Mohan Hirabai Hiralal breathed his last on January 23, 2025. He had turned 75 just 23 days ago — not a ripe old age by the current standards — certainly not for Mohan with his robust physique, health awareness and lack of debilitating habits or addictions. Yet it was a quirk of fate that he, who was constantly on the move, had to be confined to home for over two years and to his bed for almost a month. It was agonising to find him with oxygen tubes in his nostrils or an oxygen mask over his face, struggling for oxygen as he tried to talk or even make a slight movement. At last, Providence freed him from this torment.
Born at Chandrapur, a town not far from the Dandakaranya forests, Mohan developed a love for forests and forest-dwellers at an early age, which continued to inspire and guide him for more than five decades. No wonder, he became closely associated with the environmental movement, then at a nascent stage. For him, conservation of forests and the empowerment of the forest-dwelling communities were two sides of the same coin, and they remained his lodestars till the end. With these goals in view, he did many things in his long life of social activism–he helped build an organization of forest labourers; strove to ensure that the benefits of the Employment Guarantee Scheme, then a flagship scheme of the Government of Maharashtra for the betterment of the rural poor, reached its potential and actual beneficiaries in the face of bureaucratic apathy and consequent hurdles; took part in several constructive initiatives and agitations, particularly the farmers’ movement in the early 1980s. But his core concern remained the same: how real Swaraj could be achieved — the motivation which had drawn him to social activism, the motivation that had been stimulated by Jayprakash Narayan’s call for total revolution which had fired up countless young men and women. This motivation did not dissipate over the years, as it did in so many cases; it rather became stronger and more enlightened, because Mohan was never just an ‘activist’. He was always a thinker-activist. Everything he did was preceded by and accompanied with deep thinking and deliberations. Throughout his life, he continued to search ways and means to bring about social change. He remained a lifelong researcher in the science of social change.
This search and research brought him to the revolutionary concept of Gramdan, propounded by Acharya Vinoba Bhave in the sixth and the seventh decade of the last century. Gramdan involves voluntary surrender of landownership to the village community which, armed with control over land, the most vital natural resource, is expected to look after its own affairs through the participation of all villagers and consensus decision-making. The more Mohan studied the concept and the more he mulled over its implications and potentialities, the more it fascinated him. He found in it, the key to both freedom and prosperity of any community — not just village communities.
‘Jangal Bachao, Manav Bachao’(Save forests, save humanity) movement and the Darumukti (freedom from liquor) movement in the Gadchiroli district brought Mohan in contact with the village Mendha (Lekha), a tribal hamlet in the district, which had kept alive the tradition of consensus decision-making. Mohan and Mendha have since then become identified with each other. Mohan became philosopher, friend and guide of Mendha. But he would have disapproved the attributes ‘philosopher’ and ‘guide’. He always insisted on calling himself a ‘sahayogi mitra’ – a friend and collaborator in Mendha’s scintillating journey towards Swaraj, epitomised by its novel slogan, ‘Delhi-Mumbai mava sarkar, mava nate mate sarkar’ (We have our government in Delhi and Mumbai, but we ourselves are the government in our village).
Mendha made history by becoming the first village in the country to secure community rights over its forest and opened the door for thousands of villages. Mohan’s contribution in this extraordinary feat was naturally acknowledged. But he was to contribute to an even more remarkable feat — Mendha’s Gramdan. With him, the Mendha villagers studied Gramdan for years and finally unanimously resolved to accept Gramdan. During Vinoba Bhave’s movement in the sixth and the seventh decade of the last century, thousands of villages in the country had expressed their concurrence with the idea of Gramdan and millions of villagers had signed the Gramdan pledge. However, the resolutions mostly remained on paper, with only a few exceptions. Several state governments had enacted laws to provide legal framework for Gramdan, specifying a number of conditions. Only a few villages (3,972, to be exact) could fulfill those conditions. Years after the dissipation of Bhave’s movement, Mendha became a Gramdani village in 2013. That, of course, was only the beginning of the fight for implantation of the Gramdan Act, which is still on.
Mendha’s journey towards self-rule is a fascinating saga. The processes that have been witnessed there need much study and critical analysis. Mohan’s innovative idea of ‘abhyas mandal’ (study circle) is particularly intriguing. This abhyas mandal is not supposed to have any membership, any venue or periodic meetings. The idea is that the villagers, interested in the issues before the community, would sit together whenever they wish. When any issue is discussed thoroughly in the abhyas mandal, decision-making in the gramsabha becomes easier and less time-consuming. Bhave, in his tract ‘Swaraj-shastra’ (science of self-rule), has noted ‘universal, uninterrupted, unbiased and free dissemination of knowledge’ as a criterion for an ideal polity. Participatory study in the abhyas mandal would simultaneously ensure such dissemination of knowledge and empower village residents. I have no hesitation in affirming that this idea is an original and radical contribution to political science — more appropriately, the science of lokniti (people’s politics) that is an antithesis of power politics.
Mohan did form a non-profit (Vrikshamitra), but used it only when it was absolutely necessary and dissolved it eventually. In spite of having leadership qualities, he never tried to become a leader. He never entertained any personal ambition, never cared for name and fame. With unwavering concentration and commitment, he remained rooted in Mendha and presented a sterling example of what can be achieved through such dedicated work. His ashes will also be scattered in the soil of Mendha.
Parag Cholkar is an activist who has documented the history of the Bhoodan Movement