Vinoba bhave

by C. Jotin Khisty Originally printed in the Citation: Khisty, C. Jotin. "Justice through Love: The Lessons of Vinoba Bhave." Quest 98.3 (Summer 2010): 100-102. Sometime in 1951, news began reaching the outside world about a slender man of nearly sixty who walked tirelessly along the dusty village roads of India, talking about a Land Gift Mission, the likes of which very few people had ever heard of before. Walking for miles from village to village, covering every corner of the subcontinent, Vinoba Bhave collected more than five million acres of land (an area larger than that of Scotland), in the form of gifts from rich and poor alike, which he redistributed to the landless (Kumar, 13). His slogan for this redistribution was "Justice as Fairness." This extraordinary accomplishment, unprecedented anywhere in the history of the world, can only be explained by recognizing that it stemmed from the heart of a saint, scholar, sage, practical philosopher, and educator, all rolled into one. Born in 1895 to Brahmin parents in a small village in the Indian state of Maharashtra, Vinoba Bhave took a vow of lifelong celibacy and service to others at the tender age of ten. Searching for a way of life that would embody both spiritual truth and practical action, Vinoba discovered Mahatma Gandhi in 1916 and became his ardent follower, embracing the principles of nonviolent social change. Out of his scores of able followers, such as Jawaharlal Nehru, who became India's first prime minister ...

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The Acharya Vinoba Bhave Role in Freedom Struggle, Religious and Social Service Role in Freedom Struggle All revolutions are spiritual at the source. All my activities have the sole purpose of achieving a union of hearts. Vinoba Bhave was associated with Mahatma Gandhi in the Independence movement of India. In 1932 he was sent to jail by the British colonial government because of his fight against British rule. There he gave a series of talks on Gita, ;n his native language Marathi, to his fellow prisoners. These highly inspiring talks were later published as the book: “Talks on the Gita”, and it was translated to many v languages both in India and elsewhere. Vinoba felt that the source of these talks was something above and he believed that its influence would endure even if his other works were forgotten. In 1940 he was chosen by Mahatma Gandhi to be the first Individual Satyagrahi (an Individual standing up for Truth i instead of a collective action) against the British rule. It was said that Gandhi envied and respected Vinoba Bhave’s celibacy, a vow he made in his adolescence, in fitting with his belief in the Brahmacharya principle. Vinoba Bhave also participated in the Quit India Movement. On 8th August, 1942 Gandhiji proposed a “Quit India” resolution in All India Congress Committee in Bombay. The resolution called upon the British to quit India immediately. And it gave a call to India to “do or die.” It was to be a last battle, the biggest of all the satyagraha mas...

(1895-1982) Acharya Vinoba Bhave was a follower and colleague of Mohandas Gandhi in the nonviolent struggle to free India from British rule. After the Mahatma’s assassination in 1948, Bhave assumed spiritual leadership of Gandhi’s constructive program for developing rural India on the basis of self-reliant villages. In 1951, he started walking across India, asking wealthy landowners to consider him one of their sons and to give him one sixth of their land. He was gifted with hundreds of thousands of acres, which were distributed to the landless poor. He became known as the “Walking Saint of India.” A few years later, however, realizing that much of this land was being lost by the impoverished individuals who had received it, Bhave began insisting that donated land be given in the future to village trusts. The Land Gift (Bhoodan) Movement was transformed into the Village Gift (Gramdan) Movement, with lands leased out to small farmers by village elders. By the early 1960s, when Ralph Borsodi was living and teaching in India, Bhave’s movement had begun to ebb, but thousands of Gramdan villages were still flourishing. Inspired by Bhave’s work, Borsodi returned to his own country in 1966, determined to initiate a “Gramdan Movement in America.” Further Reading Chester Bowles, The New Dimensions of Peace (Greenwood Press, 1955). Eve Bunting, Charisma Stability And Change: An Analysis of Bhoodan-Gramdan Movement in India ( Mohandas K. Gandhi, Trusteeship (Ahemadabad, India: Navaji...

Prime Minister Nehru during his recent visit to Hyderabad to participate in Bharat Sevak Samaj Convention , met Acharya Vinoba Bhave at Madhavaraspalli in Mahbubnagar district on March 6, 1956. He is seen here with the Acharya proceeding to the latter's prayer meeting. | Photo Credit: HINDU PHOTO ARCHIVES On April 18, 1951, Vinoba Bhave performed a miracle while walking back from Shivarampally near Hyderabad to his ashram in Pavner, Maharashtra. Bhave who espoused Gandhian ideals and led a spartan life, wanted to tour the areas affected by Communist insurgency and halted at Pochampally village in Nalgonda district. Nalgonda and Warangal were two of the districts where armed insurgency against large landholders was an ongoing threat to the newly-freed nation. Within hours of Bhave moving about in the village, a landlord named Ram Chandra Reddy said he would donate 100 acres to landless farmers. This non-violent distribution of land inspired by Vinoba Bhave triggered the Bhoodan Movement that provided an alternative model to forceful redistribution of land. Hyderabad and Telangana are no strangers to political movements where social and political change are inspired by leaders walking or travelling on vehicles through the land. As Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra enters the State in a few days, its inspiration from earlier avatars of political marches is hard to miss. While Bhave’s march was for social awareness and transformation, former cinestar Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao d...