Dedication of Life

At this time of year, before the summer rains, the bare, broken landscapes of India's Bihar state are hazy with the furnacelike heat. This does not stop Bihar's holy men from tramping the dusty roads, day after day. Nor did it stop 550 disciples of the late Mohandas K. Gandhi from gathering last week at a village called Sarvodayapuri. They met to celebrate the third anniversary of the land-gift movement founded and led by saintly, frail Vinoba Bhave, India's nearest living equivalent to Gandhi (TIME, May 11, 1953). Bhave's movement urges those who have land to give some, for their souls' sake, to those who have none. The movement was doing quite well: by April 1954 Bhave had asked for a total of 2,500,000 acres, and this had been surpassed by nearly 10%.

So successful had the movement been that the three most popular and influential men in India gathered at Sarvodayapuri. First, there was Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Second, there was Vinoba Bhave himself. Third, there was Nehru's chief political rival, tall (6 ft.) Jaya Prakash Narayan, the founder and leader of India's Socialist Party. A fascinating man about whom the rest of the world knows little. Narayan in his youth was a violent Marxist and anti-British revolutionary, and in his middle age is a man of peace and religion and a forthright antiCommunist. It was he who made the biggest news last week.

Zealots' Reproach. Born to a poor peasant 51 years ago in a remote Bihar village, Jaya Prakash Narayan never saw a trolley car until he was 19. When he won a government scholarship, the facts of Indian life crowded in on him all at once. He joined Gandhi's civil disobedience movement. Thirsty for learning but respecting Gandhi's boycott of the British-controlled universities, Narayan went to the U.S. to study. He worked his passage to California, got a job sorting fruit, began studying at Berkeley. During eight years in the U.S., he studied science and economics at five universities, worked as a farm laborer, factory hand, restaurant waiter, and nearly starved between times. At Wisconsin, an American professor helped convert the earnest young Indian to Marxism, and he went back to India snorting for action.

Jailed by the British in 1932 along with many other Congress leaders, Narayan conceived the idea of forming a Socialist group as a galvanizer within the Congress Party. After his release, he founded a union of railway workers with some 1,000,000 members, and also headed the postal workers.

In trade-union work, Narayan observed with sorrow how the Communists bored from within, how they ditched the Socialists when the party line changed. Young zealots reproached him for turning toward religion, away from Marxism. Narayan answered: "I was once a Communist. I have watched the Soviet experiment with anguish. If you want to establish a totalitarian state in the name of Socialism, you might do so. But I will not be a party . . ."

Lust & Greed. In 1939 Narayan was arrested again by the British, led a 31-day hunger strike against conditions in the prison. He escaped by scaling a 20-ft. prison wall, fled into tiger-infested jungles, became a national hero. He was betrayed, recaptured, subjected to grueling interrogations. The final arrival of India's freedom was darkened by Gandhi's assassination, by partition, by the murderous fighting between Moslems and Hindus. Narayan turned increasingly away from partisan politics--but he remained a major political figure.

In the past year and a half, Narayan has traveled almost every foot of his native province, preaching the Bhave doctrine: "Not only do we cheat each other in our dealings, but also deceive God by false prayers, while keeping ourselves engaged in our acts of lust and greed. The purpose of bhoomi-dan-yagna [sacrificial land gift] is to burn away this lust and greed and make us lead a true and sincere life."

Some Day? Last week 51-year-old Jaya Prakash Narayan electrified the disciples at Sarvodayapuri by renouncing politics entirely, to make a dedication of life (jiwan dan) to the land-gift movement. In less than a day, all of the 550 on hand vowed to follow him along this path. None doubted the sincerity of Narayan's casting away of politics. Yet since bhoomi-dan-yagna is the strongest popular movement in India since Gandhi's time, and since Narayan's influence in it will now be greater than ever, many Indians think he will some day succeed Nehru as Prime Minister.

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