Sarvodaya
Topic: Schools of Economic Thought and Economic Laws · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Sarvodaya means "welfare of all". It is Gandhi's ideal of a society in which everyone rises together, organised in a non-violent, decentralised and cooperative way. Gandhi drew it from John Ruskin's Unto This Last (1860). He took from Ruskin the idea that the good of the individual lies in the good of all, and that all honest work has equal worth. Sarvodaya rejects both the concentration of wealth under capitalism and the concentration of power in the state.
Example
Vinoba Bhave carried the idea forward through the Bhoodan ("land gift") movement, which began at Pochampally in 1951. Landowners voluntarily gave land to the landless. Jayaprakash Narayan later took the idea into his own movement.
Don't confuse with
- Antyodaya: this is Deendayal Upadhyaya's principle of lifting the poorest person first (Integral Humanism, 1965). Sarvodaya aims at the welfare of everyone.