party, even if there was no backlash from the Gulf countries?
But the legacy of educated jewels is long. Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishna, Philosopher, and statesman was India’s second president. APJ Abdul Kalam, India’s 11th president was an aerospace scientist who played a leading role in the development of India’s missile and nuclear weapons program. Dr Kalam had a few thousand rupees in his bank when he left the office of President and was blessed only with the riches of books that he bought from his savings to read. Many Indian politicians can afford to buy ten times the number of books President Kalam had, but one wonders if they would spend time reading them.
And can we forget the Professor Prime Minister
Dr. Manmohan Singh educated at Oxford and Cambridge Universities or former Prime Minister Charan Singh or IK Gujral (Ph.D. and D Litt)? Education gave all of them the depth of understanding, it freed them from the narrow confines of polarization and allowed them to take decisions and govern the country on the merit of each situation and not the religious beliefs of either a friend or adversary
Would these greats ever have interfered with the functioning of any academic institution of a religious order or body? Would they have ever interfered in matters of education and teaching? The great Indian leaders of those times never interfered with religious affairs and they never came in the way of the functioning of any faith. This is food for thought for those in leadership roles in any form. This is all about core values.
These core values helped them with their administration and governance. They did not light the flames of division. They lit the lantern of clear policy-making, legislation, and unity among people
There should therefore be an act making basic education mandatory to qualify as a candidate in any election. The value of education can really be realized when there are local schools and colleges reflecting local unique traditions and customs, not centralized institutions where unique local cultures, dialects, and languages are not prevalent. Let every village be a center of education and excellence.
When an educated and reasoned approach is guided by a government then the faith and trust in the country remain. It is then that major companies and corporations will invest in the country instead of pulling out their offices from India leading ultimately to the devaluation of the currency. An educated leadership will never allow our ambassadors to be embarrassed and summoned by the leadership of other countries, across the world, from the Gulf to Africa to South East Asia.
The Supreme Court of India in the case of Pravasi Bhalai Sangathan v. Union of India (2014) has said ‘the idea of discrimination lies at the heart of hate speech. Its impact is not measured by its abusive value alone, but rather by how successfully and systematically it marginalises a people:
With education and wisdom, the country will never allow any of its people to be marginalised.
Fringe elements remain where they should be-in the fringes, never allowed to raise their heads. An educated leadership is governed with dignity and respect for all religions and is in turn respected by all. That is the India we all knew. That is the India that was loved and respected and idolized by the world. That is the India we want our children to grow up in.
