Word: bhoomidan
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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...
...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, and as always." He walked, with members of his ashram. New Delhi was 795 miles away...
...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 Bhoomidan-yagna...
Finally, on being assured that the medicines contained no animal matter, Bhave consented. He improved almost immediately. During his convalescence, Nehru and Prasad flew down for a visit. And his disciples carried on with Bhoomidan-yagna, collecting 33,000 acres of land. When Bhave took to the road again, the donations came in so fast that the ash ram's bookkeeping system was almost snowed under. Last week, after 110 miles of dusty tramping in Bihar, he had picked up another 365,000 acres...
Vinoba Bhave has read and admired the scriptures of other religions, and he knows that the way of love was discovered long ago in many places outside the mountain-walled subcontinent of India. Yet in this racked century, the way of love seems, as Bhoomidan-yagna shows, always...
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