Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan - UPSCwithNikhil

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2. SARVEPALLI RADHAKRISHNAN Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975), an academic, philosopher, and statesman, was one of the most well-known and influential Indian thinkers in academic circles during the twentieth century. Radhakrishnan spent his life and career as a writer attempting to define, defend, and propagate his religion, which he referred to variously as Hinduism, Vedanta, and the religion of the Spirit. He wanted to show that his Hinduism was philosophically sound as well as ethically viable. Radhakrishnan has earned the reputation of being a bridge-builder between India and the West because of his concern for experience and extensive knowledge of Western philosophical and literary traditions. EARLY YEARS Radhakrishnan's early childhood and education are shrouded in mystery. Radhakrishnan rarely spoke about his personal life, and what he does reveal is the result of decades of thought. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was born in Tiruttani, Chittoor District, in the erstwhile Madras Presidency, to a Telugu-speaking Niyogi Brahmin[9] family (later in Andhra Pradesh till 1960, now in Tiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu since 1960). His primary education was at Thiruttani's K.V High School. In 1896, he transferred to Tirupati's Hermansburg Evangelical Lutheran Mission School and Walajapet's Government High Secondary School. EDUCATION Throughout his academic career, Radhakrishnan received numerous scholarships. For his high school education, he enrolled at Vellore's Voorhees College. At the age of 17, he enrolled in Madras Christian College (affiliated with the University of Madras) after finishing his F.A. (First of Arts) class. He earned his bachelor's degree and his master's degree from the same institution in 1906. At Madras Christian College, two key influences left an indelible mark on Radhakrishnan's sensibilities. Radhakrishnan received his first education in European philosophy here. Berkeley, Leibniz, Locke, Spinoza, Kant, J.S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, Fichte, Hegel, Aristotle, and Plato were among the philosophers introduced to Radhakrishnan. Radhakrishnan's sensibilities were also shaped by the fact that he was exposed to intense religious polemic in an academic setting at Madras Christian College during this time. “The challenge of Christian critics impelled me to make a study of Hinduism and find out what is living and what is dead in it,” Radhakrishnan later recalled. I wrote a thesis on Vedanta Ethics as a response to the charge that the Vedanta system did not allow for ethical considerations.” UPSC WITH NIKHIL - NAGPUR

3. EARLY TEACHING AND WRITING (1908-1912) Radhakrishnan found himself at a financial and professional crossroads after completing his MA degree in 1908. Because of his obligations to his family, he was unable to apply for a scholarship to study in the United Kingdom, and he struggled to find work in Madras. Radhakrishnan was able to secure a temporary teaching position at Presidency College in Madras the following year, thanks to the help of William Skinner at Madras Christian College. Radhakrishnan lectured at Presidency College on a variety of psychology and European philosophy topics. His standard areas of instruction as a junior Assistant Professor were logic, epistemology, and ethical theory. Radhakrishnan also studied Sanskrit at college. Radhakrishnan was eager to have his work published not only by Indian presses but also in European journals during this time. His MA thesis was published by the Madras Guardian Press, and excerpts from it appeared in Modern Review and The Madras Christian College Magazine. While Radhakrishnan's work was published in other Indian journals, it was not until 1911 that his article "The Ethics of the Bhagavadgita and Kant" was published in The International Journal of Ethics that Radhakrishnan gained a significant Western audience. His edited lecture notes on psychology, titled Essentials of Psychology, were also published. HIS CAREER IN 1914-1920 Radhakrishnan's scholarly reputation was beginning to grow by 1914. However, he was unable to secure a permanent academic position in Madras. He was posted to Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, for three months in 1916, and then to Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, in 1917. Radhakrishnan found some professional security after spending a year in Rajahmundry when he accepted a position in philosophy at Mysore University. This lull in his work-related angst would be brief. In February 1921, he was appointed to the George V Chair in Philosophy at Calcutta University, his most prestigious Indian academic appointment, which would take him out of South India for the first time only two and a half years later. Radhakrishnan continued to publish between 1914 and 1920. He wrote eighteen articles, ten of which appeared in prestigious Western journals like The International Journal of Ethics, The Monist, and Mind. Radhakrishnan took it upon himself to refine and expand on his interpretation of Hinduism throughout these articles. During this time, Radhakrishnan's articles and books reflect his desire to provide a long-term philosophical response to the growing discontent he witnessed. The events in Amritsar in the spring of 1919, which Radhakrishnan saw as irrational, dogmatic, and despotic, aggravated Radhakrishnan's patience with what he saw as an irrational, dogmatic, and despotic West. Radhakrishnan's The Reign of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy, published in 1920, reflects his increased polemical sensibilities at the time. UPSC WITH NIKHIL - NAGPUR

4. During these years, Radhakrishnan's life was brightened by his reading of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. Radhakrishnan began reading Tagore's translated works in 1912, along with the rest of the English-speaking world. Tagore would become Radhakrishnan's most influential Indian mentor, despite the fact that the two had never met at the time. Radhakrishnan would return to Tagore's writings many times over the next five decades to support his own philosophical ideals. ACADEMIC CAREER Radhakrishnan was appointed to the Madras Presidency College's Department Philosophy in April 1909. He was then appointed Professor of Philosophy at the University of Mysore in 1918, where he taught at Maharaja's College, Mysore. He numerous articles prestigious journals such as The Quest, Journal of Philosophy, and the International Journal of Ethics by that time. He also finished his first book, Rabindranath Tagore's Philosophy. Tagore's philosophy, he believed, was the "genuine manifestation of the Indian spirit" In 1920, he published his second book, The Reign of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy. of had written for In 1921, he was appointed as a professor of philosophy at the University of Calcutta, where he held the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science. In June 1926, he represented the University of Calcutta at the British Empire Universities Congress, and in September 1926, he attended the International Congress of Philosophy at Harvard University. Another significant academic event during this time was his acceptance of the Hibbert Lecture on the Ideals of Life, which he gave at Manchester College, Oxford in 1929 and was later published as An Idealist View of Life in book form. In 1929, Radhakrishnan was invited to Manchester College to fill the vacancy left by Principal J. Estlin Carpenter. This gave him the opportunity to give a Comparative Religion lecture to University of Oxford students. In June 1931, George V knighted him for his services to education, and the Governor- General of India, the Earl of Willingdon, formally invested him with his honour in April 1932. Radhakrishnan was elected a Fellow of All Souls College and named Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at the University of Oxford in 1936. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature that same year and again in 1937, though the nomination process, like that of all laureates, was not open to the public at the time. Nominations for the award continued to pour in well into the 1960s. In 1939, he was invited to succeed Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya as Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU). He was its Vice-Chancellor from January 1948 to January 1949. UPSC WITH NIKHIL - NAGPUR

5. POLITICAL CAREER After a successful academic career, Radhakrishnan began his political career "rather late in life" His political career came after his international clout. He was one of the stalwarts who attended the Andhra Mahasabha in 1928, where he supported the idea of renaming the Madras Presidency's Ceded Districts division Rayalaseema. He was appointed to the League of Nations Committee for Intellectual Cooperation in 1931, where he became "in Western eyes he was the recognised Hindu authority on Indian ideas and a persuasive interpreter of the role of Eastern institutions in contemporary society." in Western eyes. When India gained independence in 1947, Radhakrishnan served as India's representative at UNESCO (1946–52) and later as India's ambassador to the Soviet Union (1949–52). In addition, he was elected to India's Constituent Assembly. In 1952, Radhakrishnan was elected as India's first Vice-President, and in 1962, he was elected as the country's second President (1962– 1967). Radhakrishnan had no ties to the Congress Party and was not involved in the fight against British rule. He was the shadow politician. His motivation stemmed from his admiration for Hindu culture and his desire to defend Hinduism from "uninformed Western criticism". UPSC WITH NIKHIL - NAGPUR