realization of economic independence—Sarvodaya—or the good of all. Vinoba has gathered round him a band of devoted and disciplined followers, pledged to his creed of land gifts. Chief among them is India's Socialist leader, Jayaprakash Narayan, who has made a gift of his life (Javandan) to the cause. Vinoba's appeal is essentially religious. He looks upon all men as children of God and loves them all in equal measure. And India always responds to a man of renunciation. His travels are marked by continuous festival. Through the villages, as he walks, the poorest huts are festooned with palms and mango leaves—symbol of good fortune. He accepts gifts from the rich or the poor because each man has something to give and must offer all he can. Vinoba puts his trust in the inevitable conversion of the heart. “I am a stream in which rivers come with all types of water—dirty, hard, soft or fine. I accept them with good grace.” Vinoba believes that India needs a wide distribution of small machines and a more decentralized system of production, based on the village, not on the city. Planning must start with putting people, not machines, to work. He preaches the Gospel of self-help. “If you don't help your-selves, God won't help you. He can't shower food and clothing. His mercy can be manifested in the form of rain on the fields. It is you who have to sow seed for food and cotton for cloth. If you go on snoozing after sunrise, how can you enjoy the warmth of the rising sun?” Vinoba Bhave is discussing his land gift mission with Dr. Rajendra Prasad, President of India. (Government of India Photograph.)

A New World to Create Gandhi initiated the people into truth and nonviolence, and through them gave India political freedom. It is Vinoba's task to educate the people into non-possession, non-stealing, and thus to bring about the other half of India's freedom—economic independence. Vinoba is a great educator and believes like the Sage Vivekananda before him, that education is the unfolding of the divinity already in man. The object of his movement is to change people by persuasion. The establishment of equality, to bring about Sarvodaya, the greatest good of all, and not the greatest good of the greatest number, is the object of Bhoodan Yajna. Vinoba says, “I demand land as of right on behalf of the poor. I do not beg it of you. I say I am here to initiate you into the right conduct. A great revolution is taking place in India. I invite you all to work for this revolution. I seek to revolutionize thought, to revolutionize minds. The sages say young people delight in new creation, a new mission. Here is a mission for them, a new world to create.” To superficial observers, Bhoodan is just an agrarian movement, preparing the ground for legislation. It is, in fact, the beginning of an allround social and human revolution—human also because it aims at changing man along with society. Persuasion, change of heart and mind, creation of new social values and a corresponding climate of opinion, non-co-operation with evil when persuasion proved inadequate—these were