Vinoba: harmony in thought

By Thomas Weber

Vinoba explained that with the progress of science and the creation of nuclear weapons humanity faced ultimate destruction. In order to neutralise this force of violence and to arouse the world's conscience Gandhi's nonviolence had to take on "more subtle and finer forms." Satyagraha could no longer afford to "create agitation or tension in the minds of the opponent," it had to avoid a "collision of minds and seek harmony in thought." Until change was brought about through understanding and acceptance, rather than through imposition, "the seeds of violence, imperialism and world wars would not be rooted out."

Consequently, Vinoba declared that Jesus' concept of "resist not evil" and Gandhi's "nonviolent resistance" were no longer adequate and what now had to take their place was "nonviolent assistance" in right thinking. Without this all that could be achieved was legislative reform, and that could never lead to total revolution. Vinoba saw the use of political structures as a method of solving problems as doomed to failure: "When one problem appears to be nearing a solution, ten others crop up", and when a solution appears to have been achieved "soon it raises its head again." With Bhoodan, the land-gift movement, he had already provided the classical example.

The transformation to a sarvodaya social order was to be accomplished without directly challenging the legitimacy of the state, for, after all, in a democratic system, power had been entrusted to the state by the people. However, it could not be achieved through the ballot which Vinoba saw as either a farce that left real power in the hands of the few, or as a formula for disruption. Vinoba's aim was to create conditions which would "do away with the need to use even the power of the State." The achievement of this anarchist polity was to come about gradually - he was not anti-state; he hoped to bypass the structures on which the state rested and thus allow it to whither away. Vinoba was fond of saying that politics disintegrates and spirituality unites. He made it clear that for him there could be no outward revolution without a corresponding internal one, without a change in mental attitude: "All revolutions which take place, whether they are social or economic, have their roots in spiritual ideas. At first there is a change in spiritual values and later on social, political and economic values undergo change."

Given his activist background, it is not surprising that at the time of this intellectual reassessment, JP's analysis of the political situation and his understanding of satyagraha would mature into something substantially different from Vinoba's, that unlike Vinoba he would embrace the position of Gandhi the politician over Gandhi the saint. JP noted that although Vinoba seemed to hold that "systematic change in the political order could be brought about without a struggle, even a peaceful struggle," after twenty years of effort nowhere had success been achieved. JP's primary concern was the achievement of real democracy and a society devoid of inequalities where all lived in a state of freedom. His concerns, like Vinoba's, were centred on the problems of the human condition - freedom of the human personality, of the mind and of the spirit - but his quest was a political, not a spiritual one. He was searching for the form of social organisation which would provide the masses with the maximum freedom, and the most appropriate way of bringing it about.

JP was for a partyless democracy but he saw that there was no alternative to parties in the short term, not until a lengthy process of mass political education had managed to eradicate the distinctions of class and caste. Rather than merely allowing the state to wither away he saw danger for the future if anti-democratic tendencies in power politics were not tackled. His rejection of the Vinoba's "positive" satyagraha came from his realisation that it was inadequate to produce the psychological climate necessary to bring about the social revolution he desired. Ostergaard makes the point that whereas Western anarchism is "immediatist", Indian anarchism is "gradualist". JP was more anarchistic in the Western sense, reverting to active struggle and "negative" satyagraha. Unlike Vinoba, he was also anti-state, pitting people's power against that of the state. Vinoba, on the other hand, was a gradualist, far more concerned with the purity of the means than with any immediate ends that may be achieved.