Pre Second World War American Education system and the reforms it was passing through proved critical in the nation after the First World War seeking for its identity facing the war torn Europe. The Second World War saw the decline of political colonialism especially in the Afro-Asian countries and an expansion of American economy in such areas. That was an expression of the free economic policy of America that flourished individual entrepreneurs and their exploits. The economic activity of America had a background, that explored the possibilities with the idea of progressive education in articulating an agenda of its own and in negotiating with the emerging world in the post First World War years. Among the major theorists of the time John Dewey surely had a major impact in the articulation of the agenda. Among John Dewey’s many such propositions ‘Arts as Experience’ that appeared in 1935 was summation of his propositions. Relating education with the social reform in projecting a just and equitable society, Dewey not only argued with the contemporary education that was more or less a copy of British system but also related the functional role of education in developing and nurturing a culture that would express the wishes of what America in the post First World War was complete with arguing the social injustice meted with the Black Americans there. The education system under all such issues, social, political and economic coupled with the developments in the Europe was in the process of reform in America where the idea of progressive education occupying the major space in public discourse.
Looking ahead for an equitable and just society free of colonial occupation the then India, a British colony striving for political freedom had reason to feel camaraderie in identifying with the idea of progressive education. Poet Rabindranath, the major educationist in colonised India conspicuous in the public domain since pre First World War years was more respected during pre Second World War years with his presence in an International arena of literature as well as with his radical educational ideas materialised in the institutional existence of Visva-Bharati. The article penned by the poet in 1935 that is under discussion here had an interesting pretext—it was provoked by an article published in some American journal [the identity of the article however is an archival inquiry and kept hidden in the printed text available]. Given the preoccupation with educational reform in contemporary America and the arguments presented in this article proposes an interesting study following the methodology of Comparative Education that has emerged in present area of Educational studies especially in understanding issues that involves comparing situations in which such ideas were conceived and proposed in different spatial context but agreeing with a common basis of argument. Shiksha O Sanskriti, here offers such an option in comparing the context as well the basis of such contextualisation.
Shikshar Hepher (1892) is being considered as earliest articulation of educational issues penned by Rabindranath in raising a public debate. Re-reading of the same would attract a singular set of argument that emphasizing on the social function of education. Rabindranath’s proposing reform in education reform systematically had followed this argument in his later engagements. But when education was not a social function in this society? Education rather had been always a social function in this society’s history. If arguing historicity of education’s social function is being proposed in questioning Rabindranath’s proposition then, such proposition in actuality would prove the point Rabindranath had presented in the first place. In his argument Rabindranath was uncompromising and stubborn in recalling the historical social function of education but with a degree of moderation contextual with the contemporary social reality; that locates him as modern educator. The same argumentation is again articulated to negate the then society and its normative that was being more regulated and phrased by the colonial rule. His proposition of returning to the historical engagement of education with required reform in deciding societal had an agenda of questioning legitimacy of education proposed by logic of colonial rule. That calls for a reform in the meaning and value of education that the society had decided historically. Such reform in proposing a separate set of values certainly would put the values in conflict with what is been in practice to sustain a society that accepts colonial control. This asks for breaking away with the present reality that is being phrased with the logic of colonial rule to look ahead into a society that is just, recognising the democratic rights of the colonised Indians, equitable recognising the social discrimination imposed by the same society historically and civilised recognising the values celebrated historically by the same society.
John Dewey, in proposing Progressive idea in education had distanced himself from the idea of education that is imposed from apriori and prescribed. In his idealisation of education, he proposed human mind as unique omnipotent and creative in building one’s own knowledge. Such argumentation is radical to proposing the child as a vehicle to be loaded with knowledge acquired by else, that in turn the child would carry along without questioning the worth of it that again is not in consort with his/her personal experience. Liberating the child to acquire his/her experience in the process of educating his mind Dewy had proposed the child’s connects with the immediate environment that includes the society around. Progressive educators however, shall not leave the child as a passive observer only acquiring experience from his/her surroundings but would engage them in criticising. Criticising again is an exercise in differentiating between what is acceptable and what is not. That assumes a responsibility with the function of education, proposes a capacity to engage and participate in the process of changing what is not acceptable argued by his/her education. This active engagement in that sense proposes the idea of ‘reform’! Such an initiative in ‘reform’ argued with the idea of Progressive education invents individual right to criticise that in other words his/her democratic right to decide what is acceptable and what is not. In the history of educational ideas, this saw Progressive education with the agenda of ‘democratization of education’ as a popular slogan. American society, freed from colonial rule caught the imagination in such a proposition and preferred a reform discovering a sense of Pragmatism in such a ‘slogan’!
Critic of the colonial rule, Rabindranath had expressed his discontent with the systematic supplant of knowledge and values that are essential with the identity of the society and its history. The history of such knowledge and its values defined as tradition again prompts to locate ‘culture’ as an expression of such tradition. But the modernity illustrated in Rabindranath’s idealisation would see ‘sanskriti’ not exactly as it connotes ‘culture’. Connotated as tradition, impromptu designates the epistemology of ‘culture’ with a static value; we cannot question or change the tradition that is embedded in the past. Sanskriti derived from Sanskrit could be understood with a process that moulds and shapes up individually and as part of the collective with certain standards that were perfected through the history of the collective. Elsewhere as well in this article Rabindranath had idealised ‘sanskriti’ as an active engagement in breaking away from the what is being defined and fashioned by material fetish [not as used in Marxist literatures]. That adds a dynamic attribute into the idea what evolves through time as common basis for social relationship, and material fetish as a primitive attribute of human civilization. For Rabindranath, such an endeavour to free one’s mind from her occupations with acquiring material conditions civilizes one’s mind with the process and its attributes what is organic in him, human in her while the reverse holds him back in primitiveness. Hegelian discourse would not debate such differentiation between material [/body] and mind but surely would question the idea of celebrating human creativity and inquiry into unknown independent of the material basis of consciousness. Elsewhere in ‘Spirit of Freedom’ Rabindranath opens up with-“[W]hen Freedom is not an inner idea which imparts strength to our activities and breadth to our creations, when it is merely a thing of external circumstance, it is like an open space to one who is blindfolded. In my recent travel in the West I have felt that out there freedom as an idea has become feeble and ineffectual. Consequently a spirit of repression and coercion is fast spreading in the politics and social relationships of the people.”
Freedom and un-freedom argued by ‘inner idea’ and ‘things [imposed by] external circumstances’ here had been asserted here in distinguishing between ‘man trapped in material fetish [!], and cultured man [the word ‘culture’ is to be valorised by the idea of sanskriti as referred before]. This being opening statement he argued education [he actually used ‘shiksha’ here which in his literature don’t always translates to what the idea of ‘education’ stands for] as culture-intensive against the idea of material-intensive. Making such a statement the author supported his position that education has to be based on ‘freedom’ while material fetish restricts such an attribute imposing its own conditionality limiting the freedom of the idea of education. Proposing education itself an idea of expression of freedom the authors here takes an absolute position in asserting the role of sanskriti/culture in freeing human mind as an affirmative function of education.
Here is a radical position in distinguishing sanskriti/culture proposed by a person who is a modern educator. Here is a text that claims sanskriti/culture not a dead ritual but valorised as genuine courtesy of friendship. The assertion is being extended by proposing the role of such social friendship in giving ‘fullness’ to the ‘man sociated through education’; the assertion again affirms the central argument of imposition of un-freedom by material fetish.
The present text illustrates Rabindranath’s conviction in human-fellowship that he in many words proposed as human sanskriti/culture that was debated/defeated historically by individualism, a human attribute that in his view is a function of material fetish. Material and its accumulation being an individual attribute leave him alone by the primary logic of ‘have’ and ‘have-not’. Such individualism again puts one contesting against the other individual by the primary logic of accumulation of wealth. If that was an observation of social-ideologue, the educator in Rabindranath found a basis with the mainstream education that is based on acquisition of knowledge than sharing of experience.
The article begins with an interesting statement-“My opinion in this regard has been well reflected in this article [the article published in the American journal]” The present interest in this article finds a curiosity with the fact that contemporary literature in education considers Rabindranath as an ‘idealist’ while Dewey as an ‘pragmatist’! Such designation has an immediate meaning of implication but don’t answers questions that are deeper than the immediacy. Such categorisation after all do not answers to the inquiry on whether it is the pragmatism decided by objective conditions discovers an idea as idealistic or pragmatic; or it is the idealism of the prevailing objective condition that decides pragmatic attribute of an idea as compared against an idealist one. How Dewey or for that matter Rabindranath is being celebrated in practice by the respective societies is a question again to answer the previous debate. Perhaps, this identification with idealism and pragmatism has the key to understand the educational idea of Rabindranath and Dewey that don’t appear to have lost relevance today. The idealism of pragmatism has to be understood against pragmatism of idealism in making a summative conclusion about Rabindranath as educator in comparison with other educational ideas; be it of John Dewey or the other.
14th October 2009
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