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[[Category:India |S]]
[[Category:History|S]]
[[Category:Biography|S]]

''India Harmony '' VOLUME - 1 : ISSUE - 5 JULY-AUGUST, 2012

Late Dr. K. G. Saiyadain was the grandson of Maulana Hali.
Educated at AMU, he was an outstanding scholar and writer.
He rose to the position of Secretary, Ministry of Education and
acquitted himself with great honour. '' 

==K. G. Saiyadain==
[[File: k.g.png|Dr. K. G. Saiyadain|frame|500px]]
First, I shall just mention the three most
outstanding contributions of Khwaja Ghulam-us-
Saiyidain (KGS) to India and the world in the
field of Education. I shall then try to describe the
roots of the environment of the city where KGS
was born and where his forefathers had lived for
more than six hundred years and contributed to
the sprouting the those roots. What possible
influence these roots may have exerted to shape
the personality and achievements of KGS, I would
leave to the judgement of my readers.

KGS was first and foremost, an educationist. He
was a valiant crusader for the spread of
knowledge. Not only that, he held that an
educated person should be a person of character
and integrity.

Integrity is a quality that can only emanate from
having some kind of a coherent philosophy of life
– you may call it a well-rounded worldwide or
weltanschauung. On the other hand, character is
founded upon the courage of conviction of one's
belief's and philosophy of life, one's capability to
act upon one's beliefs in the face of difficulties.

Khwaja Ghulam-us-saiyidain and his grand father,
the famous poet and reformer Altaf
Hussain Hali are among the descendents of
the latter.

The town retained its status as a place for
religious learning for hundreds of years.
Kings and ministers, the rich and poor alike
came to the town to pay tribute to the sufi
saints.

The traditional languages of education in
Panipat were Persian and Arabic.

However the leading families of Panipat
embarked upon the study of English as
soon as the opportunity came their way after
1857. More than a decade before Sir Syed Ahmad
Khan established the MAO College, the boys
from at least two leading families of Panipat were
preparing themselves to study English, Medicine
and Engineering. Altaf Hussain Hali's son Khwaja
Sajjad Hussain was among the first graduating
class of the MAO College. Hakim Haider Hasan's
sons Sharif Hasan and Latif Hasan, only a few
years younger than Sajjad Hussain, went to
Lahore and Roorkee respectively, to study
Medicine and Engineering. The eighteen sixties
saw Panipat turning a new leaf in its long tradition
of learning. Its face partially turned towards the
west.

Zeal for education flowed in the blood of
Panipatis. Originally it was education restricted to
the field of religion and its related disciplines like
logic, history, medicine etc. Then times changed.
Sajjad Hussain, perhaps the first role model of
KGS, adopted modern Education as his career. In
his own way he was advancing the reforms that
his father the great Altaf Hussain Hali was
advocating as a colleague of Sir Syed. In the next
generation, it seemed natural for KGS to don the
mantle of his illustrious elders.

[[File: K.G. Saiyadain with Dr. Zakir Hussain.png| K.G. Saiyadain with Dr. Zakir Hussain|frame|left|500px]] 

[[File: K.G. Saiyadain at Unesco Conference.png| K.G. Saiyadain at Unesco Conference|frame|500px]]

For KGS new vistas emerged from the contours of
peace and non-violence, the values sought for
hundreds of years by the people of his town. Also,
if they were to be effective in amending or
replacing well established constructs, they had to
be a part of the emerging paradigm of religion and
philosophy. Further, in the formulation and
advocacy of new directions, the individual human
being had to have the central role, in
consonance with the teachings of Bu-Ali Shah
Qalandar, the patron saint of Panipat. In short,
there had to be a reinterpretation of the Islamic
faith.

KGS accepted the thesis proposed by Iqbal in
his famous lectures Reconstruction of Religious
Thought in Islam that apart from the Deduction
and Induction there was also a third source of
knowledge. Transcendental Knowledge. This
knowledge was accessible only to those saintly
persons who have passed through certain stages of
their journey towards the Infinite, in short the
knowledge of the Sufis and Saints.

That the searching intellect of KGS should turn
towards M. K. Gandhi, an apostle of peace and
non-violence was only natural. The rest is history.

==Part II==
[https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/gk-magazine/remembering-k-g-saiyidain-on-the-day/128436.html  Showkat Rashid Wani, September 5 2012: ''Greater Kashmir'']


One of the great teachers of all times K.G Saiyidain. He was a director of education Jammu and Kashmir state from 1938-1945. He has written world class books on the subject of education and is recognised as educational thinker at international level. He was a visiting Professor of Education to leading Universities of the world. 

The first K.G Saiyidain memorial lectures were delivered in September 1974 by J.P Naik in Srinagar with which late K.G Saiyidain had a long lasting relation. We have a paper Educational Philosophy at B. Ed, M.Ed, and M.A Education level in which there is a unit on educational thinkers, but unfortunately this great thinker has been neglected. My objective in writing this article is that the board of studies while revising the education syllabus will give a serious thought to it. 
K.G Saiyidain delivered a convocation address at Amar Singh College in the year 1942 on the theme “First things First”. Addressing the students he said if you have the integrity of spirit you must learn to lead intellectually strenuous lives; you must study deeply and widely, cultivating the capacity to appreciate meanings instead of memorizing words and breaking through the rigid and narrow specialism of curricular subjects into the domain of knowledge that really illuminates. Some people feel education at the end leads to fruitless search for employment, but the argument ignores the fact  under no circumstances is a stupid or culturally barren mind preferable to an intelligent and cultured mind. 

Our educated  class have often chosen the lazy path of least resistance failing to forge new lines of activity with courage and initiative . If education could really train our minds and character properly, we should not be so helpless and hopeless as we are often inclined to be. The person who has a keen desire to bring a desirable social change in a society must have intellectual clarity, for confused thinking is as harmful as moral dishonesty; he must have courage, physical as well mental, to brave opposition, ridicule and unpopularity. He must possess idealism, he must be sensitive to the needs and sorrows of his fellowmen; above all must possess what Aldous Huxley has called the quality of “non-attachment” and Iqbal called Faqr. To work with a sense of detachment does not require renunciation of the world but the capacity to rise above the temptations of the wealth and power. Nothing produces greater fear and timidity in man than attachment to these material objects and selfish ambitions, for the constant dread of losing them haunts him day and night. Love of money has been called “root of all evils” because it leads to all kinds of unscrupulous actions and unworthy compromises and makes it impossible for the covetous person to place first things first which is the highest and the most significant moral imperative. 

Once K.G Saiydain went to meet Tagore in his ashram and made the following observation in his dairy. To quote Tagore  a group of older students came to me with a complaint that a large metal vessels full of food are difficult to handle, these have to be dragged, resulting in damaging their bottoms, which dirties the floor. I pointed out to them that instead of finding some solution themselves why they have come to me with a complaint. They were waiting to see that I should relieve them of their inconvenience, rather than finding the solution themselves. Why did a simple solution not come into their head that tying a piece of cotton padding under the pots would avoid friction and prevent the pot from causing holes. This incident suggests that we never learn to own responsibility and only sit back passively. In our schools we have to give a serious thought to this aspect of life from the very beginning, to develop the character of our students by giving them as much responsibility as possible so that they can be saved from the hateful habit of complaining. Feeling of dissatisfaction and desperation due to the lack of having plenty of material facilities indicates the weakness of character. It is good to have some lack of physical amenities, one has to get used to having fewer things, it is harmful to fulfil all the demands of the children for the sake of showing affection to them. 

The purpose of education from the very beginning is to think with how little we can manage our lives. In spite of our educational advantage we have not learnt to distinguish between the really good things of life and the cheap tinsel which dazzles the eyes or appeals to the appetites. And even when we do theoretically distinguish between them, our practical life remains at the inferior level. The highest function of education is to teach our students place first things first and to mould the pattern of our thought and conduct accordingly.

Author is Coordinator, Institute of Correspondence Education University of Kashmir. He can be reached at showkatrashid@rediffmail.com