Dialogue

Satish Kumar

Satish Kumar is the editor of Resurgence magazine, program director at Schumacher College in Great Britain.
He is the author of Path Without Destination (autobiography), You are Therefore I Am: A Declaration of
Dependence; and The Buddha and the Terrorist: The Story of Angulimala. He is a trusted voice on the cutting
edge of the environmental movement and a recipient of the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation International Award for Promoting Gandhian Values in 2001.

Satish Kumar became a Jain monk at age nine. At the age of 18, he left monkhood and became a campaigner
in Vinoba Bhave’s land reform movement in support of Gandhi’s vision of renewed India and peaceful world. His next major mission was to spread the message of peaceful change and world peace outside India. Inspired by the example of Bertrand Russell, he undertook in 1962 an 8,000 mile peace pilgrimage, walking from India to America without any money, through deserts, mountains, storms and snow. Reaching America in 1964, he was received at the White House by the disarmament adviser to President Johnson.

Kumar has been a strong proponent of E. F. Schumacher’s ideas, both through his writings in Resurgence and also by the establishment of the Movement for Education on a Human Scale and in 1982, the Small School in Hartland. He was awarded Honorary Doctorates from the University of Plymouth and the University of Lancaster.

Dwarko Sundrani

Dwarko Sundrani, at age 83, is one of the last active disciples of Mahatma Gandhi. He was born in Sindh (now in Pakistan). For many decades he worked closely with Vinoba Bhave, the spiritual successor to Gandhi. Vinoba established the Samanvaya Ashram in the Bodh Gaya in Bihar, and Dwarkoji was asked in 1962 to head this Ashram.

At the Ashram, Dwarkoji launched an education program for children. The principle he adopted was “education for life, education of life, and education through life.” Education was correlated to the life-needs of rural villages. This educational program has grown to serve 10,000 children in 167 villages. Two residential schools provide shelter, clothing, food, health care, education and loving care for 140 students. For the last 20 years, the Ashram has been also conducting very successful cataract eye operation camps. About 15,000 patients receive free eye operations each year. Local “terrorist” groups respect the social service provided by the Ashram to the villages and (diabolically) offer protection to the Ashram.

Many dignitaries including Rev. Martin Luther King, E.F. Schumacher, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama have been benefactors of the Ashram. The Dalai Lama, when signing over a donation of half million Rupees said, “I only teach compassion; you, Dwarkoji, live compassion.” In 1991, Dwarkoji was awarded the Bajaj International Award for Humanitarian Service.