acharya vinoba bhave, bhoodan and gandhi

Gandhian Thought

Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Bhoodan movement and GandhiCourse Instructor: N Sreekumar

Shivraj Singh NegiHS07H022

Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Bhoodan movement and Gandhi

Table of ContentsShort Bio......................................................................................................................................................4

Participation in Independence Movement..................................................................................................4

Movements Post Independence..................................................................................................................4

Bhoodan..................................................................................................................................................4

Gramdan......................................................................................................................................................6

Ideas and Foundations................................................................................................................................6

Afteryears....................................................................................................................................................6

Criticism.......................................................................................................................................................6

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All revolutions are spiritual at the source. All my activities have the sole purpose of achieving a union of hearts.

—Vinoba Bhawe

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Short Bio

Vinoba Bhave was born on September 11 1895 in Gagode, Maharashtra. His family was a traditional Brahmin family, and he was named as Vinayak Narahari Bhave. His mother died when he was 23. His two brothers, Balkoba Bhave and Shivaji Bhave, were also social workers. He was a freedom fighter and worked towards implementing Gandhian ideals after independence. He was called as ‘the first individual sataygrahi’ by Gandhi. He pioneered the Bhoodan and the Gramdan movements. For his social work he was awarded the first ever Ramon Magsaysay for Community Leadership in 1958 and Bharat Ratna (posthumously) in 1983. He died on Novemeber 15 1982 when after falling ill he stopped eating and taking medicines, preferring voluntary death instead.

Participation in Independence Movement

Although he excelled in college, especially in mathematics, he left college in 1916 to begin his spiritual quest. He was attracted by Gandhi’s movement and participated in social reform efforts of the movement. In 1924 he led a temple entry movement for untouchables in southern India and worked to remove basic socio-economic problems of industrial workers. Due to this he was jailed by British authorities in 1932. He preached Gita to his fellow prisoners. These talks were later published in the form of a book. He led the national protest campaign against Britain's wartime policies in 1940.

Movements Post Independence

Vinoba believed that after Independence the objective of the swaraj has been achieved and Gandhians should now work for achieving welfare for all ‘sarvodaya’. Thus a new Sarvodaya movement was started. Many different organizations who were working for social development, were brought together to make Sarva Seva Sangh (Organization for Serving All) and became the principle leader of the movement. It was a Gandhian organization working for broad social change in accordance with Gandhian principles. In 1951, after the annual sarvodaya conference Vinoba decided to bring peace and development to the strife torn Telangana region and thus began one of the greatest Gandhian mass movements in history of independent India.

Bhoodan

In the early 50s, Telangana was in turmoil as communist elements tried to break the monopoly over land resources by rich landlords. They were supported by poor landless farmers. Their methods were violent and lead to widespread bloodshed. To quell the extremists and to restore law and order, army was sent in. Army resorted to its own brutal tactics to control the situation and was determined to win. The villagers were now caught in the crossfire, as each side would kill people suspected of supporting the

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other. It was in this scenario that Vinoba intervened and tried to bring peace to the region. He hoped to talk to people and set out on foot for the affected villages.

It was in a village named Pochampalli in Nalgonda district that Vinoba found the solution. In the erstwhile communist stronghold, the landless Harijans1 of the village told Vinoba that they support communists because of the promise of land redistribution. They will support the government if it promises them land. Vinoba was not satisfied with the proposal, and held a larger meeting next day. This was attended by people from all sections of the area. When he posed the probelm to the assembly, one of the landlords stood up and said that he is ready to donate 100 acres of land. Further the Harijans declared that they don't need more than 80 acres. This was a truly remarkable solution to the problem, and Vinoba declared that he would walk through the entire Telangana region to collect land for the landless from the landed farmers. The movement was named Bhoodan or literally a 'gift of land'. His simple appeal to the farmers and the landlords was, 'Consider me as your fifth son. Give me my equal share of land'. Village after village farmers donated land voluntarily, much to Vinoba's surprise.

It was due to saintly Vinoba's personality and character that made the villagers ready to donate the land. It was not limited to big landlords but even farmers who had small landholdings donated. Vinoba was seen as Mahatma's successor who had come to teach and practice Gandhi's methods. The purpose of the movement also was not just about social justice, but also to awaken people. As the movement gained momentum, Vinoba started collecting hundreds of acres a day, and the region became less tense and violent. By the end of two months he had collected over ten thousand acres of land, and his Sarvodaya workers continued to collect land in his absence.

The success of the Telangana experiment inspired Bhave to launch the program on a nationwide basis, to eliminate the single largest cause of poverty in rural India: 'lack of land titles'. He wanted to expand the campaign to achieve 'sarvodaya' a complete transformation of Indian society, to bring about a socialist revolution through peaceful means. He made several hundred small teams of Sarvodaya Sangathan volunteers, who started collecting land from all over India. Vinoba continued to tour without taking a break in spite of his failing health. He walked from village to village in a method reminiscent of Gandhi’s Dandi March. He was welcomed like a saint everywhere. He preached the importance of love, kinship, sharing and non-violence.

The aim of the movement was to collect over 50 million acres of land and redistribute it. He succeeded in collecting only 5 million acres, much out of which was wasteland. Many landlords reneged on their promises. Eventually, he distributed one million acres of land, which was many times than the land distributed by the government schemes.

Even as Bhoodan movement was underway, Bhave set his sights higher. This movement was what Vinoba considered to be the next step to Bhoodan. He started asking for donations of entire village, calling it ‘Gramdan’.

1 Outcastes or Untouchables of the Hindu society, called Harijans (God’s own people) by Gandhi.

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Gramdan

According to Bhave, in a gramdan village the entire land was a commonly owned property which cannot be sold or bought. The land was to be distributed among the individual families based upon need, and could not be forcibly evicted from the land. A village level self-governance mechanism was to make decisions related to land and no decisions could be adopted until it had the consensus of everyone. With the common land ownership and cooperation in decision making, Vinoba wanted to break the very divisiveness of society that he considered to be the root cause of all misery. He considered this as an important step towards establishment of Gandhian ‘village republics’. A Gramdan village was supposed to form a village assembly, transfer the title deeds of their land in favor of the assembly and create a common fund meant for social welfare and economic development which was to be financed by the earning from the land. Many villages decalared themselves as Gramdan villages, but the movement soon ran into practical difficulties.

Gramdan movement although failed to repeat even the limited success of Bhoodan, and only a few thousand villages converted to Gramdan system. Even in these villages, the system failed to take full roots. Although the conditions for percentage of land required to be donated for common ownership was reduced, by 1971, the movement had collapsed. Those villages which adopted the system were left behind as islands of Gandhian dream, where committed workers settled in for long-term development efforts. They became the new experiment sites for helping India’s poorest organize Gandhian style development and non-violent campaigns against the social injustices.

Ideas and Foundations

The idea of Bhoodan and Gramdan was derived from the Gandhian social reconstruction idea. Gandhi believed that for transformation of Indian society it is necessary that the elites participate and work for social reengineering. Abolition of untouchability and promotion of village based industries was focal point of this initiative. He wanted to establish a society based on morals. Social reconstruction programs were also supposed to keep workers involved with society in absence of mass campaigns for independence.

Non-cooperation movement was first such campaign that combined different social and political objectives. Gandhi wanted to create an alternative to the western liberal democratic societies. Simultaneously he wanted to give poor and exploited greater voice. For Gandhi, political workers should work for a movement with an objective, and continue to work for social change also. Congress and its leaders engrossed themselves with a program of grand economic planning and industrialization after independnce, and some Gandhian workers went to work in villages for social change. Sarvodaya was part of their objectives.

It was based on Gandhian concept of trusteeship in economics. One is considered not an owner but a trustee of the property. While using the property for satisfying minimum consumption one should also

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take care of needs of the poor. If such an ideal is absent in society then people should work in a non-violent manner to achieve it. A Gandhian society has no role for economic inequality and exploitation.

Gandhi believed that for India to prosper, its villages should become self -sufficient. As against the traditional model of rural periphery depending upon the urban centers, he wanted them to be independent. Agricultural economy and related activities will take care of their needs and whatever little surplus they produce they can give it to urban areas. Industrialization and urbanization should not destroy the village life. Technology should be used at minimum, only to serve the needs of people.

Vinoba saw practical difficulties in implementing Sarvodaya in rural India. The economic inequalities have to be addressed first, and the most effective way of doing that was to reduce inequality in land ownership. The root of all oppression, for Bhave, was greed. He wanted people to practice Gandhian 'aparigraha' or non-possesiveness. If people can practice non-possesion then, the social inequalities and exploitations in the society can be eliminated. He wanted to establish a 'Kingdom of Kindness'. He was initially skeptical about the participation of land owners in such a movement, but Telangana experiment gave him a hope and he expanded the movement in scale as well as meaning. Bhoodan was followed by Gramdan.

Vinoba also used the Gandhian ideas of decentralized political power. The village assembly is in charge of all the resources and takes care of everyone's welfare. This leads to proper utilization of scarce resources. The institution of commercial dealing of land, which was introduced by British in India, was to be done away with. Land and other natural resources were God's gift to man and were to be utilized for the benefit of all.

Afteryears

After continuosly marching and campaigning for twenty years, Vinoba came back to his ashram in Paunar, Maharashtra in June 1970. He continued to work for social reconstruction. He launched new programs for women empowerment and preserving traditional agricultural methods. Vinoba’s work was appreciated worldwide and he was featured on the cover of Time magazine. He worked for anti cow slaughter campaign also. As another Gandhian stalwart, J P Narayan (who unlike Vinoba focussed more on political aspects of Gandhian philosophy, instead of social ones) started his movement of total revolution rifts began to develop in the Sarva Seva Sangha. He was supportive of Indira Gandhi and supported imposition of Emergency and called it Anushasana Parva (Time for Discipline).

Criticism

Vinoba Bhave was subject to much criticism due to his socio-political activities. Communists claimed that the Telangana experiment succeeded because landlords were afraid of being targeted by and losing all land to communists. They happily preferred the option given by Vinoba. V S Naipaul said that Vinoba tried to emulate Gandhi to excessive limits and lacked connection with realities of human nature. His

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support of emergency and curtailment of democratic rights was also criticized. The eventual failure of the two mass movements was cited as evidence of impracticality of Gandhian model by his critics.

Although Gandhi adopts non-violent methods to achieve socialist ideals, but the end state achieved is the same as socialist heaven. He wants to work against the basic human nature of self interest and being driven by incentives. For such a system to work all members of society have to give up these characters and instead be driven by Dharma. If it is adopted by only a few members, then it might not be fully successful or may fail like Bhoodan. But then if it is possible in the first place for all members of the society to give up those characteristics, and had it been so easy and people were that easy to change, then an ideal utopian society might have been established long back.

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BibliographyShepard, M. (1987). Gandhi Today : A Report on India’s Gandhi Movement and Its Experiments in Nonviolence and Small Scale Alternatives. Seven Locks Press.

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acharya vinoba bhave, bhoodan and gandhi

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