SOURCE: "The Theory and Practice of Sarnodaya," in The Meanings of Gandhi, edited by Paul F. Power, The University Press of Hawaii, 1971, pp. 79-89.

It was in South Africa that Gandhi first read Ruskin's Unto This Last. The book led to an immediate transformation in his way of life. Later he prepared a paraphrase of the book in Gujarati and published it in Indian Opinion which he had founded in South Africa to help the cause of satyagraha. The Gujarati version bore the title of "Sarvodaya." Literally, the word means "the welfare of all" in contrast to the concept of "the greatest good of the greatest number." To bring out the distinction clearly, Gandhi wrote in 1926:

A votary of ahimsa cannot subscribe to the utilitarian formula. He will strive for the greatest good of all and die in the attempt to realize the ideal. He will, therefore, be willing to die so that the others may live. He will serve himself with the rest by himself dying. The greatest good of all inevitably includes the good of the greatest number, and therefore he and the utilitarian will converge in many points in their career, but there does come a time when they must part company, and even work in opposite directions. The utilitarian to be logical will never sacrifice himself. The absolutist will even sacrifice himself.

One of the lessons which Gandhi drew from his reading of Ruskin is that the value of all socially useful work is or ought to be the same. He held that the lawyer and the barber should have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work. This would imply an equality of wages, although Gandhi did not make that point specifically. Gandhi also held that a life of manual labor is the best life. Later he developed the idea still further when he began to say that every man should earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, an idea he may have borrowed from Tolstoy.

What would be the place of an intellectual worker in the Gandhian scheme? Gandhi's answer was:

Intellectual work is important and has an undoubted place in the scheme of life. But what I insist on is the necessity of physical labour. No man, I claim, ought to be free from that obligation. It will serve to improve even the quality of his intellectual output.

The question remains, how was the Gandhian ideal of economic transformation actually going to be achieved? In this regard, Gandhi held very clearly that those who subscribed to the idea of an exploitation-free economic order should begin with a reordering of their own lives. But this was clearly not enough. Institutions had also to be changed. Just as new institutions had to be built up, so any institution which came in the way of the practice of the New Life should also be resisted by means of nonviolent non-cooperation. He was especially concerned to reform capital and labor so that the divisions of society into antagonistic classes would end and be replaced by a commonwealth of harmony.

One special question arises out of Gandhi's view: if a small or a large band of people try to build a nonviolent, exploitation-free economic order, will there be no internal or external opposition to it? How will the community practicing a New Life deal with possible challenges? As a practical idealist, Gandhi recognized the difficulties and developed his own answer to the question of defense. He was often asked: what can be defended by nonviolence? His usual answer was that a community which tried to equip itself for such defense should, first of all, get rid of all illegitimate possessions. It must surrender all the gains of violence and, beyond that, share its resources, both natural and human, with the rest of mankind.

Once while describing his ideal for a nation, he said:

I want the freedom of my country so that other countries may learn something from my free country, so that the resources of my country might be utilized for the benefit of mankind.… My love therefore of nationalism, or my idea of nationalism, is that my country may become free, that if need be, the whole country may die so that the human races may live.

Gandhi firmly held that if a small community began to rebuild its life of work and sharing, and if the facts became duly known to their neighbors, the community would gain a degree of moral stature which would help to spread the good news all over the world. If, even then, there was aggression from within or without, the community would try to defend itself by means of nonviolent noncooperation. They would refuse to treat the so-called aggressor as anything other than an erring brother and refuse to strike back in self-defense.

The willingness of the nonviolent non-cooperator to share whatever he has with anyone who is genuinely in want, and his quiet courage in the defense of the new order of life, will eventually touch the heart of the aggressor and pave the way for his conversion. Once Gandhi was asked if he really believed that the heart of a tyrant could ever be touched by means of satyagraha. His reply indicated his knowledge, gained through bitter experience, that he himself might fail. But a tyrant acts only through the cooperation of a million soldiers who are no better and no worse than any of us. If their hearts are touched, the tyrant will become isolated, and that would be the utmost that we can hope for. Then, if all the satyagrahis die in the defense of their cause without any visible effect upon the aggressor, that very act of sacrifice will awaken the conscience of the world, and the satyagrahis will have done all that it is possible for them to do.

Even if we accept that the Gandhian method ensures the good of all, sarvodaya, the question remains: how do we begin our task? Shall we try to bring about perfection in individuals and small communities and hope that the existing institutions which foster inequality will eventually wither away and fall down like dead leaves in autumn? Tolstoy, whom Gandhi regarded as one of the great teachers of mankind, was undoubtedly of such an opinion. He said that every individual should go on perfecting his own life by living in accordance with the true precepts of Christianity. One should not resist evil. One should totally disregard the state which is altogether an evil. But Gandhi differed from him in one very important respect. Although he wanted individuals, in combination, to try to build up the New Life, yet Gandhi also held that we must resist evil institutions to preserve our own. The resistance should be by moral and faultless means.

Even in the midst of the stiffest of nonviolent campaigns in India, Gandhi took great pains to remind those who were in the thick of the fight that our war was not against communities but against institutions to which they wrongly subscribed. Our object was to wean them from error and, in the same process, to be weaned from our own errors, if there were any. Gandhi held that it was in this way that we should refuse to surrender our sense of brotherhood even in the midst of a struggle, for it was only in this way that we could ensure and promote the good of all.

All through his life in India, Gandhi practiced and propagated the ideal and the method described above. Although for him nonviolence was a creed and a passion, yet when he led the nation in its battles against political or social wrongs, he always recommended formulas of action for the masses which were in conformity with their temper and strength.

In 1921, Gandhi began his constructive program with the promotion of manual textile industries and the establishment of inter-communal amity. His political movement in those days did not rise to a high pitch of militancy. He appeared to be drilling the masses for more difficult battles to come. During the decade of the 1930's he raised the pitch of his constructive activities, adding to the original base such items as craft-centered primary education and efforts for economic equality. The political action of 19302 and of 1942 was more challenging. Men and women were then called upon to face the assassin's dagger or bullet without flinching while they were at their appointed task. Thus, India slowly progressed in her exercise of collective nonviolence, until, through historical circumstances, the transfer of power took place from British to Indian hands in mid-1947.

Obviously, Gandhi welcomed British withdrawal. But he was not happy, for partition came with freedom and the swaraj, or self-rule of the masses, still remained a distant goal. The constructive program which should have laid the foundation of economic and social emancipation had not been given due attention. It was this, therefore, to which he asked the political workers to turn their minds. In January 1948, Gandhi took one of the most decisive and revolutionary steps in his entire political career. He recommended that the Congress dissolve itself. He asked its members to spread over the seven hundred and fifty thousand villages of India and Pakistan to educate and organize the villagers in their new rights and duties. In effect, the Congress was to be transformed into a Lok Sevak Sangh or Organization for the Service of the People. To complement the change in the party system, economic production and political power were to be decentralized and regulated through panchayats which would embrace one another in ever-widening circles of cooperation.

But the fates seem to have ordained otherwise. Gandhi had overcome the feeling of disillusionment which had cast its shadow over him during the months immediately after independence. But just when he had decided to take a bold step, he was stricken by the hand of an assassin who believed that he had weakened India by his lessons of nonviolence.

The blow stunned the nation. But thanks to the efforts of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the Government took a very firm stand to curb further communal disturbances and to govern effectively. After Gandhi's death many people realized that national integration should be fostered with greater care. As part of that objective, the division between Hindu and Moslem as well as between the rich and the poor had to be healed as quickly as possible. The Five-Year Plans of development came one after another to raise the productive capacity of the nation and to elevate the standard of living. These goals had to be achieved through the democratic process, not by totalitarian methods.

One of the unexpected results of governmental action was that the whole country began to lean more and more heavily upon legislative and administrative measures for the achievement of the goal of democratic socialism. The self-reliance which had been an outstanding feature of the nation's activities during three decades of Gandhian leadership appeared to be in retreat. There was hardly any fresh endeavor to build up democracy from the base. Even when local self-government was promoted through Panchayat Raj, and a large part of the community development program was entrusted to it, critical observers discovered that at the local district or village level the class of landed proprietors and moneyed men retained or came into power through the elections. Clearly, this result was the opposite of what Gandhi had wanted through his constructive program and his suggested rule of the panchayats. As a result, many of the political and social workers, who had committed themselves to the Gandhian ideal, suffered from a deep feeling of frustration. They did not have the awareness or the skill to reverse the process which had led the country to an increasing reliance upon the state and the political party for attainment of economic and social goals.

While the developments outlined above were taking place, Vinoba emerged as a new force in another corner of India, far from Delhi. A fellow worker with Gandhi since 1916, he had dedicated himself without reservation to the cause of nonviolence. Soon after Gandhi's death, in March 1948, there was a meeting of constructive workers in Gandhi's establishment at Wardha. There, on the suggestion of Vinoba, the Sarvodaya Samaj, the Society for the Promotion of Sarvodaya, came into existence. A year afterwards, the first annual conference was held in Indore where the Sarva Seva Sangh, Association for Service in the Cause of Sarvodaya, was formed. The third conference was held in a village near Hyderabad city in 1951. In the meanwhile, Vinoba had sponsored the idea that the constructive workers, as well as people in general, should be freed from their reliance upon money. The vow of freedom from money, Kanchanmukti, was taken. When Vinoba went to the conference in Hyderabad, he walked all the way from near Wardha to the place of conference, a distance of 315 miles. Out of this experience came Bhoodan, the Land-Gift Movement.

The State of Hyderabad had land problems peculiarly its own. Earlier there were popular risings against the ruling class and a large measure of counterviolence. Eventually, the Government of India intervened, and the Nizam was deposed. Under these disturbed conditions, the Communist Party entered the arena. Their strategy was to seize land from landlords. In the process a reign of terror came to the countryside.

During his journey through the disturbed area, Vinoba came to realize the nature of the problems. To educate himself he had an exchange of views with the Communists. It was then that he decided that the redistribution of land should be brought about in a peaceful way. During a walking tour through the Telengana area, Vinoba reached a village named Pochampalli, inhabited mostly by landless laborers, members of the so-called untouchable castes. When asked by Vinoba as to how their problem could be solved, these laborers consulted one another and said that, if they could secure 80 acres of land for cultivation, they would be satisfied. At the village meeting Vinoba asked if anyone could make this amount of land available. A farmer named V. R. Reddy came forward and donated 100 acres for the use of landless laborers. This was on April 18, 1951.

This event opened up a new concept in Vinoba's mind—Bhoodan, the Land-Gift Movement. He believed that other donors like the one at Pochampalli would not be wanting in the country. Indeed, in the fifty-one days of his tour through nearly two hundred villages in the Telengana area, Vinoba secured a gift of 12,201 acres from farmers, both big and small. Month after month, Vinoba proceeded on his walking tour through Hyderabad, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Kerala and other states. His program began to unfold. With a shrewd, practical sense Vinoba did not ask for more than one-sixth of the land which any one possessed. His appeal to those who had no land was that they should contribute a number of days in labor or a certain fraction of their earnings every month to be used, on their own initiative, for communal service. The last came to be known as Sampattidan, Gift of Property.

News of Vinoba's mission spread widely throughout the country, and many social and political workers responded to the attraction of the movement. In Orissa, Land-Gift was elevated to Gramdan, Village-Gift. In Bhoodan, the owner retained title to the land which he had not given away. But under Gramdan, when nearly three-fourths of the villagers were ready, they surrendered their personal right of property and transferred it to the community organization of the village, Gramsabha, Village Association. The Association, formed by the villagers themselves, was to redistribute the land to the needy. A part of the donated land was to be set aside for communal purposes. Everyone had to contribute his labor for its cultivation, and the produce, or the money obtained from sale, was to meet some of the common needs of the village.

From Land-Gift to Village-Gift, the process has now developed into sub-movements of Prakhandadan, Block-Gift, and Zilladan, District-Gift. As of April 30, 1969, there were just over 100,000 villages in the Gramdan category, 700 Blocks and seventeen Districts.

An account of the Land-Gift movement would not be complete without mention of J. C. Kumarappa and J. P. Narayan. Trained in economics, Kumarappa led the village industries' organization for several years. A firm believer in decentralization as a means of attaining economic justice and peace, Kumarappa has become, since Gandhi's death, a spokesman for a "Third Order" whose purpose is to ensure equality of land distribution and the adequate development of the land. Some of the Land-Gift workers pin their faith on building up Kumarappa's Third Order. Others believe that dissemination of the concept of Land-Gift is sufficient and that the inhabitants of the donated villages can be left alone to establish their new society.

Jayprakash Narayan is one of our most outstanding leaders. He began his career as a Marxist-Leninist, drifted through Democratic Socialism and since Independence has become one of the most ardent champions of the sarvodaya movement. His statement, From Socialism to Sarvodaya, is one of the best expressions of the contrast between what Marxist Socialists seek and what Gandhi desired for India. In the course of his passage through Democratic Socialism to Sarvodaya, he progressively shed his reliance upon parliaments and parties until he propounded the idea of a party-less democracy. But his major stress is on creating economic democracy from the bottom as proposed by Vinoba. Jayprakash feels confident that the Land-Gift Movement will be able to solve the problem of land through voluntary endeavor much faster than any governmental program can reach a solution. Already, a very large number of workers have been assembled to work in all the states.

In the interim, the central regime and the state governments have passed measure after measure which profoundly influence ownership rights to land. Among the important steps taken have been the abolition of the zemindar system, the recognition of the rights of refugees to lands which they have forcibly occupied, and the enactment of special laws regarding land held or formerly possessed by tribal communities in parts of Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. On the other hand, several branches of the Communist Party have given priority to the capture by violence or otherwise of land belonging to absentee landlords or owners of tea or coffee plantations. This program is also being extended to landowners who, in the opinion of the Communist Party, hold more land than they require. Cases of liquidation of such land-owning farmers are not rare in the country.

One pressing problem in implementing the Land-Gift Movement is that there is a lack of a sufficient number of workers who can cover all the donated villages to help the people organize their economic life in a new way. Moreover, very few in the movement seem to accept the responsibility of implementing the well-intentioned laws of the state which would be to the advantage of the villagers. Some workers seem to fear contamination by political power. This is not a healthy sign. Another problem is the lack of resistance to land laws which might eventually prove detrimental to the interests of the peasantry. In contrast, Gandhi helped the people to work at both ends. While he promoted reconstruction through non-official agencies, he encouraged the people to take advantage of whatever power had come to them through elections. If resistance to law were indicated, he would not hesitate to urge disobedience in the name of justice.

All the thinking in connection with the Land-Gift Movement seems to have become centered around Vinoba and a handful of his close associates. When Gandhi lived and worked, he was the source of programs and guidance for India. There did not develop any intellectual movement to support, modify or critically examine the Gandhian movement. As a result, when he was no longer there, India drifted towards economic and political models which had little relevance to the actualities of life. Results were produced which were far from what was anticipated. The programs grew out of books, not from the soil.

If today there continues to be an excessive reliance upon one man or even half a dozen men, and if there is no critical assessment of anticipated and actual results, there is ground for fearing that the Land-Gift Movement may gravitate into a routine performance when Vinoba or Jayaprakash Narayan are no longer there to maintain a creative level. In their despair, the masses of India may be driven to other remedies which may eventually lead them to new forms of subordination. Perhaps an enlightened intellect can save us in time from such a predicament.