AFVOA Newletters of Year 2004

Page 115 of 153 87. The Sarvodaya movement started by Vinoba Bhave still continues. Ashrams have been established all over India in the rural areas where education, health care, shelter etc are provided. In South Africa, after Gandhiji’s departure, the Tolstoy farm was abandoned, while the Phoenix settlement continued to exist. Initially, ‘Indian Opinion’ and a small agricultural project were the main activities of the farm with political activism. Later, the newspaper was discontinued and health services were offered by volunteer doctors, and students from the university. Work camps were organised for various groups, children, teenagers, students and adults. These camps focused on discussions on the situation in the country, what alternatives existed. What aspirations people had for the future. What sacrifices were people prepared to make etc. As the scene of politics became more and more confrontational, Phoenix began to be a threat to the apartheid regime. In 1985, it was burnt down, ostensibly by racial violence between Indians and Africans, but in reality it was an orchestrated move to weaken the struggle. Many UDF activists were killed in the violence in that period. Swaraj: 88. Swaraj is the Hindi word for freedom. But for Gandhiji the concept meant more than the word freedom can express. He said: “It is swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves. The swaraj of my dream is the poor man’s swaraj. Without a large, very large, army of self- sacrificing and determined workers, real progress of the masses, I hold to be an impossibility. And without that progress, there is no such thing as Swaraj. Progress towards Swaraj will be in exact proportion to the increase in the number of workers who will dare to sacrifice their all for the cause of the poor.” 89. Gandhiji was opposed to the culture of rights. He said that one should not chase after rights because if everyone carried out their duties the rights will naturally follow. So for him the concept of freedom was based on the concept of responsibility and responsibility meant sacrifice, and self-restraint. He did not approve of the culture of entitlement but instead encouraged everyone to labour for their bread. 90. Gandhiji was of the view that the more people hanker after possessions and hording of articles, the more there would be strife among those who cannot afford to sustain themselves leave alone to horde. 91. He, therefore, encouraged village economy, local economy where everyone is given access to work and to a means to earn a living and is able to have basic necessities of life. He was opposed to forced distribution of wealth from the rich to the poor, but came up with a novel idea of trusteeship where the rich would be trustees keeping their wealth in safe keeping for the poor. In other words the wealth is not theirs, but they would be entrusted to use it in the best interests of the poor. There would be no poor in Gandhiji’s ideal society. There would be no one without work. No one would go hungry or lack shelter. But he saw modern civilisation as a factor militating against his ideal society. 92. Gandhiji said: “The distinguishing characteristic of modern civilisation is an indefinite multiplicity of human wants. The characteristic of ancient civilisation is an imperative restriction upon and a strict regulating of these wants.” 93. For Gandhiji swaraj meant:  Self control  Equality  Self-sufficiency/economic independence  Self respect