Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan great philosopher of India and first
vice president and second president of India.
He was born on 5th September 1888 at a village near
Thiruttani, [60 kms apart from tirupathi] into a Telugu Brahmin family.
He did his schooling at thiruttani, in 1896 he moved to Hermansburg
Evangelical School in tirupathi. He graduated from madras Christian college in
1906 with master’s degree in philosophy.
Radhakrishnan wrote a thesis for the M.A degree on “The ethics of Vedanta and its metaphysical
presuppositions”. Radhakrishnans thesis was published when he was 20.
Radhakrishnan was married to Sivakamu at the age 16.They had
five daughters and a son Sarvepalli Gopal [23 April 1923- 20 April 2002]
Career:
In April 1909, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was appointed to the
Department of Philosophy at the Madras Presidency College. Thereafter, in 1918, he was selected as Professor of
Philosophy by the University
of Mysore, where h
e taught at its Maharaja's
College, Mysore. By
that time he had written many articles for journals of repute like The Quest, Journal of Philosophy and the International Journal of Ethics.
He also completed his first book, The
Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. He believed Tagore's
philosophy to be the "genuine manifestation of the Indian spirit".
His second book, The Reign of
Religion in Contemporary Philosophy was published in 1920.In1929 Radhakrishnan was
invited to take the post vacated by Principal J. Estlin Carpenter at Harris
Manchester College. This gave him the opportunity to lecture to the students of
the University of Oxford on Comparative Religion. For his services to education
he was knighted by George
V in the June 1931 Birthday Honours and formally invested
with his honour by the Governor-General
of India, the Earl of Willingdon,
in April 1932. However, he ceased to use the title after Indian independence, preferring
instead his academic title of 'Doctor'.
He was the Vice-Chancellor of Andhra
University from 1931 to 1936. In
1936 Radhakrishnan was named Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics
at the University of Oxford, and was elected a Fellow of All Souls College. In 1939 Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya invited him to succeed him as the
Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu
University (BHU). He served as
its Vice-Chancellor till January 1948.
Career in Politics:
His career in politics
was started rather late. After his successful academic career in 1931 he was nominated to the League of Nations Committee for
International Cooperation, where after "in Western eyes he was the
recognized Hindu authority on Indian ideas and a persuasive interpreter of the
role of Eastern institutions in contemporary society. When India became
independent in 1947, Radhakrishnan represented India at UNESCO (1946–52) and was later Ambassador
of India to the Soviet Union, from 1949 to 1952. He
was also elected to the Constituent
Assembly of India. Radhakrishnan was elected as the
first Vice President of India in 1952, and elected as the second President of
India (1962–1967).
After he
became president of India some of his students and friends requested him to allow,
them to celebrate his birthday i.e.; 5th September for that he
replied “instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be my proud privilege if
September 5th is observed as a Teachers
Day.
From then
onwards his birthday had been celebrated as Teachers day in India
His
Quote:
“When we think we know we cease to learn.”
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So my dear friends and blog readers
keep learning new things…
