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At the very first
meeting in East Pakistan I told the people how glad I was to be
there. ‘It’s my own country,’ I said. ‘I don’t feel that Hindustan
and Pakistan are any different; they have the same air, the same
soil, the same people, the same human hearts—there is no difference
at all. The whole earth is ours, and we are all its servants. It is
a mere accident that we are born and die in one country rather than
another. I feel that I belong here, for all human society is my
home, and wherever I go I say Jai Jagat.’
At my first two or three meetings people shouted Pakistan Zindabad—‘Long
live Pakistan’. Jai Jagat, I res- ponded, and gradually the phrase
caught on. Jai Jagat brought everyone together in love and harmony.
By this time I had completed my selections from the Holy Koran, and
they were about to be published in book form. Before the book
appeared however the newspaper Dawn of Karachi attacked me. This
infidel, it said, was taking liberties with the text of Holy
Scripture. Muslim periodicals in India at once took up the cudgels
on my behalf; it was wrong, they said, to criticize a book without
reading it. Their support touched me very much.
In East Pakistan I followed the practice of silent common prayer,
and thousands of Hindus, Muslims and Christians all came to take
part. Dawn criticized this too, and accused me of introducing Hindu
prayers, but the papers of East Pakistan made no such accusation. ‘I
am doing nothing,’ I replied, ‘against the worship you practise in
your own homes, whether you use an image, or offer namaj, or follow
any other form. But can there, or can there not, be a form of prayer
in which all of us may unite? If the answer is No, God Himself will
be cut to pieces.’
On the very first day I asked for land, and a Muslim donor stood up
to pledge his gift. This was a good beginning; it opened the door.
It showed that the human heart is the same everywhere, and that in
East Pakistan also the land problem could be solved by love and
non-violence. I am much touched by the affectionate treatment I
received among my Pakistani brothers. The government too deserves my
thanks for all the arrangements it made to ease my pilgrimage. All
the inhabitants gave me brotherly love, and I believe that even
those journalists who at first were critical became my friends in
the end, and were convinced of my good intentions.
At the time of my visit to East Pakistan I had been turning over an
idea in my mind for about a year. I realized that while gramdan was
fully in line with human social instincts, it did not accord so well
with the instinct of self-preservation. I began to look for
something which might satisfy both instincts together, and hit on
the idea of what is called sulabh (easy) gramdan. This means that
each individual owner surrenders one-twentieth of his land for
distribution to the landless, and that the legal ownership of all
the land is vested in the village community. The former owners
however continue to cultivate the remaining nineteen-twentieths of
their original holdings, and may not be deprived of that right
without their own consent.
I put this idea before the people of (West) Bengal. The workers
responded with new enthusiasm, and a number of villages were donated
in this way. One of them was the village of Plassey, the site of the
battle which marks the loss of India’s freedom. There in Bengal I
met Pandit Nehru (for the last time) and as we talked together I
gave him this news. ‘I am delighted to hear it,’ he said. ‘It brings
Milton to mind, how he wrote first Paradise Lost and afterwards
Paradise Regained. Now we too have our Plassey Lost and Plassey
Regained !’ He went on to speak of it that day in his public
meeting. ‘Our real battle,’ he said, ‘is with poverty, and for that
battle Baba’s (Vinoba’s) proposals for gramdan will be of very great
service.’
At the same time I was also thinking much about khadi. Khadi workers
from all over India met at Navadwip in Bengal in February 1963, and
I shared my thinking with them. ‘So far,’ I said, ‘khadi has been
government-oriented, that is, it has depended on government help.
From now on it should be village-oriented. My idea is that every
indivi- dual (spinner) should have a few yards of cloth woven free
of charge. This would encourage village people to spin, while at the
same time the village would become self-reliant for its cloth. If a
village by its own efforts can produce its own food and its own
cloth, it will be really strong, and so in consequence will the
country. This is a real “defence measure”, and I ask you to take it
up on a war footing. Listen to the poet Browning:
I was ever a fighter, so one fight more,
The best and the last.
I believe we must fight this last fight for khadi—let khadi be
enthroned as king, or else it will wither away.’
On the eighteenth of April 1963, the day when I completed twelve
years of pilgrimage, I was on my way to Gangasagar.1 I looked back,
that day, on those twelve years of daily speaking. ‘It has been a
consecrated, strenuous effort,’ I said. ‘People have named it the
Bhoodan Ganga, and like Mother Ganga herself the bhoodan stream
should also merge into the ocean, here at Gangasagar. From now on my
pilgrimage will be a tyaga-yatra, a journey of renunciation. I shall
shed all my burdens and simply set out to enjoy myself, to indulge
in happy play. My main interest will be to build up a cadre of
workers, bound together through the length and breadth of India by
ties of mutual affection and by a common agreed approach to the
principles of their work.’
 Worshipping a Trinity
For a number of reasons I had ceased to attend Sarvodaya
conferences. All the same, I did attend the Raipur conference in
1963, and placed before it a triple programme:
(1) Gramdan—Without gramdan we cannot fit ourselves for the new age
of One World. Today a family is too small a unit; it must be
enlarged to include the whole village. Only when this is done can we
talk of world peace. Gramdan is at one end of the scale, and Jai
Jagat at the other.
(ii) Shanti-sena—We cannot claim that non-violence has any real
power until we have such a widespread Peace Army that there is no
need of a police force, and no occasion whatever to use the army.
The Shanti-sena, the Peace Army, is a must.
(iii) Village-Oriented Khadi—Khadi today depends on government help
and rebate, and so loses all real power. Khadi should be a vehicle
of the people’s revolution. Village-oriented khadi is what Gandhiji
himself wished to see.
The conference passed a resolution accepting this triple programme,
and as soon as the meeting was over I left Raipur for Maharashtra,
for the Vidarbha region, for Wardha.
Coming Back to Where I Started
I returned to Wardha by the same road along which I had set out for
Delhi almost thirteen years earlier. As we drew near to Wardha my
companions asked me how I felt, did I have a special feeling for the
place? ‘As I see it,’ I replied, ‘the whole world is my home, but
the land of India is my home in a special way. It is for me what in
Marathi is called “the middle house”, the central room. Maharashtra
is like an alcove for worship within that room, and the Wardha
district is the inmost shrine in the alcove, the “holy of holies”.’
I reached Paunar on the tenth of April 1964, thirteen years three
months and three days after I had left, and for the first time since
the Brahmavidya Mandir had been founded in 1959. People felt anxious
about my bodily health, and at their request I agreed to stay at
Paunar for a fairly long time. My point of view however was
different from theirs. It would be a credit to me, no doubt, to go
on carrying the message of bhoodan-gramdan to the people, but it
would be no credit to them, to those other men and women, that I
should still have to do so, even after thirteen years. In order to
be clear about my duty in this situation I agreed, rather
half-heartedly, to ‘rest’.
When a decision has to be made about one’s duty, one must first and
foremost examine oneself inwardly; one must also consider outward
circumstances. I agreed to stay at Paunar partly for this
self-examination, but I had another reason also. I had been
instrumental in founding six Ashrams, all of which had the same
central purpose, the education of workers. It was my duty to give
some attention to them also, and during this period of rest I hoped
to do some thinking about it.
The Typhoon-Pilgrimage
While I was living in Paunar the Sarva Seva Sangh held a session at
Gopuri, Wardha. People came together from all over India, and those
from each State came as a group to meet me. I said to the Biharis:
‘Why not set to work to raise a regular typhoon?2 Ten thousand
gramdans in the next six months ! If you will do that, and need me,
I will come.’ They agreed to do it, and off I went to Bihar. (August
1965)
It had been decided that I should go on from Bihar to Orissa, and a
programme had been drawn up for me. But suddenly I fell ill with
fissures and was obliged to remain in Jamshedpur. During this
illness I continued to think about my situation. If I had called on
people to raise a ‘typhoon’ while I myself sat still in Paunar, that
would merely have reflected my own arrogance. But I had moved out, I
had shared fully in the work in Bihar, and now I was compelled to
stop, to rest. I felt that this was a sign from God, and that to
insist on moving about would be to disregard His will. I benefited a
lot, for the greater part of my time was spent in reflection and
meditation. Telegrams poured in daily with news of gramdans. The
‘typhoon’ had reached a speed about half of what I had hoped for.
I left for North Bihar on March 16, 1966.
Sookshma-Pravesh: Entering a deeper inward
path3
In those days I began to feel an inward call that I should now stop
putting so much pressure on the people to accept my ideas. The
people themselves, it is true, did not regard it as pressure, but it
is pressure nevertheless when a man gets after them over and over
again with the same appeals. It seemed to me that during the course
of that year I should decide to put an end to this. If people came
to me of their own accord I would give them my advice and so on, but
my own efforts would be directed towards a more inward from of
activity.
I had a specific date in mind. The seventh of June was drawing near,
and that was the fiftieth anniversary of the date when I first went
to Bapu. ‘If the Lord does not take me away before then,’ I thought,
‘I will ask Gandhiji on that day to release me from service.’ Not
release from truth, of course, nor from non-violence, but from the
labours in which I had been engaged at his behest for the last fifty
years. Gandhiji would surely not be unwilling to set me free, for no
one expects someone in the prime of life to give the same service as
a child, nor that those who have reached old age should give the
same service as those in their prime.
On June 7, 1966 I therefore announced that I was feeling a strong
urge to free myself from outward visible activities and enter upon
this inward, hidden from of spiritual action, and that I would begin
to practise it that very day. ‘It was on this date,’ I said, ‘that I
had my first meeting with Bapu. That was in 1916, exactly fifty
years ago. In that same year, a few months earlier, I had left home
in the name of Brahma, the Supreme. Now I have received an inward
call to lay at the feet of the Lord whatever outward visible service
I have given, and to enter the realm of the hidden, the inward. It
is a process to which I have given a new name: Sookshma Karmayoga—the
hidden, more deeply inward path of action, rather than calling it
meditation, or the pathway of devotion, of knowledge and so on. For
me this is not a new thought, but an old one. Today I am beginning
to act on it, to start reducing myself to zero. As a first step, I
am going to put a strict limit on my correspondence.’
I believe that a lot of work is done in this innermost hidden way,
and that those whose personal desires have been blotted out in the
contemplation of God and His crea- tion may be of the greatest
service, invisible though it be.
In this Sookshma Karmayoga, this innermost hidden path of action,
there is no abandoning of compassion, of generosity or of
self-control. Our triple programme calls for them all. It is
compassion that inspires the Shanti-sena—compassion pitted against
anger. Gramdan is the work of generosity—generosity pitted against
greed. Khadi is the work of self-control—self-control pitted against
self-indulgence. This being so, even when I abandon the outward
visible way for the inward hidden one, my heart will always be in
these works of compassion, generosity and self-control.
So the ‘typhoon’ went on, but letter-writing was almost at an end,
and I did little speaking. My thoughts were on the call to
inwardness and how I might enter into it more deeply. ‘I have been
talking for seventeen years,’ I said, ‘and it is not right to go on
talking indefinitely. I must keep my links with all our
fellow-workers, but these should be of an inward nature. I have
therefore had a list prepared with the names of all the workers of
Bengal, and I would like to have similar lists of workers from all
over India. I want to keep an inward bond with them all, and
remember them in meditation. Most people do not recognize what power
this inward bond may have, but the bond is only there when one is
emptied completely of self.’
Spiritual resolutions of this kind are within the compass of the
will of God, and yet they can be made as free decisions. A devotee
acts on his resolve, and God helps that devotee. To receive such
help is one thing, to receive a command from God is another.
Seventeen years ago at Pochampalli in Telangana I asked for eighty
acres of land for the Harijans and received one hundred acres. I
could not sleep that night; I turned to God. The word came, the
divine command: ‘You must take up this work.’ I have been on the
march ever since. Then, during the meeting of the Sarva Seva Sangh
at Gopuri (Wardha), the slogan ‘typhoon’ arose; I set out on my
travels once more, by car, and that slogan has caught on. To me,
that too is a sign that the orders came from God.
Acharyakul: a Family of Teachers
In December 1967 again, at the conference of scholars at Pusa Road,
I felt myself to have received a divine command. I do not remember
such a conference being held before, either during my earlier
travels or even during the time of Gandhiji. In old days such
gatherings were called Sangiti, and I felt that this was a special
event. Moreover the idea was not mine, and I had done nothing to
arrange it. Karpoori Thakur4 made all the arrangements, and he told
me that not a penny of Government money had been spent. That made me
feel that God was behind it, and that if we obeyed His orders we
could bring about a non-violent revolution in education.
At the conference I said that the guidance of the affairs of the
whole country ought to be in the hands of its acharyas, its
teachers. Today however teachers have been relegated to the ordinary
ranks of service; the educational institutions do not,
unfortunately, have the same measure of indepen- dence as the
judiciary. Even though the salaries of the judges are paid by the
Government, the judiciary is independent; the judges are not subject
to authority. The teacher ought to have a similar independent
position, even though the salary may be paid by the Government from
public funds. But for the teachers to become independent in
practice, in the real sense of the word, there is one necessary
condition: that the teacher should develop his own strength and not
run after power-politics. He must keep clear of that dirty game,
rise above narrow ‘isms’, and go in for the politics of a humane
world order based on the moral power of the people—for what I call
loka-neeti, the politics of the common man.
Secondly, I said, there are two ways of dealing with unrest. They
might be called the Departments of Alleviation and Suppression. The
acharyas belong to the Department of Alleviation, while the
Government’s police force is the Department of Suppression. If the
teachers can succeed in allaying unrest (by getting the basic causes
removed) there will be no need whatever to suppress it. This means
that the field of action of the acharyas is the whole life of India;
its scope is not confined to the premises of the University. If the
police have to be called in anywhere we should regard it as a blot
on the acharyas’ record.
On the basis of these ideas the Acharya-kul was inaugurated at
Kahalgaon in March 1968. Kahalgaon is an ancient place whose name
commemorates the sage Kahol, who took part with other sages in the
assembly (described in the Brihadaranyak Upanishad) which was called
by Yajnavalkya for a discussion on Brahman, the Supreme. When I
spoke at Kahalgaon I said: ‘I have come to Bihar this time looking
forward to two things. First, that the whole of Bihar should become
a gift state.5 Second, that the teachers should realize their
autonomous power. Let there be a fellowship of all teachers and
acharyas, and let it be called Acharya-kul.’
I went to Bihar with two slogans, ‘typhoon’ and ‘six months’, but I
stayed there for four years. The people of Bihar did splendid work.
No one failed to do his utmost, and the result was that every
district in Bihar declared itself ‘gifted’. By October 1969, at the
Rajgir Sarvodaya confe- rence, the whole stage proclaimed Bihar-dan.
I would like to repeat something I said during the early days of the
bhoodan movement. We shall have to decide, I said, what kind of
society we want to create. ‘Many alternatives are open to us today;
all of us are faced with a crucial decision concerning our social
and economic structure. Which road shall we take? What method shall
we adopt? If we use bad means for good ends, India will be faced
with endless problems. If we use non-violent means to solve our
problems, there will be no problems left. This is the work of
Dharmachakra-Pravartan, turning the Wheel of Righteousness. I
believe that by such endeavour we shall find the key to non-violence
in our hands.’
I cannot complain that God has given me a sorrowful lot, for
everywhere I have found happiness in plenty. I cannot return even a
fraction of the love I have been given, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari,
from the west to Assam in the far east. I cannot imagine that I
could ever repay this debt of love, so richly have I received. I can
only say to the people, in the words which Saint Madhavadeva wrote
to his guru: ‘I can do nothing except bow before you.’ I salute you
all, with reverence and devotion. |
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