Basic Education (Buniyadi Shiksha)

The Voice of Truth

I must not be understood to decry English or its noble literature. The columns of the Harijan are sufficient evidence of my love of English. But the nobility of the literature cannot avail the Indian nation any more than the Temperature climate or the scenery of England can avail her. India has to flourish in her own climate, and scenery, and her own literature, even though all the three may be inferior to the English climate, scenery and literature. We and our children must build on our own heritage. If we borrow another, we impoverish our own. We can never grow on foreign victuals. I want the nation to have the treasurers contained in that language and for that matter, in other languages of the world, through its own vernaculars. I do not need to learn Bengali in order to know the beauties of Rabindranath's matchless productions. I get them through good translations. Gujarati boys and girls do not need to learn Russian to appreciate Tolstoy's short stories. They learn them good translations. It is the boast of Englishmen that the best of the world's literary output in his hands of that nation in simple English inside of a week of its publication. Why need I learn English to get at the best of what Shakespeare and Milton thought and wrote?

I do not believe that the state can concern itself or cope with religious education. I believe that religious education must be the sole concern of religious associations. Do not mix up religion and ethics. I believe that fundamental ethics is common to all religions. Teaching of Fundamental ethics is undoubtedly a function of the state. By religion I have not in mind fundamental ethics but what goes by the name of denominationalism. We have suffered enough from State aided religion and a state church. A society or a group, which depends partly or wholly on State Aid for the existence of its religion, does not deserve or better still, does not have any religion worth the name.

Should religious instruction form part of the school curriculum as approved by the sate? Do you favour separate schools for children belonging to different denominations for facility of religious instruction? Or should religious instruction be left in the hands of the private bodies? If so, do you think it is right for the state to subsidize such bodies?"

I do not believe in state religion even though the whole community has one religion. The state interference would probably always be unwelcome. Religion is purely a personal matter. There are in reality as many religions as minds. Each mind has a different conception of God from that of the other. I am also opposed to state aid, partly or wholly, to religious bodies. For I know that an institution or group which does not manage to finance its own religious teaching, is a stranger to true religion. This does not mean that the State schools would not give ethical teaching. The fundamental ethics are common to all religion.

A curriculum of religious instruction should include a study of faiths other than one's own. For this purpose the students should be trained to cultivate the habit of understanding and appreciating the doctrines of various great religions of the world in the spirit of reverence and broad minded tolerance. This if properly done would help to give them a spiritual assurance and a better appreciation of their own religion. There is one rule, however which should always be kept in mind while studying all great religions and that is that one should study them only through the writings of known votaries of the respective religions.

Source: "The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi", Vol. 6, The Voice of Truth