Established in 1916 by the home-grown educationist Narayan Prasad Singh, Narayan Karmyogi Vidyalaya was an important nationalist force before independence. Today, it continues to spur development in Bihar's remote Goreakothi village
Nestled in a sleepy rural expanse, Goreakothi is a lively village in the Siwan district of Bihar. It is not located on a highway, and you have to negotiate serpentine roads to reach the village. Despite this geographical obscurity, Goreakothi is one of the most advanced villages in our country. It has several schools, a college, a hospital, a block development office, and other facilities of a town. The credit for this goes primarily to the 100-year-old Narayan Karmyogi Vidyalaya.
NKV was founded as Karmayogi Vidyalaya on January 24, 1916 by a son of the village, Narayan Prasad Singh (1887-1950), popularly known as Narayan babu, for his social awakening and rural regeneration. This was before the Mahatma launched a similar programme in Champaran. The influence of the national education movement of the Swadeshi days was still in the air. On the Mahatma’s call for boycott in 1921, this school turned into a national school and lost Government aid. However, the founder of the school ran it with his personal resources till aid was resumed. NKV thrived as a centre of cultural creativity: By 1929, Goreakothi had a library and a theatre troupe, ushering in this remote interior the ripples of national awakening. Narayan babu also brought out a Hindi weekly named Yogi (1933-72).
The school also aspired to be a college, but in view of the growing nationalist activities around, the colonial authorities blocked the move. The school’s benefactors did not lose heart though. They embarked on larger projects and the village became a hub of self-awakening activities against the British Raj. By 1939, the school had an impressive building on a huge campus, complete with staff quarters and a hostel for more than 200 students, drawn from Bihar, Bengal and the United Provinces.
The students were expected to live a simple and disciplined life and encouraged to participate in sports, cleaning, gardening, and farming. But coming from well-to-do families, many of the students abhorred such work. Therefore, Narayan babu stayed in the hostel to help them learn. He would start with the daily chores and others would follow him. Emphasis was on character-building and overall development. Though located in a village, the school welcomed modern ideas and new knowledge. It forged a bridge between the traditional gurukul and a modern school.
Its infrastructure was meticulously planned to reflect its ideals. The main building faced a sunlit spacious ground for sports and extra curricular activities. The adjacent hostel, facing east, lapped up the bounties of nature — the morning breeze, the rising sun and the starry sky. It was laid out in E-shape, with a large oval platform at the centre where students assembled for prayer and lectures on good living and high thinking. Each of its rooms faced flowerbeds and the vegetable garden. There were two notice boards that displayed world news for the public, especially during World War II.
Narayan babu admired Bal Gangadhar Tilak and was inspired by the philosophy of karmayoga of the Bhagavad Gita. So, instead of inciting revolt against the Raj openly, he explained it to the students and others regularly, and exhorted them to follow its ideals. He hosted literatures and reformers with social concerns such as Sahajanand Saraswati and Banarsidas Chaturvedi.
Narayan babu supported the Indian National Congress and actively participated in the freedom movement. He used the school as a nursery for his party’s programmes which he competently executed in the district as Congress president. He was elected as a member of the Central legislative Assembly in 1926 and was the first to speak in Hindi there. later, he was elected to the Provincial legislative Assembly in 1937.
But Narayan babu’s heart lay in the village. Therefore, he promptly responded to the Congress’s village reconstruction programme and acted ingeniously to translate it at the grassroots. He did not receive any formal education, but he knew Persian, Urdu, Hindi and Bhojpuri, and gradually learned English. His talent and pragmatism found expression in his activities to enrich rural life in many ways.
Unlike the Mahatma, Narayan babu modeled his school on modern lines. But he admired the basics principles of the Mahatma — self-help, cleanliness, community living and holistic development. He took an exemplary initiative to promote female education. His daughter, Shakuntla Sinha, became Bihar’s first Director of Public Instruction after independence; later, another student Shanti Rai became Bihar’s eminent gynaecologist.
The students and teachers of the school participated in the freedom struggle. They took part in the Mahatma’s movements against the British. They wore khadi, and every morning, marched through the villages to motivate the people to rise against the Raj. They staged a symbolic Dandi march in 1930, and the Tricolour was unfurled at the school on January 26, 1931. This led to a clash with the police. Dozens of students were arrested and the headmaster dismissed.
Many were fired by revolutionary nationalism: Chandrika Singh and SN Chatterjee were in league with the country’s revolutionary cliques. The village was often raided by the police and residents were sent to jail. Narayan babu was jailed several times; yet he realised his dreams without any outside support and while encircled by the indigo planters.
Narayan babu was equally concerned about the economic life of the area. He started a cooperative dairy farm in the school and students were encouraged to work on the farms. later, he introduced cooperative farming in his village, using new techniques and tractors disposed off after World War II. This continued till his death in 1950.
Though historians are yet to take note of Narayan babu’s contribution, he was appreciated by his contemporaries. Rajendra Prasad and Rahul Sankrityayan were frequent visitors to Goreakothi. Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Madan Mohan Malaviya, GB Pant, GD Birla and Vinoba Bhave also visited the school on different occasions. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, presented by GD Birla to the school, is still preserved. In 1972, Morarji Desai inaugurated at the same campus the long-demanded college Narayan Mahavidyalaya; Jagjivan Ram graced NKV’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 1976.
Narayan babu was a home-grown educationist, whose innovations succeeded because of his dedication and grassroots approach. The original infrastructure of NKV is depleting under State control, and it’s questionable if the institute still has the same values that inspired the people before independence. One hopes the Government will consider reviving NKV as a heritage school.
(The writer is associate professor of History at Rajdhani College, University of Delhi. He can be reached at jnsinha@rediffmail.com)