Bharat Ratna Dr.Abdul Kalam – RIP

There are very few people and personalities who make a difference in our lives, though we have never met them. Their words and deeds are an automatic inspiration.

Bharat Ratna Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was such a person.

His sudden demise has affected us deeply as if a very close family member is no more.

His simple advise “Dare to Dream” is one of the inspirations to create the Badaga Websites.

I have always marvelled at the future vision of this ‘simply’ great person be it the interlinking of the rivers in our country or the need to develop a strong defence missile programme. He believed in this nation remaining strong and become a developed nation by 2020.

Will we respect and reach that destination?

May his soul rest in peace.

Sullivan’s school that would produce a President

 The late, lamented former President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam was a product of the Schwartz Higher Secondary School, Ramanathapuram, which heralded English education in India in the late 18^th century.

English education in India began at the Schwartz schools in 1787 founded by Rev. Schwartz and Rt.Hon. John Sullivan who was Resident at Tanjore with ‘control over districts south of Cauvery’.

Rt.Hon. John Sullivan, father of John Sullivan, the founder of modern Nilgiris, believed  that if some of the higher classes of natives were educated in English, they would have a new world of knowledge opened to them and  there would be a better chance of the establishment of mutual confidence. 

The Directors of East India Company accepted the argument and decided to financially support it at a time when even England had no public educational policy or educational department. The Sullivan-Schwartz schools were established in Tanjore, Kumbakonam, Ramanthapuram and Trichy areas.

Later, the Governor General of India, Lord William Bentinck, who was earlier Governor of Madras and was influenced by the functioning of the Sullivan schools, summoned, during his sojourn at Ooty in 1834,  Lord Macaulay to commence his famous  Minute on Education, which adopted the ‘Madras system of English schools’  to the whole of India. The popularity of the Sullivan-Schwartz schools led to the creation of the first university in India at Madras.  

Dharmalingam Venugopal, Nilgiri Documentation Centre, Kotagiri, 9444365360