Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, India’s second President, is known for his academic achievements and outstanding statesmanship. His birth anniversary on September 5 is celebrated as ‘Teachers’ Day’ in India. From representing India at the League of Nations and liaisoning with the erstwhile Soviet Union to nurturing international relationships as the President of India, S Radhakrishnan has made an indelible mark in global geopolitics.
Dr S Radhakrishnan was a firm believer in humanity and put this philosophy above all, even above nationalism. Radhakrishnan, an authority on neo-Hinduism, put Hinduism in the modern context. He tried to teach the Western world about India and its philosophy by becoming a bridge between the West and India.
In fact, he was a globally revered figure when it came to teaching Hinduism. It was due to him that neo-Hinduism movements gained ground in the West. At the same time, he pursued India’s interests as a secular nation on the global stage.
On his birth anniversary, we look back at one of his most famous speeches at the United Nations General Assembly meeting on June 10, 1963, where he highlighted the philosophy of “humanity above all”. At that time, it had been barely a few months since the Cold War took a new turn with the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. India, too, had been recovering from a war with China in October-November 1962.
Radhakrishnan’s Slight At United Nations
In his 1963 UNGA speech, Dr S Radhakrishnan highlighted that the United Nations had failed to maintain world peace. “The most essential part of the work of the United Nations is to save the world from wars. What is it that we find actually? The piling up of armaments and nuclear tests.”
He mentioned that nuclear weapons may cause prolonged irreversible damage in conflicts. “We feel that if these armaments go on piling up and if these stockpiles increase, by accident, or by mistaken, the world may burst into fragments. Even if that does not happen, when there are nuclear tests they are bound to injure, not only present generations but also generations still unborn,” Radhakrishnan said. “We deliberately consign thousands and thousands of young children throughout the world to this kind of decadence, physical and mental. That is what we are doing,” he added.
‘We Are Victims Of The Past’
It was in this speech that Radhakrishan mentioned his now-famous belief: “We are the victims of the past; we do not wish to be the servants of the future.” “We have come to a condition when the nation-state has to be subordinated to the larger concept of world community. Unless we are able to do it; unless we give up the use of force… it will not be possible for us to bring about peace in the world,” he said.
‘Nationalism Is Not The Highest Concept’
Radhakrishnan’s concept of nationalism may feel somewhat alien today to many. He placed global humanity above nationalism. There is a similarity between those times and today. The world is going through a massive turmoil of global conflicts. But this time, India finds itself in a central position in the global geopolitical stage.
Time and again our leaders have said that India’s interests come first. But Radhakrishnan in his 1963 UNGA speech said: “Though we call ourselves members of the United Nations, our loyalties are to our own nation-states; they are not to the world as a
whole, not to humanity as to whole. We must break away from the past, we must get out of the rut in which lived.” India’s geo-political stance might have changed according to evolving times but its adherence to the philosophy of peace has remained constant.
Invoking Mahatma Gandhi, Radhakrishnan told the UNGA: “Gandhi once said ‘I want my country to be free. I do not want a fallen and prostate India, I want an India which is free and enlightened. Such an India, if necessary, should be prepared to die so that humanity may live’.” In a ‘Young India’ article of March 1925, Gandhi wrote: “There is no room for race hatred there. Let that be our nationalism. Further, he wrote that ‘nationalism, like virtue, is its own reward. A nationalist will ever think of service, never of power or riches.”
Radhakrishnan said that nationalism is not the highest concept. “The highest concept is of the world community. It is that kind of world community to which we have to attach ourselves. It is unfortunate that we are still the victims of concepts which are outmoded and which are outdated. We are living in a new world, and in a new world, a new type of man is necessary,” he said.