• UGI USER
  • Sep 05, 2023
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Q. ‘Knowledge gives us power, love gives us fullness.’ – Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.

Approach:

  • Explain the meaning of the quote along with suitable examples.
  • Provide the significance of the given quote in the contemporary period.
  • Conclude accordingly.

Answer:

  • Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was a teacher, philosopher, and India’s second President on whose birthday we celebrate Teacher’s Day. This quote highlights the importance of ‘love’, which is one of the most fundamental human values for the attainment of a fulfilling life.
  • As per the quote, while knowledge is required for accomplishing a certain task, one needs to understand the value of love to attain the bigger goals of life and to use one’s knowledge for bringing a long-lasting impact on the people as well as on oneself.

This can be understood from the following scenarios

Knowledge without love

  • The British had political knowledge about Indian kingdoms and their superior military knowledge enabled them to acquire power, however, their actions brought misery to Indian people who had to face several deprivations including frequent famines.
  • Similarly, Harshad Mehta’s unscrupulous ways of exploiting loopholes due to his superior knowledge of the financial market and its mechanisms led to erosion of wealth for many investors in the stock market and ultimately led to his own downfall.

Love which gives fullness

  • Armstrong Pame, an IAS officer, had love and compassion towards the Zeliangrong community of Manipur, which made him find a way to build a 100 km road through crowdfunding, beating all odds. Such an act gives satisfaction in one’s career as well as brings a long-lasting impact on the society.
  • Similarly, it was the compassion of Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam towards people with disabilities, which led him and his team to develop lightweight prosthetics from space-age material to enable disabled children to walk easily.

Significance of the quote in the contemporary period

Education without values

  • The current education system’s major focus is on aptitude without incorporating aspects like love, compassion, fraternity etc.
  • Sometimes, such knowledge without love towards others gives rise to intelligent anti-social elements.
  • For example, many software engineers joined ISIS. This calls for value-based education in schools.

Policies minus precautions

  • With technological advancement, governments are adopting policies to invest in nuclear energy which has the power to solve the energy crisis.
  • However, lack of love towards those who may get impacted due to nuclear waste often leads to inadequate compensation and overlooks safety measures.
  • Thus, love and compassion should be adopted by policymakers in exercising their power to achieve Sarvodaya or to fulfill the duty of the government.

Prosperity at the cost of environmental damage

  • From generating fire with rocks to gaining knowledge of rocks on Mars, human beings have accumulated a large body of knowledge.
  • But, this prosperity has also made man adopt indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, which is the root cause for current climatic disasters.
  • So, until we love and respect nature, our development cannot be sustainable and will not become holistic.

Thus, human behavior should not merely depend upon knowledge and ethical egoism but should be driven by virtues of love, empathy and ethical universalism.