Page 115 - Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 21st Century ISBN

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It is the truth in the idea that matters. Vinoba therefore confidently said that Gramdan was not for India
alone, in a particular period. It was of lasting value: it would arise in other countries, if not in India; in

some other time, if not today, when conditions become ripe for it.
While discussing Bhoodan and Gramdan, the way of its working needs to be taken

intoconsideration. Much of their criticism is due to lack of understanding and appreciation of the working
of non-violence. Non-violence does not consider anyone an enemy. It seeks to change the conditions

through joint endeavour of all, as the desired change in conditions is for the good of all. Two of
prominent misconceptions in this connection need to be dispelled. One is that Vinoba shunned politics

and that it was wrong. Vinoba, however, consistently maintained that he was immersed in politics of a
different kind, while keeping aloof from parochial and divisive party-and-power politics: “We are

definitely in politics—albeit of a different kind.
That politics consists of breaking the current politics. We are not akin to institutions like the

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Ramakrishna Mission.” For this new politics, which is people’s politics in the true sense, Vinoba
coined the term ‘Lokniti’.

Another misconception that needs to be laid to rest is that Vinoba avoided struggles—even
peaceful ones—and that he shied away from opposition to the government. This is far from truth.

Vinoba always criticised anti-people policies of the government, often stringently. He vehemently attacked
government’s policy of encouraging powerlooms at the cost of handlooms, and said that it was criminal

on the part of the government not to protect handloom weavers. He asked the weavers to get organised
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and lodge strong protests. When Uttar Pradesh government banned production of jaggery in the
vicinity of sugar mills, andthat too under ‘Defence of India Rules’, Vinoba burst out, “This is not
‘defence of India’; it is ‘offence against India’, against the Indian masses. It is against India’s ethos. It

is curtailment of liberty.”28 In a meeting in December 1965, he went to the extent of saying that the
government should be impeached just as Warren Hastings was impeached in England, for its failures,

the most glaring being its failure in attaining self-sufficiency in food, in reorienting the education system
and the neglect of the lowest strata of society. 29

But, it can be said, did he ever organise a struggle? Well, it can be pointed out that he didgive
green signal to satyagraha against eviction of peasants, indecent posters, cow-slaughter and for

prohibition. What is important to note is that Vinoba was definitely for launching struggle, but not
against the government of the day, but against the State, against the system. And for such a struggle,

development of people’s power was an imperative. Through Bhoodan and Gramdan, he was trying
for the same. This endeavour was bound to invite opposition, and Vinoba was well aware of it. For

example, he had warned the workers, “When the true nature of our work is revealed, it will surely
prick some people. Violence would not be able to tolerate non-violence; not only that, it would oppose

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