Page 92 - Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 21st Century ISBN

21oha “krkCnh esa vkpk;Z fouksck Hkkos dh izklafxdrk

On Kânchan-mukti and Rishi-kheti
Dr. Roderick Church

In late 1949, Vinoba Bhave and a few companions at his Paunar ashram resolved to grow their

own vegetables. Within weeks this modest experiment in self-reliance was transformed into something
much more ambitious—foregoing money and relying entirely on their own labor to support themselves.

The ultimate goal now was to identify completely with the poor and thereby create the conditions for
the appearance of non-violence, a kind of heaven on earth. If this sounds a bit crazy, perhaps it was;

but revolutionaries always sound crazy to begin with. This experiment at Paunar lasted several years
before it was swept away in the wake of the bhoodan movement. About all that remains now are the

name of two key concepts associated with the experiment: kânchan-mukti and rishi-kheti.
Kânchan-mukti (dkapu&eqfDr or “gold-liberation”) was the primary concept, the driving force

of the experiment. It is usually understood as “free from money” or “living without money” or “elimination
of the money economy.” Its goal is a world where money is not necessary. Rishi-kheti (_f’k&[ksrh or

“rishi-farming”) follows from pursuing kânchan-mukti in agriculture. It is sometimes defined as “farming
without bullocks” (this was India in 1950), but it is better understood as “manual farming” or “farming

using only human labor.” Today, the terms are little used, even in Gandhian discourse, and biographies
of Vinoba typically pay little attention to them.

Kânchan-mukti and rishi kheti are “hardly known” today, but suggests they still “can be useful
in current times” and may help to create renewed interest in Vinoba. This suggestion provides the

agenda for this paper. The first task is to make kânchan-mukti and rishi-kheti better known. I begin
(section I) with the decision to start the experiment at Paunar, first by putting it in context and then by

examining the two different rationales that Vinoba gave for the experiment. Next (section II), I explore
the experiment itself, paying particular attention to the development of kânchan-mukti and rishi-kheti

over time. Neither concept existed at the beginning, but emerged, at least partially, through practice.
While kânchan-mukti became more radical, more utopian, rishi-kheti became ever more pragmatic.

This paves the way to some observations (section III) on the impact, consequences, and legacy of the
experiment, including the contemporary revival of rishi-kheti in the sense of “natural farming.” Finally, I

offer a few concluding remarks that are more disjointed and inconclusive than I would like. There is still
a lot more work to be done.

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