Page 96 - Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 21st Century ISBN

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

practice. I am trying to persuade my friends to leave money alone and get going with production. It is
yet to be seen how far I shall succeed in this.

In summary, Vinoba’s basic argument appears to be:
· in order to create the conditions for ahimsa, we need to completely identify with the poor; and

· we can do this only by forgoing money and supporting ourselves entirely by own labor.
The argument may be simple, but it seems far from obvious. One can almost hear the doubter:

“You mean we can only identify with the poor if we become poor ourselves? Gandhi’s idea of an hour
of labor a day is not enough?”

There is no doubt Vinoba is going beyond Gandhi. Gandhi never had an aversion to money (If
he had ever been asked about this, I imagine him smiling and saying “How could I? I am a bania.”). He

was a master at raising money and he took great pride in using it responsibly and accounting publicly
for every pâî. All Gandhi’s ashrams and constructive activities depended on a large and continuing flow

of money from gifts. There was a side of Gandhi which saw the ideal village worker as one who was
able to earn his own way and also serve the village, but Gandhi was too much the practical idealist to

insist on it. Gandhi had none of the qualms that Vinoba did about money. Even when he agreed to let
Vinoba resign from the Gandhi Seva Sangh, he made a point of saying that he not agree with Vinoba

reasoning and that he did not think being a trustee violated the ashram vow of non-possession. 6
There is also little doubt that Vinoba knew he was going beyond Gandhi. Near the end of his

speech to the pacifists, he says he thinks the reason for the current malaise among Gandhians is that:

A surprising turn?
Besides, there is much evidence to counter the idea that Vinoba was always this radical about

money. In April 1948, for example, when fund-raising for the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi was underway,
Vinoba was asked what he thought about public work depending on funds that are raised from rich

7
people who got their money by exploiting the poor. Vinoba begins by saying that our service should
never depend on money; it should be based primarily on our own labor and intellect. But he admits

“money does help a little.” He then goes on to say that “I have no right to judge whether my donor has
earned his money rightly or wrongly.” He would reject a donation, he says, if the donor expected a

benefit (like his name on the project). And even though he would not ask where money came from, if
a donor volunteered that the money came from a source Vinoba did not approve of, he would reject it

unless the donor was acting out of penance and giving up the activity. Vinoba concludes:
If [the rich] have come by [their money] by exploiting the poor, I can divest it from them in a

non-violent manner for the benefit of those poor people. The more important thing is how we make use
of the funds. If we use them in a good manner for a good purpose, we purify the money. ‘Gold may be

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