'The whole world is but one family' - Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia

April 2010 Vol. 7 No. 10
Social Responsibility of Higher Education
Govind Ballabh Pant
Education is first and foremost a social process. Its aims and objectives
are intimately bound up with the needs and ideals of the society it is
to serve. An education out of tune with the needs of the society will be
atrophied by its lack of purpose.
Education in relation to society has a dual role; it should help to provide
the ideals of a new order and train the men and women who will bring
the practices of the community nearer those ideals.
For an under-developed country, such as India, which is engaged
in the reconstruction of its social order and in the development of a
higher potential in its economic and human resources, education is of
vital importance. Change, growth, progress-these are consequences of
pioneership, and it is the function of education to give us the pioneers
we need.
University education covers not only a crucial period in the life of
the individual scholar but also transmits through key points into the
economic and social organisation of the nation influences which can
be of decisive importance.
It however needs to be affirmed by public opinion that a University is
a place of learning, of social moral and spiritual development and that
a member of the University community as a student derives his title to
continue as such only by his participation in that function of the University.
From Bhavan’s Journal Dec 15 1959.
Reprinted in Bhavan’s Journal Dec 15 2009
If the University life is healthy, its libraries, lecture rooms, laboratories and playgrounds will be crowded and
not places of power in the students’ union or the governing bodies.
There should be no room for intrigue. According to the age-old traditions of our country, there has to be, on the
one side, complete dedication to the welfare of the student community and, on the other, faithful observance of
the orders and precepts of the University Authority combined with respect for the teachers.
My Master
Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha
The passing away of His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Shankaracharya Sri Bharati Krishna Tirth of Govardhan Pith,
Puri, at a ripe old age of certainly above 80 years, has left a great void in the lives of so many of his personal
disciples, amongst whom I count myself as one. The world at large has lost a great saint, a great philosopher, a
great scholar, a great mathematician and, above all, a great ecclesiastical head of one of the four Pithas which
had been established in the four corners of India by the Adi Shankaracharya, many centuries ago.
During the restful time of his life, Guruji applied himself to research work and as a result of intensive research
for about eight years, he was able to solve the conundrums contained in the Appendices to the Atharva Veda,
which, on account of their cryptic sentences, were not intelligible to translators.
As a result of his researches into the Atharva Veda, Guruji discovered the sixteen principal sutras, which he
used to expound and on which he used to give lectures to learned bodies, like university teachers and students
of mathematics on the topic which he called “The wonders of Vedic Mathematics”.