Context: The Prime Minister of India has paid tributes to Acharya Vinoba Bhave on his Jayanti (September 11).
About Vinoba Bhave:
Vinoba Bhave (1895-1982) was an Indian nationalist and social-reform leader.
Bhave’s most notable contribution was the creation of the bhoodan (land gift) movement.
He was born into a high-ranking Chitapavan Brahmin family in Gagode village, south of Bombay.
Bhave and Mahatma Gandhi:
Vinayak Bhave was renamed with the affectionate diminutive “Vinoba” by Mahatma Gandhi.
He was associated with Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian independence movement.
He stayed for some time at Gandhi’s Sabarmati ashram in a cottage that was named after him, ‘Vinoba Kutir’.
In 1940 he was chosen by Gandhi to be the first individual Satyagrahi (an individual standing up for Truth instead of a collective action) against the British rule.
Sarvodaya and Bhoodan movement:
Bhave observed the life of the average Indian living in a village and tried to find solutions for the problems he faced with a firm spiritual foundation.
This formed the core of his Sarvodaya movement.
Another example of this is the Bhoodan (land gift) movement started at Pochampally on 18 April 1951.
He walked all across India asking people with land to consider him one of their sons and so gave him one-sixth of their land which he then distributed to landless poor.
He also campaigned against the slaughtering of cows.
Awards:
In 1958 Bhave was the first recipient of the international Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership.
He was awarded the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1983.
Literary works:
He called “Kannada” script the “Queen of World Scripts“
He wrote brief introductions to, and criticisms of, several religious and philosophical works like:
the Bhagavad Gita,
works of Adi Shankaracharya,
the Bible
the Quran.
Bhave had translated the Bhagavad Gita into Marathi.
His talks on the Bhagavad Gita were later published in book form, as Talks on the Gita, and it has been translated into many languages both in India and elsewhere.
