Miscellaneous - This Day That Age   

dated June 28, 1953: A Fundamentally New India

On an eight-day tour of Gujarat, Mr. Jai Prakash Narayan spoke at a public meeting in Pardi, Surat district. Even after Independence, he said, the task of establishing a new social system remained. Communists felt they could redistribute land and wealth through their method.

But their violent ways in Telengana did not bring about any good. India needed a peaceful alternative, and Vinobaji placed before them his Bhoodan programme.

The idea was initially laughed at: some said it would take 500 years to solve the land problem through Bhoodan. But it had come to be realised that Bhoodan could truly bring about a revolution, and within just two years 15 lakh acres had been obtained. Mr. Narayan went on "Distribution of the land collected is harder work. Lack of workers has been delaying re-distribution. There should be no individual ownership of land in our new India. As in the olden days, all land should be with the community.

But nationalisation of land holdings is a wrong cry; because what we need is villager ownership of land. Local Panchayats should decide the targets, methods, and manner of agricultural production. We should all work towards making villages self-sufficient.

All this is possible when the Bhoodan movement succeeds.

I appeal to students to leave school for a year to join the movement. Nothing will be lost by this, because far more can be learnt in a year of work in villages among their people than in a year in school or University. For the country, eventually I visualize a day when the entire nation will be governed by a non-party administration devoted to public welfare.

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