The Philosophy of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Our teachers do more than teaching, we look up to them as our guides. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan was the guide for the entire nation, as a teacher and as a president

Official Portrait of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan; Source: Wikipedia

We all have celebrated Teacher's day but do we know the man behind it?

Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, one of the greatest teacher and philosopher of modern times, was born in Tirrutani, Madras to a poor brahmin family. His father Sarvepalli Veeraswamy managed to earn a minimum wage to feed his family. It was difficult for him to educate his son but money was not going to stop our born genius. Sarvepalli did most of his education on scholarships and at the age of 16 got married to Sivakamuamma.

He did his graduation and post-graduation in Philosophy from Madras College. His philosophy professor had commented that Vedanta had no room for ethics; in reply to which Radhakrishnan wrote a thesis on the ethics of the Vedanta titled “The Ethics of the Vedanta and Its Metaphysical Presuppositions”. He was scared that his professor might get offended, but he rather congratulated Radhakrishnan for his effort and at the young age of 20 his thesis was published.

Even after he joined as an Assistant Professor at Madras Presidency College, poverty didn't leave him. With his 17 rupees per month salary, it was really difficult to raise his 5 daughters and one son.

But there was no stopping for him, he soon joined Calcutta University, then became the Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University and Banaras Hindu University.

Sarvepalli was very popular among his students and while teaching he also authored books like Indian Philosophy, The Philosophy of the Upanishads, etc which made him world-renowned.

Dr Radhakrishnan was invited by Oxford to teach ‘Eastern Religions and Ethics’. He continued teaching at Oxford for almost 16 years. In 1949, he was appointed as ambassador to the Soviet Union. This raised many eyebrows but our gentle philosopher managed to melt the hearts even of a hardcore communist like Stalin.

In 1952, he was elected as the 1st Vice President of Independent India. A couple of years later he was honoured with Bharat Ratna. In 1962, when Rajendra Prasad retired he became the 2nd President of India and in the same year, his birthday was turned into Teacher's day to be celebrated all over the country.

Dr Sarvepalli's Presidency faced some of the most challenging years in Indian history like the Indo-China war, Nehru's Death, Indo-Pak war and Lal Bahadur Shastri's death. Out of the 10,000 rupees salary he received; he accepted only 2,500 donating the rest to the PM relief fund.

In 1967, he refused to continue for another term and retired home to Madras where he peacefully passed away on 17th April 1975 at the ripe age of 87.