Some of his students and friends requested him to allow them to celebrate his birthday, on 5th September. He replied,”Instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be my proud privilege if September 5th is observed as Teachers’ Day.”
5th Sept is a special day for Teachers across India. This day is the very day we celebrate the people who have transformed our lives for the better through the medium of education.
That’s exactly what a teacher has done for us and we celebrate this joyous occasion in remembrance of the greatest teachers of India on his birthday – Dr. S. Radhakrishnan.
An ideal teacher, Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan (September 5, 1888 – April 17, 1975) was born in Tiruttani, Tamil Nadu to a poor Brahmin family. He was the first Vice President of independent India (1952-1962) and the second President (1962-67).
Politician, philosopher and professor at the same time, this quiet man was very talented in his student life. He did not become second in any test in his life. His student life progressed through various scholarships. In 1905, he obtained a master’s degree in philosophy from the Madras Christian College. His theme was ‘Abstract Preconceptions of Vedanta Philosophy’. He was also known as a very popular philosophical professor in the court of the world. In 1931 he was awarded the British Knighthood. In 1954, he was awarded the Bharat Ratna. In his early life he taught at the University of Mysore (1918). At that time he used to write in various notable magazines. It was at this time that he wrote his first book, ‘The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore’. The second book, ‘The Rain of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy’, was published in 1920. He also taught at Calcutta University. He has been repeatedly invited to teach from various universities in the country and abroad.
He remarked that “Education, according to the Indian tradition, is not merely a means to earning a living; nor is it only a nursery of thought or a school for citizenship. It is an initiation into the life of the spirit, a training of human souls in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue. It is a second birth, divitiyam janma.”
Shantanu Dutta
Vidyasagar College
Journalism and Mass Communication Depertment.
