Page 93 - Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 21st Century ISBN

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I. The experiment begins

What became known as the Paunar experiment in kânchan-mukti and rishi-kheti began on
Tuesday, November 8, 1949, when Vinoba told his ashram colleagues how pleased he was that “we

have decided that from January we will stop buying green vegetables from the bazaar and we will be
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satisfied with the green vegetables produced here.” The goal was modest. However, little more than
six weeks later, on Christmas Day, the goal suddenly became much more radical. Why it did so is
something of a mystery.

The return to Paunar

There is no mystery in how it all started. Vinoba had been touring the country for more than
eighteen months, acting as a roving ambassador for Nehru and a kind of stand-in for Gandhi. In early

October 1949 he was in Wardha for a few days when he began to experience serious stomach pains.
On November 1st doctors diagnosed a duodenal ulcer. In the light of knowledge today, we can say the

cause of the ulcer was almost certainly a bacterial infection, but in those days stress was a common
explanation for stomach ulcers, and the doctors advised rest. Vinoba ignored them—he was not the

kind of person to rest. Instead, he devised his own remedy, based on his belief (shared with Gandhi)
that sickness was a sign that something was wrong with the direction of his life. He quickly decided to

abandon his touring and return to his ashram. Within a week, he had talked the young men who were
working at the ashram into joining him in growing their own vegetables.

The ulcer explains the timing of Vinoba’s change in direction, but other things help explain why
the therapy of choice was an ashram experiment at Paunar. History is one. Vinoba had first gone to

Paunar in 1938 under similar circumstances—as a way to regain his health by hard physical work and
a simple diet. He would do it again.

Another factor is even simpler: Vinoba never wanted to leave the ashram in the first place. He
left only because of pressure at the Sevagram Conference of constructive workers in March 1948.

The main question for the Conference was what to do now without Gandhi. Some people argued for
active engagement with contemporary problems even if that might mean some compromise with strict

adherence to non-violence. Vinoba said “no,” that there was an option between the cowardice of
doing nothing and lowering their standards of non-violence. If they did not have the capacity to act

non-violently (a widely shared assumption at the time), he said, he preferred to stay non-active on the
sidelines and gather strength to find a non-violent way forward—”In sitting silently there is also tapasya.

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In non-action there is also tapasya. A creative program of thoughtful non-action is also action.” However,
this was not the consensus of the conference and Vinoba ended up answering Nehru’s call to help ease

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