Long before September 5 came to be observed as Teachers’ Day, SCD Government College, Ludhiana, had the privilege of hosting one of India’s most eminent scholars and philosophers — Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.It was March 1, 1945, and the occasion was the silver jubilee celebrations of the college. Dr Radhakrishnan, who would later become the second President of India, presided over the celebrations and delivered an address to students, teachers and dignitaries of the time.The credit for inviting him goes to U Kramet, who was the Principal of the college from 1942 to 1946.Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s birth anniversary falls on September 5, which is observed as Teachers’ Day in India. A scholar, philosopher and statesman, he went on to become one of the country’s most celebrated thinkers and orators.The details of his historic visit were recorded in the college magazine, ‘The Sutlej’, said Brij Bhushan Goyal, Organising Secretary of the Alumni Association, SCD Government College, Ludhiana.As described in ‘The Sutlej’, Dr Radhakrishnan, a Bharat Ratna awardee, was “one of the most lustrous stars on the firmament of post-Independence India”. The magazine described how he rose from an ordinary citizen to become a leading exponent of Indian philosophy and Eastern religions in the West, and eventually the President of India, with “the richest endowment of oratory”.Goyal said that on March 1, 1945, Dr Radhakrishnan addressed the students of SCD College in an atmosphere of “pin-drop silence”.“The Convocation Address gave the strife-torn world a message of peaceful bliss. To the war-battered mankind he offered the sanctuary of spirit,” Goyal said, quoting ‘The Sutlej’.A message of unity and peaceDr Radhakrishnan’s address, delivered at a time when the world was still engulfed in the devastation of the Second World War, carried a powerful message about India’s civilisational strength, unity in diversity and the larger purpose of education.His words, preserved in the college magazine, read:“India has a brightness of the future which will remain unrivalled, unsurpassed forever. There is a uniqueness of spirit in its character which has assimilated the culture of not only the best of both the hemispheres, but also of many glorious epochs of civilization. Its unity in diversity, which has stood out timeless against ravages of time, is the symbol of immortality and its division, even the red signal of an impending disaster.“What is needed is not a better preparation for war which is professed to be the better preparation for peace. There is something wrong with our civilization which makes us concerned with the exterior, thus attaching more importance to the shell than to the kernel.“The soul of man is neither English, nor Indian or Chinese nor Japanese, and neither Hindu nor Muslim. These Universities and educational institutions belong to the Republic of Letters, not to any race, nation, section or community but to humanity at large.”Nearly eight decades later, the words preserved in the pages of ‘The Sutlej’ offer a glimpse into a remarkable chapter in the history of SCD Government College — and a fitting reminder, on Teachers’ Day, of the enduring role of education in shaping a more peaceful and united society.