K. G. Saiyidain
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly |
India Harmony VOLUME - 1 : ISSUE - 5 JULY-AUGUST, 2012
Late Dr. K. G. Saiyadain was the grandson of Maulana Hali. Educated at AMU, he was an outstanding scholar and writer. He rose to the position of Secretary, Ministry of Education and acquitted himself with great honour.
K. G. Saiyadain
First, I shall just mention the three most outstanding contributions of Khwaja Ghulam-us- Saiyidain (KGS) to India and the world in the field of Education. I shall then try to describe the roots of the environment of the city where KGS was born and where his forefathers had lived for more than six hundred years and contributed to the sprouting the those roots. What possible influence these roots may have exerted to shape the personality and achievements of KGS, I would leave to the judgement of my readers.
KGS was first and foremost, an educationist. He was a valiant crusader for the spread of knowledge. Not only that, he held that an educated person should be a person of character and integrity.
Integrity is a quality that can only emanate from having some kind of a coherent philosophy of life – you may call it a well-rounded worldwide or weltanschauung. On the other hand, character is founded upon the courage of conviction of one's belief's and philosophy of life, one's capability to act upon one's beliefs in the face of difficulties.
Khwaja Ghulam-us-saiyidain and his grand father, the famous poet and reformer Altaf Hussain Hali are among the descendents of the latter.
The town retained its status as a place for religious learning for hundreds of years. Kings and ministers, the rich and poor alike came to the town to pay tribute to the sufi saints.
The traditional languages of education in Panipat were Persian and Arabic.
However the leading families of Panipat embarked upon the study of English as soon as the opportunity came their way after 1857. More than a decade before Sir Syed Ahmad Khan established the MAO College, the boys from at least two leading families of Panipat were preparing themselves to study English, Medicine and Engineering. Altaf Hussain Hali's son Khwaja Sajjad Hussain was among the first graduating class of the MAO College. Hakim Haider Hasan's sons Sharif Hasan and Latif Hasan, only a few years younger than Sajjad Hussain, went to Lahore and Roorkee respectively, to study Medicine and Engineering. The eighteen sixties saw Panipat turning a new leaf in its long tradition of learning. Its face partially turned towards the west.
Zeal for education flowed in the blood of Panipatis. Originally it was education restricted to the field of religion and its related disciplines like logic, history, medicine etc. Then times changed. Sajjad Hussain, perhaps the first role model of KGS, adopted modern Education as his career. In his own way he was advancing the reforms that his father the great Altaf Hussain Hali was advocating as a colleague of Sir Syed. In the next generation, it seemed natural for KGS to don the mantle of his illustrious elders.
For KGS new vistas emerged from the contours of peace and non-violence, the values sought for hundreds of years by the people of his town. Also, if they were to be effective in amending or replacing well established constructs, they had to be a part of the emerging paradigm of religion and philosophy. Further, in the formulation and advocacy of new directions, the individual human being had to have the central role, in consonance with the teachings of Bu-Ali Shah Qalandar, the patron saint of Panipat. In short, there had to be a reinterpretation of the Islamic faith.
KGS accepted the thesis proposed by Iqbal in his famous lectures Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam that apart from the Deduction and Induction there was also a third source of knowledge. Transcendental Knowledge. This knowledge was accessible only to those saintly persons who have passed through certain stages of their journey towards the Infinite, in short the knowledge of the Sufis and Saints.
That the searching intellect of KGS should turn towards M. K. Gandhi, an apostle of peace and non-violence was only natural. The rest is history.
Part II
Showkat Rashid Wani, September 5 2012: Greater Kashmir
One of the great teachers of all times K.G Saiyidain. He was a director of education Jammu and Kashmir state from 1938-1945. He has written world class books on the subject of education and is recognised as educational thinker at international level. He was a visiting Professor of Education to leading Universities of the world.
The first K.G Saiyidain memorial lectures were delivered in September 1974 by J.P Naik in Srinagar with which late K.G Saiyidain had a long lasting relation. We have a paper Educational Philosophy at B. Ed, M.Ed, and M.A Education level in which there is a unit on educational thinkers, but unfortunately this great thinker has been neglected. My objective in writing this article is that the board of studies while revising the education syllabus will give a serious thought to it. K.G Saiyidain delivered a convocation address at Amar Singh College in the year 1942 on the theme “First things First”. Addressing the students he said if you have the integrity of spirit you must learn to lead intellectually strenuous lives; you must study deeply and widely, cultivating the capacity to appreciate meanings instead of memorizing words and breaking through the rigid and narrow specialism of curricular subjects into the domain of knowledge that really illuminates. Some people feel education at the end leads to fruitless search for employment, but the argument ignores the fact under no circumstances is a stupid or culturally barren mind preferable to an intelligent and cultured mind.
Our educated class have often chosen the lazy path of least resistance failing to forge new lines of activity with courage and initiative . If education could really train our minds and character properly, we should not be so helpless and hopeless as we are often inclined to be. The person who has a keen desire to bring a desirable social change in a society must have intellectual clarity, for confused thinking is as harmful as moral dishonesty; he must have courage, physical as well mental, to brave opposition, ridicule and unpopularity. He must possess idealism, he must be sensitive to the needs and sorrows of his fellowmen; above all must possess what Aldous Huxley has called the quality of “non-attachment” and Iqbal called Faqr. To work with a sense of detachment does not require renunciation of the world but the capacity to rise above the temptations of the wealth and power. Nothing produces greater fear and timidity in man than attachment to these material objects and selfish ambitions, for the constant dread of losing them haunts him day and night. Love of money has been called “root of all evils” because it leads to all kinds of unscrupulous actions and unworthy compromises and makes it impossible for the covetous person to place first things first which is the highest and the most significant moral imperative.
Once K.G Saiydain went to meet Tagore in his ashram and made the following observation in his dairy. To quote Tagore a group of older students came to me with a complaint that a large metal vessels full of food are difficult to handle, these have to be dragged, resulting in damaging their bottoms, which dirties the floor. I pointed out to them that instead of finding some solution themselves why they have come to me with a complaint. They were waiting to see that I should relieve them of their inconvenience, rather than finding the solution themselves. Why did a simple solution not come into their head that tying a piece of cotton padding under the pots would avoid friction and prevent the pot from causing holes. This incident suggests that we never learn to own responsibility and only sit back passively. In our schools we have to give a serious thought to this aspect of life from the very beginning, to develop the character of our students by giving them as much responsibility as possible so that they can be saved from the hateful habit of complaining. Feeling of dissatisfaction and desperation due to the lack of having plenty of material facilities indicates the weakness of character. It is good to have some lack of physical amenities, one has to get used to having fewer things, it is harmful to fulfil all the demands of the children for the sake of showing affection to them.
The purpose of education from the very beginning is to think with how little we can manage our lives. In spite of our educational advantage we have not learnt to distinguish between the really good things of life and the cheap tinsel which dazzles the eyes or appeals to the appetites. And even when we do theoretically distinguish between them, our practical life remains at the inferior level. The highest function of education is to teach our students place first things first and to mould the pattern of our thought and conduct accordingly.
Author is Coordinator, Institute of Correspondence Education University of Kashmir. He can be reached at showkatrashid@rediffmail.com
