ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the guru as the educator who functioned within the modernist and, simultaneously, tradition-oriented Indian middle and entrepreneurial household as the locus of “Hindu authenticity” and a source of the Sanskrit traditions of education. Drawing upon memoirs and oral history the paper looks at how debates on the right kind of education in the immediate pre- and post-Independence periods, which led to the sort of educational experiments of Shantiniketan and other similar schools, also influenced private and familial decisions on “home-schooling” and the reconfiguration of the guru-teacher and the nature of his/her role in the creation of the model Indian citizen.
