Moved By Love: The Memoirs of Vinoba Bhave

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This book is not Vinobaji's autobiography. He himself used to say that if he were to sit down and write, the result would not be 'the story of the self, but a story of the 'not-self, because he was 'Vinoba the forgetful'. But he neither wrote nor dictated any such story of the not-self. But during the course of his thousands of talks he used to illustrate his topics by examples from experience, and these naturally included some incidents from his own life. This book is simply an attempt to pick out such incidents from various places and string them together. It follows that there are limits to what can be done. This is not a complete life story, only a glimpse of it. There is no attempt to give a full picture of every event, every thought, every step of the way. It brings together only those incidents and stories which are to be had in Vinoba's own words. Some important events may therefore not be found in it, and in some places it will seem incomplete, because the principle followed is to use only Vinoba's own account. Nevertheless, in spite of these limitations the glimpses will be found to be complete in themselves. Children are fond of playing with a 'jigsaw puzzle', where a complete picture, painted on a wooden plank, has been cut up into small pieces of many shapes and sizes; the aim is to fit them together in their proper places and so re-build the picture. Sometimes the players make mistakes and insert a piece into the wrong place, so that the picture is 1 The Hindi word for 'autobiography is atma-katha, literally 'story of the self'. spoiled. The trouble is with the child's lack of skill, not with the original painter of the picture. It is possible that in putting together these fragmentary 'glimpses' of Vinoba's life similar mistakes may have crept in. But then, as Jnanadev asks, how can one number the Infinite, or add lustre to the Supreme Radiance? How can the mosquito grasp in its fist the illimitable sky? As he goes on to say, there is one basis on which it can be done. The work has been undertaken in a spirit of utmost devotion on the basis of the 'gift of fearlessness' received from Vinoba. Vinoba has both given and received gifts of many kinds, but this gift of fearlessness which we have received from him is the quintessence of his own quest for non-violence, and shows that the quest was successful. There can be no doubt that these glimpses of his life will inspire and strengthen us to carry on that quest with enthusiasm. They are offered here in the name of the Lord.

In April 1951 Vinoba Bhave sprang into sudden prominence. He started his Bhoodan Yagna. This movement which we translated into English as 'Land Gift Mission was a brilliantly simple conception. Vinoba went on foot from village to village appealing to landlords to hand over at least one-sixth of their land to the landless cultivators of their village. "Air and water belong to all, Vinoba said. 'Land should be shared in common as well. The tone of voice in which this was said was all-important. It was never condemnatory, never harsh. Gentleness true Ahimsa was Vinoba's trademark. A gentleness backed up by a life of such dedication and simplicity that few could listen to his pleading unmoved. In the first six years of his mission Vinoba walked over five thousand miles and received land for distribution which amounted to an area equal to the size of Scotland. No doubt some of this land was as uncultivable as the Scottish highlands too. And here lay the main problem of Bhoodan Yagna from the practical point of view. After Vinoba had walked on to the next village and he very rarely stayed more than one night in any single place many villages developed factions and disagreements leading to disillusion and the rapid flickering out of the Bhoodan spirit which Vinoba had inspired. When I walked with Vinoba I found this aspect distressing, even heart-breaking. But today, reading the extracts translated by Marjorie Sykes, I see the situation in a different light. Vinoba was a true embodiment of the spirit of the Gita: 'In every age I come back, to deliver the holy, to destroy the sin of the sinner, to establish righteousness,' Krishna said. He did not promise permanent solutions; he redirected our gaze to the universal good and rekindled faith in human capacities. This is what Vinoba did. He did not worry about the fruits of his actions. If his actions were sound enough then their influence would work on the soggy dough of human consciousness and help it to rise up to achieve something nearer to its full potential. He was astonishingly at least to the eye of a Westerner-detached from the results. This attitude of detachment coloured every aspect of Vinoba's life and thought, as is shown in Marjorie Sykes' deft translation of extracts from his recorded speeches. Vinoba did not care what the world thought; he followed his own glimpse of the truth to its stark and logical conclusion. He had little of Mahatma Gandhi's wonderful sense of drama and little of his playfulness and sense of fun. But this apparent lack of 'personality' was not a defect. It was the inevitable price he had to pay for the great gift he brought us. 'Let only that little be left of me by which I may name Thee my all. Vinoba, with his usual mathe-matical precision, had calculated this sum exactly. There could be no one better qualified to translate Vinoba's thoughts for Western readers than Marjorie Sykes, who has been interpreting India to the West for well over fifty years! She brings to the task great skill, precision and understanding. Thus a dozen years after his death Vinoba once again confronts the western reader with his simplicity and subtlety, his courage and his supreme gentleness.

Vinoba Bhave was a man of great purity. I worked with him from 1955 to 1962, during his twenty-year campaign to give land to the poor. He was a man who was able to move the hearts of landlords and touch them so deeply that, in all, they voluntarily donated four million acres of land. This extraordinary happening, unprecedented anywhere in the history of the world, cannot be explained in any other way than by recognizing that his demand for land came from the heart of a saint untainted by any self-interest, desire for personal glory, or pursuit of material gain. Vinoba was doubtful of the value of formal education: he used to remark to his friends that the existing schools and colleges were only large factories for training 'your most obedient servants. After leaving school without taking his final examinations he prepared for his future life by going to Benares to study, contemplate and discuss with sadhus and scholars. Finally he felt that these holy men were cut off from the real world. In the dualism of God and the world, the meaning of wholeness was lost. God can only be realized through the world. It was then that Vinoba discovered Mahatma Gandhi: Gandhi who was campaigning to liberate the untouchables from the shackles of class domination, who was working to revitalize rural life, and who was living in a community which worked through prayer and meditation. Vinoba went to stay at Gandhi's ashram, and both felt a deep attraction for each other. From then on Vinoba devoted his life to seeking God and serving the people, particularly dedicating himself to the poor of India. Gandhi chose the little-known Vinoba Bhave, as one whose purity of motive was unquestionable, to be the first to raise the flag of independent India in the individual satyagraha campaign of 1940. Those who did not know Vinoba were surprised by the choice, but those who did know him approved wholeheartedly because here was a man who had no political axe to grind. Vinoba's non-violent but illegal actions as part of the freedom movement involved him in years of imprisonment. In spite of this he kept himself in the background after independence. He spent seven years, partly in studying and translating the Gita, the Upanishads and other Sanskrit texts, and partly in constructive work for the upliftment of the poor in a small village in central India. As is described in the following pages, Vinoba's great Land Gift Movement (Bhoodan) was brought about as a result of the riots between landless peasants and the mighty landlords near Hyderabad in south India. Vinoba was deeply disturbed by these riots, and travelled to the area in order to see if he could help to find a just solution to the grievances of the poor. The forty landless families of one village said they needed eighty acres for subsistence; and one landowner, Ramachandra Reddy, was so moved by Vinoba's presence that he made the unprecedented offer of a gift of one hundred acres of his land. Vinoba could not believe his ears: this was too good to be true. The landless families accepted only their original request for eighty acres. They assured the landlord that they would serve Mother Earth with all their heart. Wiping away his tears, Vinoba said, 'Both the donor and the recipients are present here in our midst. Let them exchange the land in our presence. The donor should also help these labourers with some seeds and implements for cultivating the land in a co-operative way. Then he added, 'I came with empty hands and I go with empty hands, but my heart is full.' Land belongs to God it belongs to all or none.