Promoting ‘maitri’ through education: Tagore and education for peace

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the educational experiment of Rabindranath Tagore and its larger implications for world peace. As violence becomes the new normal amongst the youth of the world, the challenge for societies is to build cultures of peace instead of cultures of violence. In this context, this paper discusses the ideas of Tagore on education, and proposes that his model of education has elements on the basis of which a strong foundation for a new culture of peace can be laid. A study of his ideas throws light on how his education system was meant to restore peace at different levels building relations of love and friendship (maitri) between people. His model of education can help peace-builders in the transformation of conflicts at different levels: peace at the global level (transforming interstate conflicts), peace within society (transforming social conflicts), peace between human beings (transforming interpersonal conflicts), peace with nature (transforming human relationship with the environment) and peace within self (transforming conflict within one’s own self). This paper discusses how Tagore’s education system anticipated contemporary concerns of peace education, and conceived the development of an environment where direct, cultural, and structural violence would recede, giving way to positive peace.