Shri. V. Shankar is an iconoclastic business leader and entrepreneur. He has made his mark in the field of education and fine arts too. A visionary in his own right and a silent philanthropher, Shri. Shankar has embarked on his dream project through the Shri Kanchi Mahaswami Vidya Mandir wherein he has introduced a dual education system.

Shri. V Shankar is the President of Shri. Shanmukhananda Fine Arts and Sangeetha Sabha Mumbai, a premier cultural institution in India. He is also the President of the South Indian Education Society (SIES), one of the foremost educational institutions in Mumbai.

In an interview Shri V. Shankar tells Marie Banu the need for our children to imbibe culture.

What inspired you to launch the school?

Kanchi Paramacharya once lamented to me “The world is at my feet. My devotees will do anything for me. The biggest of Ambanis are so anxious and eager to meet me and spend a few seconds with me that they would put the world at my feet, if I so choose. But, if is ask somebody to send their child to learn Veda, they vanish the next moment. I had to find where the man has gone as he is nowhere to be seen. Why do they have such an attitude? If they have so much confidence in me as their spiritual messiah, why then when I touch on this subject, they run away from me?  Then I realized that the system of education that has penetrated in our country, which the British foisted 200 years ago, has carefully ensured that it is employment centric.

Ultimately, the process of education is linked to employability of people. That is why employability relation came through the qualification that you require. So the moment you have ensured that the education system caters to the long span of your livelihood, then anything exterior to that does not find its place. I was absolutely naïve to believe that anyone would give me a child without assuring employability.

What would Vedic education have done? Made them priests? Why would I give my child to become a priest, even if I consider it to be a job? It has no acceptance in society. There is respect because whenever there is a function you call the Priest and that day you think that he is a learned person who knows the scriptures. It dawned too late in the day about dual system of education. Then possibly, if I would have asked for one child to go into dual system of education, the son could be ensured to become an engineer or a doctor and be conversant in the Vedas as well. I too love that Vedic education be given to children, but the question is how to do so without disturbing the school studies. If wisdom had dawned on me earlier, I could have possibly seen during my living time how one such model works.” It was this thought of Maha Swami that led me to start this school.

How did you strategize your launch of the school?

After Maha Swami’s lifetime, I pondered over his thoughts on dual education and realized the truth behind it. Every morning, from a beggar in the street to the President of our country —they all complain that the culture of our country has become debased and we have lost our identity. But, nobody seems to be thinking about what could be done. This means that there is something seriously wrong in all of us!  We believe that we should knock out the system. If we were so conscious and we considered our system to be more valuable, we should have preserved it. If we had afforded to lose it and still believe that we can survive and maintain our identity, it is fool hardy. The world has shown us that people who believed in their culture and identity survive.  For example, the Japanese, Americans, and Chinese.

Anything compulsive loses its value; anything voluntary arising out of conviction of love and affection will add value. Then I thought that this model, if made voluntary will succeed.

You take a SWOT analysis of the Vedic school. You will find that the threats are far more than the positives. The threats –one of the last resorts for a person – a parent would choose to educate his son in a vedic school as two square meals are assured here. We don’t take them by the attitude or IQ but rather because they are provided with two square meals a day. The vedic system was not based on documented evidence, but on oral rendition. The teacher therefore did not compel the child to learn. There were no standards for evaluation, or progressive and continuous assessment of the children.

Because the country did not accept this, there was no lifeline support for this system. The characteristic of a Vedic school was a dingy dark place, it would be the house of a teacher, the teacher would take more of the household work done rather than teaching.

I conceived that the dual concept of Paramacharya was subject to several conditions. If we were to set up an English school inside a dingy house, still people will not come. Because, they will believe that English will not be taught in a dark place. That is the mindset! But, if you give a fabulous school environment and also teach Vedic, there is a fair chance that people will send their children here.

The first thought that I laid down was: A dual education system should be one where there is no reminiscence of the Vedic school system. It should also be run by the school. It should not be run by a teacher who is part of the Vedic system—Guru-shishya parampara. There would be a structured syllabus, scheduled into classes, and annual progress that will take the student to the next stage. So, standardization of the Vedic education system is a must for acceptance in the combination education. Because, if one is standardized, systematized, streamlined and the other is in an archaic form – it will not combine well. Vedic school will therefore be run like a school. There would be full-time teachers and it would be residential school as we believe that the children should not be sent out to absorb the vices of the world.

How do you group the students in the school?

This school does not categorize residential or
non-residential. The students are day scholars in the CBSE school and return to the Vedic school, where they also reside. The timings for Vedic schools are before and after CBSE school hours. They wear a school uniform when they go to the CBSE school and wear a dhoti when they study at Vedic School. There is no physical separation but only a mental separation which divides the schools for these children.

The difference among the children will arise when the children who are part of the dual education showcase their skills by reciting slokas or nama sangeetham during a school event. This will make the other children yearn to learn a whole range of Indian traditions like yoga, or bharatanatyam, or veena. It will have a multiplier effect and be profound. The sweep of influence and the territory that will be covered will be far higher and the day when it branches out and others replicate this model, you will find that the country will have a wave for this type of education.

Do you think this model can be replicated to other states?

Each one will customize to what they need. In Haryana and UP theatre is dominant. They can combine theatre and education; teach children how to stage plays. Any art form should be preserved. Out of great difficulty our forefathers have preserved it for centuries together. For example, the tribal lore has a lot of value ingrained in it. We never understood it to appreciate it.   When children pursuing dual education grow up to become doctors or engineers, they will be identified for their values, humility, and attitude.  Culture is not region centric nor territorially confined to one place. Culture is wrongly connoted to religion. If Vedas is religious, how can Sufi Sangeet or Bharatnatyam be accepted as culture? We define our own norms to define culture. A few students should pass out from this school and prove to be unique in their profession. Wisdom will be built on and others will want to follow this model. The government will realize the value of this system.

What is your message to the youth of India?

My message is: “Unless the nation regains its cultural identity, it has no identity.” Today, after so many years of freedom, we have started wondering about what freedom has done to us. A misused freedom, a disused freedom is no freedom. We are suffering a choice of an elective system that is destroying freedom. So, the solution is not to remove the freedom, but to cure the system, and the system can be cured only when culture is regained. I have just made the beginning!