Page 99 - Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 21st Century ISBN

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

benefits: lower unemployment, support for Nai Talim, and improved agricultural techniques. The last
benefit, a reduced burden on animals, stands out a bit from the rest, and it is the only one explicitly

linked to traditional Gandhian goals like self-reliance and non-violence. Recommending farming because
it provides a connection to nature [izd`fr] and natural therapy [izkd`frd mipkj] seems a bit unusual for

Vinoba, but it is quite consistent with his support for Nature Cure approaches to health.
Once Vinoba has provided this list of benefits and says the ashram has made good progress in

realizing them, he concludes his reflections by showing how rishi-kheti fits into the overall scheme of
things. It turns out that rishi-kheti has a more modest role than its prominence as a label might suggest.

For one thing, there is no all-out commitment to manual labor. Whatever the original intention, rishi-
kheti is now just one of the options available. It exists in the ashram alongside both bullock power and

engine power. All three work together, says Vinoba, and there is no opposition between them.
Rishi-kheti does not even have to be the preferred option. Let every method proceed without

conflict, Vinoba suggests at the end of his article. For those who view bullocks as an integral part of
their family (perhaps there has been some criticism of rishi-kheti because it appears to demean bullocks),

Vinoba suggest starting with bullocks is fine but such farming can still make use of rishi-kheti and
“modern, improved tools on a limited scale.”

At this point it is becoming difficult to see rishi-kheti, or at least rishi-kheti in practice, as
much more than a sensible approach to farming—i.e., work hard and use the most appropriate technology

to get the job done.

Kânchan-mukti
If the commitment to rishi-kheti softened over time, the opposite seems true for kânchan-

mukti. I still do not know exactly when the term kânchan-mukti came to be the standard term for the
effort to be free of money. My earliest confirmed use so far is a letter from June 1951. In the beginning

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it was paise se mukht and as late in 1952 kânchan-mochan was used. There were other variants as
well. But whatever the terminology there does seem to be an increasing demonization of money as time

goes on and an increasing insistence that money be eliminated.
This began soon after the start of the experiment. In March 1950 Vinoba described money as

lafangâ [#i;kyQaxkgS]. He will use the word over and over again in the next couple of years. A simple
translation is difficult. The Oxford dictionary suggests: [1] a braggart, empty talker, loud-mouth; [2] a

depraved person; or [3] a undesirable person in general. Much depends, of course, on context and
tone of voice, but lafangâ is definitely not complementary. Vinoba usually uses it in a context of

price—a rupee buys this much grain at one point and half as much at another time; therefore it is unreal,

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