India in the thirties: Due to centuries of subjugation and exploitation by foreign rulers, India had become a highly impoverished country. With one hundred and fifty years of British rule, India had virtually turned into a captive market of Britain. During that period, industries and infra-structure were in a very primitive state and the growth and development was almost stagnant. Most of the consumer goods and capital goods were imported from Britain and shiploads of raw materials regularly left the shores of India for feeding the industries of Britain. Seventy five percent of the people living in India in the thirties of the last century, depended on primitive and low yielding methods of agriculture, where the returns were generally below subsistence level. There was wide spread unemployment and under employment and most of the people had become used to living in conditions, which hovered below subsistence level. That was the time, when Mahatma Gandhi had taken up the mantle of undisputed leader of the Indian National Congress. He could see that millions of people were unable to lay hands on sufficient cloth to cover themselves. Cloth was the basic need of the people and an item of mass consumption. Naturally, Khadi became the bye word. All hands were encouraged to take up spinning and weaving as a religious ritual and in course of time, Khadi was able to fulfill to a large measure, one of the basic needs of the masses. Gradually, as time rolled on, Khadi was adopted for formal wear by all well to do people, politicians and the elite and consequently, the mass consumption of Khadi generated employment for millions of people at their doorstep.
Bhoodan: Sarvodaya was another concept floated by Mahatma Gandhi during that period. It conveys the rise, uplift and welfare of everybody. Sarvodaya was a socio-economic need of the times. Acharya Binoba Bhave was a dedicated disciple of Mahatma Gandhi. In the year 1951 he walked 300 miles from his Pavnar Ashram near Nagpur to Shivrampali near Hyderabad for attending the third annual conference of Sarvodaya. Subsequently, looking to the plight of landless labour in the region, he decided to walk through the communist infested areas of Telangana. On 18 April 1951 he was addressing a meeting at Pochampalli in Nalgonda district, where out of 700 families of the village, two thirds were landless. There he had an opportunity to visit a Harijan Basti, where 40 landless families were living. They told Acharya Vinoba Bhave that, if he can manage to obtain about 80 acres of land for them, roughly two acres for each family, they can be freed from their economic woes. For a moment Acharya Vinoba Bhave was in a fix. Thaat was the time, when Ram Chandra Reddy, a local landowner got up and told Vinoba Bhave that he will part with his 100 acres of his land for the benefit of the landless Harijan families. That led to thinking, that, if most of the landowners of the country can voluntarily pass on a part of their land for the benefit of the landless people, the landless people can be freed from the shackles of extreme poverty and hunger. That was the beginning of the concept of Bhoodan. Thereafter, Acharya Binoba Bhave undertook padyatra from village to village and state to state in the country, for almost a decade. Over four million acres of land was collected, bringing transformation in the lives and thinking of the people. In course of time, Gramdan, Ziladan, Prantdan, Sampattidan and Jeevandan were born as extensions of the concept of Bhoodan.
Kanjivaram: Kanjivaram is a prominent town of Tamilnadu, located in the south-west of Chennai. Kanjivaram is well known throughout the country for the production of silk sarees. Kanjivaram was the venue of Annual Sarvodaya Conference during the summer of the year 1957. Acharya Vinoba Bhave was in Tamil Nadu during that period for his Bhoodan padyatra. He reached Kanjivaram for participating in the Sarvodaya Conference and had plans to continue his padyatra from Kanjivaram to Pondicherry after the conclusion of the conference. Acharya Bhave’s Padyatra involved eight to ten miles of walk every day followed by a public meeting at suitable place in the village or near road crossings, where the land owners announced donations of land for Bhoodan. A hut used to be erected in advance in the villages of scheduled halts, for the overnight stay of Acharya Vinoba. Normally, forty to fifty persons followed Achrya Bhave during his padyatra. These people were accommodated at a suitable public place in the village for overnight stay. Kamraj Nadar was the chief minister of the congress government in Tamilnadu at that time. Jagannathan was the president of Tamilnadu Congress. Jagannathan had taken upon himself, all responsibilities for the padyatra of Acharya Vinoba Bhave in Tamilnadu. He used to move from village to village, two days ahead of the padyatra of Acharya Vinoba Bhave. He would contact and induce the local landowners falling on the route, to part with part of their land for Bhoodan and to make suitable announcements in the meetings at the halting places of Acharya Bhave. Apparently, there was a lot of enthusiasm in the people for the movement.
My trip to Madras: The first two years of Civil Engineering School Allahabad were rather hectic. With the completion of final term of the first batch of students, I sensed the possibilities of some free moments during the summer of 1957 and decided to spend a week on bhoodan padyatra with Acharya Vinoba Bhave, to get some feel of the revolutionary movement. I landed at Madras (Chennai) and was informed that Acharya Vinoba Bhave had already left Kanjeevaram and was on his way to Pondicherry. I was accordingly advised to utilize the local bus for meeting the padyatra party at their next halt. I was thankful to the local people at Madras for all the help rendered by them. Incidentally, I boarded a through bus and was expected to get down after a few stops. As the bus was speeding through, I found that all the road signs were written in Tamil, I looked to the shops and other public places on the way. All boards were in Tamil. I tried to talk to some of the fellow passengers. Everybody was speaking Tamil and none of them understood English or Hindi. Naturally, I was in a fix and was unable to decide when and where to get down. In the meantime, the bus had a few halts. On one of the halts it stopped near a Police Thana. There hung a road map of the area, with names of halts in English. I looked to the map, looked to the junction points and directions marked on the map and tried to figure out the location of the place, where I was expected to get down. Apart from some anxious moments, the whole thing worked out and I was able to join the padyatra party of Acharya Vinoba Bhave sometime in the evening.
Meeting with Acharya Vinoba Bhave: Damodar Das Mundhra was the private secretary of Acharya Vinoba Bhave. He kept a daily count of all the arrivals and departures of people who joined the padyatra and briefed Acharya Vinoba Bhave about it regularly. Normally, the padyatra commenced every morning with Acharya Vinoba Bhave in the lead, with three to four persons moving on his sides and forty to fifty persons following him in a bunch. Acharya Vinoba Bhave was a learned and well informed person and was fond of interacting with the new arrivals in the padyatra on almost all types of topics. As such, during the padyatra, Acharya Vinoba Bhave used to signal to Damodar Das Mundhra and he would move the desired person close to him for man to man talks with him on the way. During his padyatra from Kanjeevaram to Pondicherry, Acharya Vinoba Bhave had a morning session of eight to ten miles and then an afternoon practice session of another eight to ten miles. The intention was to speed up the process of bhoodan.
The day I joined padyatra, Damodar Das Mundhra got all my particulars and I told him that I was likely to be with them for about a week. Next day, I joined the bunch of followers during the morning session and had a taste of moving briskly with the people with the bag of clothes and other essentials in the hand. The public meeting at the place of first halt was near a road junction and everybody squatted on the ground. The announcement of donations were made as usual and everything was neatly arranged and orderly. During the afternoon session the number of persons in the padyatra were only eight to ten. As soon as we were on the march, Damodar Das Mundhra told me that Acharya Vinoba Bhave wants to talk to me and I was pushed ahead to join him during the march. We talked freely, on almost everything including my qualifications and experience, the type of jobs that I had handled and my motivation for joining the padyatra. In the evening, when everybody was resting after the conclusion of the padyatra for the day, I was summoned by Acharya Vinoba Bhave. He was in a relaxed mood and briefly appraised me about all the goings on and achievements of bhoodan and about the redistribution of land and resettlement projects of landless labour. He told me that they have been able to achieve Ziladan of Koraput district of Orrisa and that a number development projects have been initiated there for the benefit and empowerment of the needy people. He wanted me to visit Koraput on my way back and to interact with the people working on the development projects of bhoodan in that district. Next day, in the early hours of the morning I was on my way to Pondicherry alongwith some followers of AcharyaVinoba Bhave. They were scheduled to meet the Chief Minister at Pondicherry, who happened to be a congressman. After a short stay at Pondicherry I boarded the coastal train for Koraput..
Koraput: Koraput is a district of Orissa lying on the eastern ghats along the coastline. It is full of rich and diverse types of mineral deposits. The population is predominantly tribal. People are subject to famines and survive for months on gruel made from local millets, dried mango stones and other forest products. The district happens to be one of the most backward districts of the country. After Ziladan, Acharya Vinoba Bhave had obtained the services of a number of senior people from the government for handling redistribution of land and resettlement of landless and impoverished people. A large number of small irrigation projects had been initiated and a number of service centres manned by eight to ten persons had been established. I had an opportunity to visit some of the irrigation project sites and to stay overnight at some of the service centres. Most of the workers associated with the project were extremely dedicated and selfless people, who were deeply committed for service to the people. They were living at the centres as members of a joint family and apart from their involvement in the assigned field tasks, they took turns for cooking meals and meeting other essential needs of the group.
Naxalism: It is rather unfortunate that in spite of a rich cover of minerals and forest products and fertile river valleys, the people have continued to remain extremely poor and impoverished and gradually, naxalites have been able to exploit the hilly terrain and poverty of the people for the spread of their activities.