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- 3 - (Excerpts from the speeches of Vinoba in the 1950's during his Bhoodan (Land-gift] Movement) The will to power in men needs to be rooted out. To rein in this will to power, everyone has been given the right to vote in a democracy. This implies that distribution of power is the first step. When men differ from each other in every respect, what could be the basis for granting this right to all? Unity of soul could be the only basis for it. But although democracy has given the right to vote to everyone, it stipulates counting of votes and the power is entrusted to those securing majority, howsoever thin it may be. The ideologues of democracy should, in fact, understand that this is not a question of arithmetic; for the idea of the unity of soul is a metaphysical rather than a mathematical idea. Sarvodaya removes this anamoly. It says that enerybody's ideas should be respected. It is wrong to consider that three out of five are right and two are wrong; it is the unanimous opinion of all the five that should be upheld. It is because of the rejection of this principle that the whole world is now torn with conflicts between majorities and minorities. We want decision-making by consensus. We should think over the ways and means to bring this about. The UN Security Council has adopted this principle. The Quakers too follow this principle. This is just a beginning. We should make further experiments in this direction. All may not agree on all the points. There may be some difference of opinion. Those having a different opinion may express it, but may not stand in the way of the rest. We can call this 'sarvanumati' (consent by all) as against 'sarvasammati' (total agreement). 28
