Social philosophy of Swami Vivekananda
by Baruah Debajit | 2017 | 87,227 words
This study deals with Swami Vivekananda鈥檚 social philosophy and his concept of religion. He was the disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna. Important subjects are discussed viz., nature of religion, reason and religion, goal of religion, religious experience, ways to God, etc. All in the context of Vivekananda....
Chapter 2.1f - Social Reforms: Education
[Summary: Social Reforms of Swami Vivekananda (f): Education]
In the above pages we have seen that Swami Vivekananda to solve the problems of the downtrodden masses of India used education as the reliable tool. According to him education was the panacea for all the social evils that existed in India. But he did not like the prevailing system of education-it only turned out clerks, not any original man. He wanted man-making and character-building education. Education should be both moral and intellectual. At the same time it will make man self-reliant. To say the truth he wanted to reform the then prevailing system of education.
He criticized the present education system of India which makes a man machine only. Though the modern education has some good points it has tremendous dis-advantages which is so great that the good things are all weighed down. In the first place it is not a man-making education, it is merely and entirely a negative education. He says that a negative education or any training that is based on negation is worse than death. We have had a negative education all along from our boyhood. Nothing positive has been taught to us. We do not even know how to use our hands and feet. In his view we have learnt only weakness.
According to Vivekananda, the training by which the current and expression of will are brought under control and become fruitful is not called education. For him education is not book learning. It is not even diverse knowledge. According to him that is not education under which sway the old ideals are disappearing one by one. Again the education which makes a man machine is not education at all. It is better even to go wrong impelled by one鈥檚 free will and intelligence from to be good as automation. A society which consists of machine like man is not a society at all. Such a society can not make any progress.
He described true education as a development of faculty, not an accumulation of words. Real education makes individuals to will and act rightly and efficiently. The ideal of all education, all training should be man making. We must have life-building, man-making, character鈥攎aking assimilation of ideas. True education is that by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded and by which one can stand on one鈥檚 own feet.
Another great problem of Indian education during the time of Vivekananda was that education at that time could reach only a few peoples. Lower class peoples specially the Shudras and the women were deprived of their educational rights. Because of their social status they were left ignorant as well as poor. As a result of it they were weak. Vivekananda patronized universal mass education. His education was mainly for the lower and the downtrodden classes.
Vivekananda urged to study the different branches of the knowledge that is our own. He also emphasized on English language and western science as well as technical education and all else to develop industries in India. According to him we have not even got a single book well suited for the little boys. We must compose some books with short stories from the Ramayana, The Mahabharata, and Upanishads etc. in very easy and simple language and these are to be given to our little boys to read. He wanted to make Indian education independent of foreign control. According to him must have the whole education of our country, spiritual and secular, in our own hands, and it must be on national lines, through national methods as far as practical.