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II. Netaji as a pioneer of National Education :
The motto of the National Council of Education Bengal,
founded in 1906, was to enable the child to develop
a linguistic faculty in his own mother tongue instead
of being crammed with foreign ideas and images. The
system of national education during the days of the
Swadeshi movement aimed at the streamlining of education
along national lines instead of serving the interests
of alien masters. Self-reliance was its guiding impulse.
Subhas Chandra come extremely close to the luminaries
of the National Council, when he emphasized on national
history along with national ideals, religion and social
policy as cardinal features of National Education. He
was intensely abhorrent towards blind imitation of foreigners
and was categorical on the point that the system prevalent
in the London University can never be suitable for India.
He was perceptive enough to realize that artificial
transplantation of an alien system on Indian soil, would
prove highly detrimental since it would be totally dissociated
from the genius of the people. Subhas was dead against
blind imitation of the west not because he was blased
against the western civilization, but because he was
convinced that the Western world had evolved its method
of education in consonance with its own nature traits
and requirements. The east had its own distinctive characteristics
and it would be totally self-defeating to disown the
same and adopt an alien system. Here Subhas found an
ideal role model in Tagore's Vishwa Bharati. During
his visit to Santiniketan, he remarked on 23/01/39 that
here a connection existed between education and national
ideals which could not be found anywhere else. Subhas
was not averse to accepting what was worthy of acceptance
from the West, but never at the cost of India's national
individuality. He was also an ardent champion of secular
education.
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