ARTICLES : Gandhian view on Education

Education And Peace

By Dr. Ravindra Kumar

Education is a lifelong process. Through this process a human being learns till his last breath and acquires knowledge, the most important of which, according to Socrates is, how the best to live . For Gandhi education is to accord a dimension to man's all-round development. Hence, in short, to make one's life prosperous and worthy.
It is education that brings a human being out of the state of ambiguity, ignorance and perplexity that are, according to Gautama Buddha, the main causes of distress and uproar in life. Education inspires the man to follow those values, which are eternal and welfaristic, and thus on the strength of them to extend the pace to rise. Furthermore, on the one hand it controls the damage caused by mistakes, which besides being natural, are more or less committed knowingly or unknowingly by every human being, and on other it helps in developing the existing knowledge of man up to the highest level. Not only this, education increases the power of argument in man and broadens his understanding. In addition, it develops virtues in him and leads him towards the reality and truthfulness, which are the fundamentals to achieve prosperity and peace.
Moreover, education is not a situation of the status quo. It is a state of dynamism. It is full of activeness and continuity. That is why; by awakening the man and developing virtues in him, education as an effective, important and the best means plays the vital role in achieving peace on the one hand and to make it certain on the other. In this regard, if the one ventures to say that the pathway to peace goes through the avenues of education, it will not be inappropriate.
But to ascertain peace through education it is absolutely necessary that the real meaning, purpose and goal of education is well understood. Simultaneously, by understanding the sense of all welfare, which exists in its root, practices are carried out. If it is done accordingly, there is no reason that peace does not exist among human beings or the way to peace is not available to every human being.

Indologist, Dr. Ravindra Kumar is a former vice chancellor of MeerutUniversity, India; he is currently the editor of Global Peace International Journal.