Word: bhave
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...years ago he went to the state of Hyderabad to attend a meeting of Gandhi's old disciples. The Communists were terrorizing Hyderabad, especially the Telingana district, and Bhave was appalled by what he found there...
...Bhave wandered into areas from which the police had warned him to stay away, but he was unharmed. At first he preached ahimsa (Gandhi's old nonviolence), but he soon saw that this was not enough. "I confess," he said, "that the incendiary and murderous activities did not unnerve me, because I know that the birth of a new culture has always been accompanied in the past by blood baths. What is needed is not to get panicky, but to keep our heads cool and find a peaceful means of resolving the conflict. The police are not expected...
Then Vinoba Bhave thought of asking landowners to give land to the landless, saying (or at least politely implying) that if they did not, the Communists or the government might take it away. Thus Bhoomidan-yagna was born, in bloody Telingana. Even the Nizam of Hyderabad, reputed one of the richest and most miserly men in the world, gave some land, though neither the Nizam nor Bhave would say how much (the merit acquired by giving is lost by boasting of it). Some 35,000 acres were collected and reassigned to the most destitute. Gradually the revolt and the terror...
Palms & Mango Leaves. Prime Minister Nehru's government was delighted. Nehru too is Gandhi's heir-but a modern, half-Westernized one. Gandhi had a political core which Bhave ignores and Nehru has inherited. Nehru, moreover, believes in industrialization and irrigation and vast schemes; Bhave believes in self-denial and spinning wheels. After Bhave's triumph in Telingana, Nehru wanted him to come to New Delhi and discuss Bhoomidan-yagna with the National Planning Commission, and offered to send a plane down to fly Vinoba back. Vinoba said: "I will come, but in my own time...
That slow plodding to the capital, which took two months, was a triumphant journey. At nearly every town and village, Bhave found arbors of palms and mango leaves erected for him to walk through. Underfed, ragged villagers crowded around to touch the holy man's feet, and to bathe them when he would stop for a rest. Municipal dignitaries garlanded him with flowers, which the little ascetic passed back to the crowd. At each departure, the elders walked with him a mile toward the next village. And at every stop, he held a prayer meeting and carried on with...