Sarvodaya
Encyclopedia
Sarvodaya also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
: सर्वोदय, Gujarati
Gujarati language
Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
: સર્વોદય) is a term meaning 'universal uplift' or 'progress of all'. The term was first coined by Mahatma Gandhi as the title of his 1908 translation of John Ruskin's
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
tract on political economy, Unto This Last
Unto This Last
Unto This Last is an essay on economy by John Ruskin, first published in December 1860 in the monthly journal Cornhill Magazine in four articles. Ruskin says himself that these articles were "very violently criticized", forcing the publisher to stop the publication after four months. Subscribers...
, and Gandhi came to use the term for the ideal of his own political philosophy. Later Gandhians, like the Indian nonviolence
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
activist Vinoba Bhave
Vinoba Bhave
Vinoba Bhave , born Vinayak Narahari Bhave often called Acharya , was an Indian advocate of nonviolence and human rights. He is best known for the Bhoodan Andolan...
, embraced the term as a name for the social movement in post-independence India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
which strove to ensure that self-determination and equality reached all strata of India society.
Origins and Gandhi's political ideal
Gandhi received a copy of Ruskin's Unto This Last from a British friend, Mr. Henry Polak, while working as a lawyer in South Africa in 1904. In his Autobiography, Gandhi remembers the twenty-four hour train ride to Durban (from when he first read the book, being so in the grip of Ruskin's ideas that he could not sleep at all: "I determined to change my life in accordance with the ideals of the book." As Gandhi construed it, Ruskin's outlook on political-economic life extended from three central tenets:Four years later, in 1908, Gandhi rendered a paraphrased translation of Ruskin's book into his native tongue of Gujarati
Gujarati language
Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
. He entitled the book Sarvodaya, a compound (samāsa)
Sanskrit compounds
One notable feature of the nominal system of Sanskrit is the very common use of nominal compounds , which may be huge , as in some modern languages such as German...
he invented from two Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
roots: sarva (all) and udaya (uplift) -- "the uplift of all" (or as Gandhi glossed it in his autobiography, "the welfare of all").
Although inspired by Ruskin, the term would for Gandhi come to stand for a political ideal of his own stamp. (Indeed Gandhi was keen to distance himself from Ruskin's more conservative ideas.) The ideal which Gandhi strove to put into practice in his ashram
Ashram
Traditionally, an ashram is a spiritual hermitage. Additionally, today the term ashram often denotes a locus of Indian cultural activity such as yoga, music study or religious instruction, the moral equivalent of a studio or dojo....
s was, he hoped, one that he could persuade the whole of India to embrace, becoming a light to the other nations of the world. The Gandhian social ideal encompassed the dignity of labor, an equitable distribution of wealth, communal self-sufficiency and individual freedom.
Sarvodaya movement
Gandhi's ideals have lasted well beyond the achievement of one of his chief projects, Indian independence (swarajSwaraj
Swaraj can mean generally self-governance or "self-rule", and was used synonymously with "home-rule" by Gandhi but the word usually refers to Gandhi's concept for Indian independence from foreign domination. Swaraj lays stress on governance not by a hierarchical government, but self governance...
). His followers in India (notably, Vinoba Bhave
Vinoba Bhave
Vinoba Bhave , born Vinayak Narahari Bhave often called Acharya , was an Indian advocate of nonviolence and human rights. He is best known for the Bhoodan Andolan...
) continued working to promote the kind of society that he envisioned, and their efforts have come to be known as the Sarvodaya Movement. Anima Bose has referred to the movement's philosophy as "a fuller and richer concept of people's democracy than any we have yet known." Sarvodaya workers associated with Vinoba, J. P. Narayan, Dada Dharmadhikari
Dada Dharmadhikari
Shankar Trimbak Dharmadhikari , better known throughout the world as Acharya Dada Dharmadhikari was an Indian freedom fighter, and a leader of social reform movements in India...
, Dhirendra Mazumdaar, Shankarrao Deo, K. G. Mashruwala undertook various projects aimed at encouraging popular self-organisation during the 1950s and 1960s, including Bhoodan and Gramdan movements. Many groups descended from these networks continue to function locally in India today.
Further reading
- The Sarvodaya Movement : Gandhian Approach to Peace and Non Violence, by S. Narayanasamy. New Delhi, Mittal Publications, 2003. ISBN 81-7099-877-8.
See also
- Indian Opinion Indian OpinionThe Indian Opinion was a newspaper established by Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi. The publication was an important tool for the political movement led by Gandhi and the Natal Indian Congress to fight racial discrimination and win civil rights for the Indian immigrant community in South...
- Hermann KallenbachHermann KallenbachHermann Kallenbach was a German born Jewish South African architect who was one of the foremost friends and associates of Mahatma Gandhi...
- Totaram SanadhyaTotaram SanadhyaTotaram Sanadhya was deceitfully recruited as an indentured labourer from India and brought to Fiji in 1893. He spent five years working as a bonded labourer but was never afraid to fight for his rights...
- Sarvodaya Shramadana MovementSarvodaya Shramadana MovementThe Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement is a self-governance movement in Sri Lanka, which provides comprehensive development and conflict resolution programs to villages. It is also the largest indigenous organization working in reconstruction from the tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake....
, a Sri Lankan organization based on the principle of Sarvodaya.