Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

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Early Life

Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was born on 5th September 1888 to a Telugu Brahmin family in Tiruttani in Tamil Nadu.His father's name is Sarvepalli Veeraswami and his mother's name is Sarvepalli Sits also known as Sitamma.

Education

He received his primary education at Tiruttani Primary School and then moved to the Hermansburg Evangelical Lutheral Mission School in Tirupati. In 1906 Dr. Radhakrishnan graduated with a Masters degree in Philosophy from the Madras Christian College.

Career

In 1909 he was appointed at the Department of Philosophy at the Madras Presidency College. Following that in 1918, he was offered the position of Professor of Philosophy by the University of Mysore. In the meanwhile Dr. Radhakrishnan was writing articles for prestigious journals such as; The Quest, Journal of Philosophy and the International Journal of Ethics.

From 1931 to 1936, Dr. Radhakrishnan served as the Vice Chancellor of Andhra University. In 1936, Dr. Radhakrishnan was named Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics at the University of Oxford.In 1939, Dr. Radhakrishnan was invited by Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya to be the Vice Chancellor of the Benaras Hindu University, which he did till 1948.

Political Career

After Independence in 1947, Dr. Radhakrishnan represented the country at UNESCO and later served as Ambassador of India to the Soviet Union from 1949-1952. Following this he became an elected member of the Constituent Assembly of India.

In 1952, Dr. Radhakrishnan was elected as the First Vice President of India and then as the second President of India in 1962. When he became President many of his students expressed their desire to celebrate his birthday. On the contrary, Dr. Radhakrishnan told them that he would be honoured of his birthday was celebrated as 'Teacher’s Day' instead. Ever since then, Dr. Radhakrishnan’s birthday has been celebrated as Teacher’s Day every year. On Teacher’s Day students and teachers go to school as usual and the day is marked as a day of celebration and being thankful to ones teachers. In some schools, senior students take on the responsibility of teachers for a day by teaching junior students.

Dr. Radhakrishnan was honoured with the Bharat Ratna (the highest civilian award in India) in 1954.