Democracy and Education for Peace
EDUCATION, 27 Oct 2025
Surya Nath Prasad – TRANSCEND Media Service
All men tend to be free. Freedom is the birth right of every man irrespective caste, creed, colour. Rousseau asserts, “Man is born free”, but he realized and said also, “that he is everywhere in chains.”
“There is no peace and happiness in slavery even in dreams,” the great Indian Saint Tulsidasa felt, and Lord Mahavir suggested, “Anybody who is capable to help, he or she should make the people free,” because the greatest charity among all charities is to make the people free and fearless. This fact was also realized by the big Statesmen. At the Tehran Declaration signed by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin declared as their aim, “A world family of democratic nations; whose peoples in heart and mind are dedicated as our own people, to the elimination of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance.”
Democracy provides full security for freedom, friendliness and peace. The best controlled study on the ‘Effects of Democracy on the Character and Capacity of the Individual’ is probably that of Ronald Lippitt and Ralf K. White. The degree of Friendliness was greatest in democracy. With an exchange of two children between the autocratic and democratic groups their friendliness and aggressiveness changed within one meeting. Aggressive reactions were greatest in a form of autocracy and led to discontent not only with the leader but with the fellow members as well. It sometimes led to scapegoating.
Charles F.S. Virtue suggests, “… since all men in a democracy are free, education must be free, that is, there must be no economic barriers to its acquisition,” because only well disciplined (educated) should be entitled to democratic freedom,” think William Stanley, B. Othanel Smith, Kenneth D. Benne and Isaac L. Kandel.
It is true that democracy without education always leads to injustice, unrest, chaos, violence and war. Such democratic societies never hesitate even to kill the educated people of their own. History has records. Pitirim A. Sorokin has given facts and figures in detail in his book: Reconstruction of Humanity. The society, which executed a great educator Socrates, was democratic at that time. And the leadership of Athens descended from the summit to the lower levels of talent and character. Athens itself was virtually destroyed under the descended from the summit to the lower levels of talent and character. Athens itself was virtually destroyed under the strain of war. Persons in the government had to have deeper and higher knowledge. Tennyson says that the wise Statesman is certain that
If knowledge brings the sword,
The knowledge takes the sword away.
Acharya Kripalani rightly told in his Radio talk, “Democracy without education is the Government of the cattle, by the cattle and for the cattle.”
But also, to maintain peace is very difficult for education without democracy. Education without democracy will be no more true education to serve the purpose of human progress, peace and prosperity.
No doubt, teachings of democracy are similar to teachings of Vedanta. It is in the Vedanta that the super existence of God once was absolute one. There was a danger to be an autocrat and tyrant. So it desired to be many and it became. It is also told that the will of one’s own self is the will of soul or spirit, while the will of selves of all or many are the will of God. Thus, democracy is very near to Vedanta in the sense of rule of many and governed by them.
Democracy or Vedanta is the non-dynamic side of education. Education is the dynamic side of democratic or Vedantic philosophy. Whenever democratic or Vedantic philosophy has, education must inculcate in the minds of all to be evolved and progressed utmost as human beings.
Hence democracy and education both are required for peace. If education becomes in practice, the deliberate attempt to help people to become human, then it will be inevitably promote world peace. Democracy can maintain justice, freedom and peace. Every act of assent on the part of the governed is product of education. A democracy is common educational life in process. The ideal democracy is the democracy of education. Thus, democracy is the best school for teaching equality, freedom, brotherhood, co-operation, tolerance, justice and peace.
John Dewey thinks that if we need our resources including financial resources, to build up strong ourselves a genuine, true and effective democratic society, we would find that we have a secure, a more powerful defense of democratic institutions both within ourselves and in the relation to the rest of the world than the surrender to the belief in force, violence and war. He knows that our schools are doing a great deal to inculcate ideas of peace, and sometimes he wonders how far this goes beyond a certain sentimental attachment to a realization of what peace would actually mean in the world in the way of co-operation, goodwill and mutual understanding.
All men and women are capable of education. Education does not stop as long as man lives. Truth is not long retained in human affair without continual education and re-education. Peace is unlikely unless there are continuous, unlimited opportunities for education and unless men continuously avail themselves of them. The world-wide political democracy cannot be realized without the world-wide democracy of education. This is why it is asserted in the Report of the International Commission on the Development of Education, “Whatever rules, forms and customs through which this or that country may apply the principles of democracy, democratic life necessarily presupposes debate of ideas and confrontation of opinions …Education, through its instruction practice and commitment, should contribute to a project which is very typical of our time, that of replacing a mechanical administrative type of authority by a lively democratic process of decision-making.”
Today democracy and education are demanded by all peoples of the whole world for their perpetual independence, progress and peace. And peace education from all over the world is urgently needed for the development of democracy and education ultimately for peace.
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Based on a speech delivered at the First Kerala State Convention of International Association of Educators for World Peace held at Trivandrum, India on 26 Jan 1981 on the theme: International Understanding and World Peace through Education and published on that occasion in the Souvenir.
Dr. Surya Nath Prasad, Former President, Executive Vice President & Secretary-General of the International Association of Educators for World Peace (IAEWP); associate professor of education emeritus, the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea. Founder and editor-in-chief of Peace Education: An International Journal. dr_suryanathprasad@yahoo.co.in
Tags: Education, Education for Peace, Peace
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 27 Oct 2025.
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