Peace through Education
Leo Tolstoy, (1828 – 1910) the Russian novelist, regarded as one of the greatest writers of all time, wrote a short story titled Wisdom of Children, first published in 1885.
Tolstoy, referring to an incident in the story, observes that he once watched some children playing together. What was significant about their play was that they would enter into a heated exchange, but their quarrelling would not result in hatred and confrontation. Very soon they would start playing once again as usual.
Tolstoy concludes that this is nature’s model for peaceful living. Differences do arise between people but they should not go beyond verbal exchanges. Differences should not lead to hatred, violence, and finally culminate in war. Tolstoy’s novel is based on this model of nature.
It is true that nature’s model is the same as we find in the life of children. Children are in their formative age, so their egos have yet to develop. They are in the pre-ego stage of life. But when these very children grow up and form part of society, they do not behave in the same manner. All the problems of the world are phenomena of grown-up children. When they grow up, these same children become egoists. This being so, how can the model provided by the ego-less apply to the egoist? During childhood, human beings are governed by their inner nature. But when they grow up and reach the age of maturity, they are governed by their conscious minds. Now their inner nature has a limited role to play. What is needed at this stage is to develop the thinking of adults in such a way that they are enabled to behave in the same manner as they did earlier, in childhood—but consciously, and by using their will power.
Tolstoy and others have written numerous works of fiction. But fiction can only be a source of entertainment and not a tool for the conscious training of the human mind. For the conscious training of readers, it is necessary to write such books as will address their reason and logic. That is, such books have to be based on historical facts, with reference to scientific knowledge, and must give examples of the experiences of real life non-fictitious personalities.
Building a peaceful society requires the re-engineering of the mind. This task can be carried out only through education—more through informal education than formal education.
Fiction caters to a person’s sense of enjoyment; it does not address his reason. That is why when we say something through the medium of fiction, it yields no fruitful result; it fails to bring about any actual change in a person’s life.
Man’s greatest faculty is his ability to think rationally. It is said that man is a thinking animal. Reading fiction can be a source of enjoyment, but if we want to bring about a revolution in a person’s life, we shall have to state our facts on the basis of established knowledge and rational analysis. This is the only way to bring about a revolution in a person’s thinking. Nothing less than an intellectual revolution can effect any real beneficial change in human life.
Building a peaceful society requires the re-engineering of the mind. This task can be carried out only through education—more through informal education than formal education. By informal education, I mean gaining knowledge through the media, literature, seminars and conferences, dialogue and discussion, and so on.
Here, I am not just theorizing about peace: I have experimented with it in practice. The venue of this experiment was Kashmir. I have been working towards inculcating peaceful thinking among Kashmiris since 1968, and I am still continuing with my efforts. There has been a sea-change as a result of this movement, and now, in almost every house in Kashmir the peace-promoting literature of our mission is read.
In 2011 we organized a meeting of those Kashmiris who are acquainted with our ideas. On this occasion, someone representing a group of Kashmiris said in the course of conversation: ‘We have travelled a long way from October 1989 to October 2011. Formerly, we used to throw stones at the Indian army. Now, we present them with literature about peace.’
Kashmir, which after 1947 was continually engaged in militancy, has now almost become a peaceful state. If there is any news of attack or violence from Kashmir, it is not due to the local Kashmiris, but is the result rather of a proxy war conducted from outside.
The above example of bringing about ‘Peace through Education’ can be experienced everywhere. The most effective way of bringing about peace is only one—and that is, to educate people’s minds along peaceful lines.
The best way to bring about change in society is through education. In the pre-printing press age books were not available. So it was not possible to educate people on a large scale—war is a remnant of that ancient age. In those times people tried to bring about change through force, and this led to war.
Now we are living in the age of printing press in which books exist in abundance. It is therefore possible to bring about a change in society through mass education. Those who are engaged in war for the sake of reform only show that they are unaware of this fact. If they realized this, they would throw away their guns and concentrate on education.
