The Triple Stream

he that laboureth right for love of Me
Shall finally attain! But if in this
Thy faint heart fails bring Me thy failure!
–THE SONG CELESTIAL

‘The Triple Stream’

THE SARGENT SCHEME

A bold plan for educational reconstruction is before the nation in the Sargent Scheme. Our first reaction to the bare outlines that have been released to the public is a favourable one. The plan, for the first time in this country, recognises the necessity for large scale planning on a nationwide scale along lines that have become familiar to us in the recent history of Russia.

The figures connected with the Scheme are staggering at first sight. It will cost 313 crores annually when it comes into full working order in about fifty years’ time. It provides for a thorough school medical service; elimination of illiteracy, the provision of kindergartens where a large number of women teachers will be employed, free elementary education and generous scholarships for the secondary stage, continuation of state to adult education and provision for technical instruction, including agriculture, are the main features envisaged.

Any scheme conceived from the central headquarters at New Delhi is bound to look upon educational problems from an angle in which the nation as a whole is taken into account. In the case of India, where a variety of traditions exist side by side, any plan of public education is bound to appear insipid and commonplace in camparison with plans made by private bodies. The modem educational tendency is to stress importance of the individual child. In spite of the boldness which chracterises the Sargent Scheme, the items fail to reach the subjective zones of the personality of the child where the task of education may be said really to begin.

India must be able to afford a thorough-going plan of public and universal education of a basic character. At the same time there must be ample scope to take into account those aspects which make an attempt to reach the personality of the individual child. The Scheme that is before us is not lacking in reference to such aspect. It refers to the Technical High School, which it says is “an important new idea aiming at giving an all-round education with a technical bias for pupils of ability, so as to satisfy the aptitudes of those who want a practical course and the need of industry and commerce for intelligent young Workers.” This new type of school is what is most interesting in the Sargent Scheme where it seems to come in line with plans formulated by the Nation itself independently of the Central Government.

The Inter-University Board which met at Hyderabad recently has blessed the Scheme and “recommends for adoption as soon as possible the principle of compulsion for all boys and girls for a period of eight years from the age of five……during which period the pupils should have an opportunity of learning through activity in arts and crafts……..The medium of instruction and examination in the High School stage shall be the mother tongue.”

We are glad that the claims of the “Wardha Scheme of Education,” which has been in cold storage for sometime, have not been lost sight of by India’s leading educationists. The Inter-University Board has also reiterated its faith in the mother tongue medium in schools, and even in colleges wherever possible.

VIKRAMADITYA’S TWO-THOUSANDTH ANNIVERSARY

The Two-thousandth anniversary of Vikramaditya who founded the Samvat Era, is being celebrated this year. Not many countries outside India can indulge in the luxury of celebrating a 2,000th anniversary! The Vikrama Era still holds the field in North India, though the Christian Era has displaced it from public memory so far, at any rate, as many English-educated Indians are concerned. Vikramaditya was the beau ideal of a great ruler, wise, powerful and magnificent, one who symbolises the longings and aspirations of the national genius. The solidarity of Indian people, and the Indianisation of alien populations were the great achievements of this illustrious ruler. His name was more a title, which other great monarchs of India also delighted to assume. Sri K. M. Munshi, who delivered an address on “Vikramaditya: Our Pillar of Fire” at the Cawnpore celebrations on 9th December thus sums up Vikramaditya’s achievements:

“The glorious empire of Magadha which Shishunaga founded continued till 79 B. C. giving India the unity of social organisation and cultural outlook. But the power of Magadha declined. The Barbarians–the Bactio-Greeks, the Parthians, the Yueh-chis–broke into India. Then came this mighty Vikramaditya. No details of his exploits have come down to us. But he drove out, repressed, absorbed the Barbarians,–a mighty feat which, in the national mind of India, came to be carved in letters of undying fire.

“Parasurama was divine; he destroyed the enemies of Dharma; but was too fierce to be loved. Sri Krishna was divine too; he stood for Dharma; but he wore no crown. Asoka upheld Dharma but inherited an empire already rendered safe. But this Vikramaditya became dearer, for he was human. He drove out the Barbarians; he founded a political power of strength; he inspired literature and art; he protected the Dharma; above all he looked after the needy and the distressed. He was a wonderful composite of the shining memories of Parasurama and Sri Krishna, of Buddha and Asoka; infinitely nearer to us by his more human and therefore endearing light.

“Vikramaditya henceforward became the beloved of the nation.”

ROMAIN ROLLAND

In the passing of Romain Rolland, the world has lost a rare idealist, and a great citizen of the world. His was a voice that was raised again and again in the cause of pacifism, of the value of the deeper verities of human life, and of the unity of the human race behind the diversity of external forms and dividing barriers of race, language and religion. He exercises a peculiar fascination on the intelligentsia of this country, as much as the spiritual and ethical ideals of India exercised, in turn, a fascination on him. He lived more or less the life of a recluse, and it is to be regretted that he could not visit and establish more personal contacts in a land which he did so much to interpret to the Western world. His studies of Tagore and Gandhi, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda who have moulded the thoughts and ideals of modern India more than any other modern Indians have done, are remarkable for their insight and perspicacity. These luminous accounts of modern Indian heroes may be said to have provided the bridge over which numerous other Europeans on the Continent found a correct approach to the heart and the genius of India. This is work for which India will ever be profoundly grateful. The silent influence of the labour of love such as Romain Rolland undertook may not bear immediate fruit nor appear on the surface: and may be altogether on those who ride today on the wave-crests of power. But ideas which embody truth win in the long run, though the weeds of propaganda–which in the modern world grow thick and fast–appear to choke up the still small voice of truth. Romain Rolland’s lone and even pathetic figure amidst the turmoil and frenzy of European conflagration makes its own mute and irresistible appeal to the idealists in every land.

PROHIBITION REVERSED

A great urge for moral and social reform in the ‘dry’ districts of the Madras Presidency has been frustrated by the decision of the Madras Government to reverse the policy of Prohibition with effect from January 1944. The drive against drinks and drugs has been among the major items in the campaign of ‘self-purification’ inaugurated by Gandhiji over twenty years ago. A nation-wide impulse was generated amounting to a peaceful revolution; and many unknown heroes, fired with the zeal to save their unfortunate brethren and sisters from the grip of drink faced lathi blows and Worse and picketed liquor shops and sustained the enthusiasm of the people for the reform. It is such large impulses sweeping like tidal waves that lie at the of all great social reconstruction (as pointed out by Bertrand Russell, for instance). The hostility and greed of vested interests and the apathy of administrators failed to kill the spirit of reformers. As soon as the Congress ministries came into power in several provinces, a beginning was made to introduce Prohibition by stages. Rajaji, who has been the most indefatigable campaigner in the cause, lost no time in getting the measure passed through the Madras Legislatures; and before the measure was actually put into operation in the Salem District, he undertook a tour through the area. Public memory is not so short that it could have forgotten the jubilant scenes that were witnessed six years ago, that made the Premier’s tour a triumphal procession marked by outbursts of tremendous popular enthusiasm.

In the light of these circumstances, the statements of leaders in Madras, opposed to the Congress, which seek to make out that Prohibition was a fad of Rajaji’s, and betray a feeling of personal prejudice against the Madras Premier, have been the most unkindest cut of all. One can understand how the average Britisher, with his special notions of individual freedom, looks upon the failure of Prohibition in America, with a ‘I told you so’, and cannot contemplate without a shudder any administration interfering with his ‘innocent’ craving for drink. Mr. J. B. S. Haldane, the distinguished Bio-chemist, who has deigned to write an essay on “Mr. Gandhi and Bio-Chemistry”, for instance, speaks from an exalted altitude of scientific detachment of the deprivation of vitamin B present in toddy for the poor Indian masses as a result of Gandhiji’s campaign. (How should Mr. Haldane understand enough about the Indian dietary to know of the other possible sources of vitamin B?) Far from being socially fashionable, drink has been anathema both to the Hindu and Muslim and the better mind of India has never sympathised with the drink traffic legalised by Government. The Government of Madras have failed to appreciate the strength and tenour of deep-rooted public sentiment in India in this matter.

PICTURE PRODUCTION

One of the gratifying signs of the rapidly growing picture production Industry in India is the making of pictures with fine historical and biographical themes and portraying the cultural life of India in a manner that will leave an enduring impression on those who witness them. The making of such pictures involves great labour–the collaboration of specialists and a highly cultured and patriotic motive on the part of the directors and the financiers. We have in mind pictures like Tukaram, Dnyaneswar, Bharat Milap, Tansen, Potana etc. Judging by the way that all these pictures have had long and continuous runs in the big cities, they must have been greatly successful from “box-office” point of view also. This must be an inducement, therefore, to exploit the possibility of similar themes of which the number is legion. One notices, however, that occasionally pictures with a far different kind of appeal and pandering to the baser instincts of human nature are offered for public entertainment, and bring in quick returns. It is not that the public want such pictures: it is rather a case where the producers guess that the public may be induced to want them. Such pictures may pass the scrutiny of censoring boards, but they cannot escape the censure of the more sensitive section of the picture-going public. Picture Houses are fuller than ever now on account of the cheapness of money and Pictures are a powerful instrument for good or evil. A great responsibility therefore rests on the producers to maintain high standards: to be neither tempted nor lead others into temptation with the excuse that that is what the people want.