Moved By Love: The Memoirs of Vinoba Bhave Translated by Marjorie Sykes from a Hindi text prepared by Kalindi. A Resurgence Book. Distributed in Australia by ASTAM Books, Sydney. $26.95 272 pages. The only time I met Vinoba Bhave was in 1976 at the height of the Emergency when he was bitterly criticised by many of his earlier comrades in the Sarvodaya1 movement for not criticising the government of Indira Gandhi which had jailed so many dissidents. I did not know much about Vinoba except that he had become Gandhi's spiritual successor and had led the Bhoodan movement in the 1950's, which in turn had led to the idea of Gramdan2. I had also met a number of people who had walked with Vinoba during some of his twenty year pilgrimage from one end of India to the other, including Marjorie Sykes who translated this book and Satish Kumar of Resurgence who wrote the Introduction. Moved by Love certainly explains what motivated Vinoba although it is not an attempt to write an autobiography. Kalindi was his companion after 1960 and is a member of the ashram he founded at Paunar in Central India which is where I met him. She is also the founding editor of the Hindi monthly magazine "Maitri" (meaning "Friendship") which Vinoba started in 1964. Because Vinoba neither wrote nor dictated anything about his life, she has put her book together from material gathered from thousands of the talks he gave, which is why much of the book is written in the first person. Many of us reading about Gandhi have been puzzled about how much of his work was tied up with his own search for truth, even when he was leading the struggle for independence. There was his constant fasting, experiments with diet, the vow of celibacy he took before he was forty, and his devotion to the sacred scriptures of the many faiths of India, not just Hinduism. In many ways Vinoba was like Gandhi, except for his refusal to be involved in politics, unless Gandhi told him to get involved. He was a scholar and seems to have had a remarkable knack of learning languages, but like Gandhi, he was constantly experimenting with diet, and took his vow of celibacy when he was only ten. He was obviously heavily influenced by his very devout mother who died when he was only 23. He had already left home by then, having refused to pursue a formal education. Vinoba met Gandhi soon after that in 1917 and went to live on his ashram at Ahmedabad, but he was constantly going off on long walks around village India. He tried to identify with the people he met by living on a minimum income although this seems to have exacerbated his constant state of ill health. Like Gandhi, he put a lot of stress on spinning, cleaning toilets, maintaining silent times - once for a whole year, and meditation. Vinoba constantly develops the idea of satyagraha, or what we have translated as nonviolent action, but which "Moved by Love" translates as "firmness in truth." To him, such a concept had to be clearly set within the framework of Truth, Nonviolence and Self-restraint, and he firmly believed that any satyagraha, if it was pure, was bound in the end to prove effective. On one occasion when someone suggested that they should resort to nonviolent resistance, Vinoba responded, "Not resistance. Let it be nonviolent assistance in right thinking." When the Sarva Seva Sangh was in danger of breaking up at the time of the Emergency (1974), he added that the members of the Sangh also had to trust every one, even those "opposed to us," which at the time included Indira Gandhi who had jailed many Sarvodaya workers. After the death of Gandhi, he went to what is now the state of Andhra Pradesh to work in an area where communists were inciting the landless peasants to kill the landlords and this work led to the Bhoodan or Land Gift movement when a landowner offered a hundred acres of land to the local harijan or untouchable community. From 1951 onwards he walked the length and breadth of India seeking land for the poor. As land alone was not enough, he developed the idea of Gramdan where villagers got together to pool their land and resources. A great deal has been written - often critical - about this effort to redistribute land but Moved by Love is not a political critique, it is an attempt to explain what motivated Vinoba and moved him to undertake the work he did. Although he said he did not want to be a guru, he never seemed to question the fact that decisions were often made simply on the basis of what he said, or that thousands of people just accepted his word because of who he was. On many occasions prominent politicians would come to pay their respects to him but then do little, if anything, about really implementing his ideas. Vinoba also promoted the role of women after noting the patriarchal nature of India, both at a political and spiritual level, but his relationship with them was still that of an acharya (teacher), whether he liked it or not. He gives an account of why he set up six ashrams, including two that were to be run by women, acknowledging that they were run on his orders until he decided to stand back, after which there were to be no directors. Moved by Love also traces how Vinoba came to initiate the Shanti Sena or Peace Army which sought to bring communal harmony where before there was conflict, usually between Hindus and Moslems, and there is mention of his work in getting bandits - or dacoits - to give up their way of life with a good photo of one such well-known dacoit surrendering his arms to Vinoba. All the way through, however, Vinoba constantly refers to the Gita and other sacred scriptures as well as the teachings of those who inspired him - primarily Gandhi, the philosopher Shankara, and the Marathi poet-saint, Jnanadeva. When he was 75, he decided to adopt the Jain practice of becoming a Sthanakavasi or dweller in one place. There is no mention of the Emergency but it was in the same year that I met him at Paunar that he launched his campaign against cow slaughter, a decision which perplexed so many of his admirers, as it did not seem to relate to the overwhelming needs of the people of India at that time or respond to the issues being debated in the Sarvodaya movement. He finally ended his life by quietly fasting to death in 1982 when he felt there was no further purpose in living. Many of the stories related only make sense in the context of India. In one such incident, Vinoba learns how to play chess but then dreams about it, so he gives up the game on the grounds that if something so affects the mind that we dream about it, we ought to cut it out. Overall, Moved by Love offers a valuable insight into the thinking of the man who became Gandhi's spiritual successor, although it can best be appreciated by those can detach themselves from developing a political critique while they are reading it. Whether or not Vinoba offered the Sarvodaya movement a viable way forward after the independence of India is a point of view that should perhaps be left to Indians; Moved by Love certainly remains a fascinating insight into a man that until now we have not really had the chance to read much about in English. In addition, the many footnotes to explain Indian terms are invaluable. Peter D. Jones. Notes: 1. The term "Sarvodaya" was coined by Gandhi and usually gets translated as "welfare for the good of all." He originally used it to translate the title of John Ruskin's book, "Unto this Last." The actual organisation set up to promote Sarvodaya ideas was the Sarva Seva Sangh. 2. Dan means a gift or sharing of one's possessions. Bhoo-dan is a gift of land for the sake of the landless. Gram-dan is the pooling of the land of a whole village, owners voluntarily giving up individual rights for the benefit of all its inhabitants.