Shri Eswaran championed the idea of learning in one’s mother tongue to improve one’s intellect, be an original thinker, who are rooted in their original culture and heritage.  He communicated in many Indian languages including Malayalam, Hindi, and Sanskrit but his eloquent speeches and journalistic work in his mother tongue Tamil always enthralled the listeners and readers alike.  On international platforms and world forums, he was an efficient and effective communicator in English.

Whilst being passionate about preserving Tamil, Shri Eswaran was well aware the children in rural areas who learned English as a foreign language needed excellent primary school teachers, particularly in the times were literacy rates were poor.  In the 1960s and 1970s underdeveloped India was directly tied to employability and making a flourishing career in government or private sectors.  Nevertheless, his ambition for rural children and deprived area kids was always uncompromised.

During his time as a rural primary school head teacher, he developed interesting, effective, and realistic teaching tools for primary school kids to learn English, natural sciences and thrive in securing excellent grades.  To outline a few realistic and effective measures developed by him for the personal development and well-being of primary school kids are: seeding the sense of

• Governance through an infrastructure where children hold ministerial responsibilities,
• Community Hygiene,
• Ecological awareness through school gardening projects.

Shri Eswaran strongly believed rural schools could develop self-sufficient infrastructures for sustenance.  For example, he brought a radio 60 years ago, which was the first in the entire state for a primary school, so that the young children could have general knowledge, awareness, and basic exposure. 

There are lessons to be learned here that can be translated into reality in unprivileged area schools that provide technology-enabled education with improved infrastructure and professional practices.  Shri Eswaran’s vision for education and life were holistic, culturally rooted, and highly ambitious.