Vinoba Bhave: Pillar of Community Leadership

The year was 1916. A 21 year old young brahmin from Maharashtra was undergoing a period of extreme unrest. His thirst for learning was not quenched by formal education. On his way to Mumbai to take his intermediate examination, he took a fateful decision, put his school and college certificates in a fire and decided to go to Varanasi to study Sanskrit and Theology.

The young brahmin while continuing his Sanskrit studies at Varanasi, faced another dielemma. On the one hand he wanted to go to the Himalayas to become a hermit, there was also a desire in him to go to Bengal to join the freedom struggle against the British. But destiny had it's way. He happened to meet Mahatma Gandhi, and history was made. The young brahmin's name was Acharya Vinoba Bhave.

Vinoba is probably the greatest Gandhian until today. As Vinoba later said, he had found in Gandhi the peace of the Himalayas united with the revolutionary fervor of Bengal. And Gandhi admired Vinoba equally, commenting that Vinoba understood Gandhian thought better than he himself did. Vinoba was chosen by Gandhi in 1940 to be the first individual Satyagrahi. A multi-lingual scholar, he spent years in jail interpreting Gita during the freedom struggle.

After India attained her independence in 1947, Vinoba preferred a secluded ashram life as he had no innate desire to be a leader. But it was to be only until 1951.

In April 1951, Vinoba Bhave after attending the Sarvodaya conference in a village in Andhra, started his peace-trek on foot through the violence-torn region of Telangana. The Indian army had been called in since there was an insurgency of communist students and the poorest harijan villagers against the monopoly of rich landlords. Vinoba saw a solution to this turmoil.

He announced that he would walk all through the region to collect gifts of land and would redistribute it among the landless. The movement was called Bhoodaan — "gift of the land". He had started a social revolution. Over the next seven weeks, Vinoba asked for donations of land for the landless in 200 villages of Telangana. The response was overwhelming. In Telangana, the gift of land averaged 200 acres of land per day.

The Indian government was delighted. Nehru wanted him to come to New Delhi and discuss Bhoodaan with the National Planning Commission, He offered to send a plane to fly Vinoba back but he refused and said he would come by walk. He walked, with members of his ashram to New Delhi, which was 795 miles away.

He walked for 13 years throughout India. He had left Paunar on September 12, 1951 and returned on April 10, 1964, He marched through state after state including Andhra, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and others. He recieved 23 lakh acres of land alone in Bihar. He was relentless in his efforts despite suffering from acute malaria and intestinal ulcer.

Vinoba Bhave and his followers had collected around 4 million acres of land and about half a million families had been benefitted. He had achieved what the Indian Government had failed in years of land reform.

Vinoba continued to inspire new social movements until mid 70's after which he continued with his spritual pursuits. He breathed his last on November 15th, 1982.

Acharya Vinoba Bhave was awarded the first ever Ramon Magsaysay award for Community Leadership in 1958 and was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1983.

References:

--> Gandhi Today - By Mark Shepard
--> Original Cover Story on Time Magazine (April 11 1953)