Satish Kumar
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Satish Kumar is an Indian, currently living in England, who has been a Jain monk and a nuclear disarmament advocate, and is current editor of Resurgence, founder and Director of Programmes of the Schumacher College international centre for ecological studies and of The Small School.
He was born in Bikaner in 1936 and became a monk at the age of 9. At 18, after reading a book by Gandhi (despite the fact that reading was forbidden for the monks), he ran away from the mendicant order, to become a disciple of Vinoba Bhave who was an eminent disciple of Gandhi and his nonviolence and land reform ideas.
Inspired by Bertrand Russell's civil disobedience against the atomic bomb, in 1962 Kumar and a companion decided to dedicate themselves to undertaking a peace walk from India to the four corners of the nuclear world: Moscow, Paris, London and the USA. They called it a 'Pilgrimage for peace'. They began their walk in Bangalore. There, Vinoba Bhave gave the young men two gifts. One was to be penniless wherever they walked. The other was to be vegetarian. They first travelled through Pakistan, where they met great kindness from a country with a huge historic conflict and antipathy towards India. They continued through Armenia, Georgia, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Khyber Pass. They visited Moscow, Paris, London, and Washington, D.C.. Travelling by foot and carrying no money, Kumar and his companion would stay with anyone who offered them food or shelter. While on their way to Moscow they met two women outside a tea factory. After explaining what they were doing one of the women gave them four tea bags, one to be delivered to each of the leaders of the four nuclear powers and to also deliver a message, “when you think you need to press the button, stop for a minute and have a fresh cup of tea”. This further inspired their journey and became in part the reason for it. They eventually delivered 'peace tea' to the leaders of 4 of the nuclear powers. The journey is chronicled in Satish's book, No Destination. Satish is now editor of Resurgence magazine (a post he succeeded from its founder John Papworth), which has been described as the artistic and spiritual voice of the green movement.
Satish Kumar settled in England in 1973 and lives in Hartland Devon with his wife June Mitchell and son Mukti Kumar Mitchell, where he continues to have an impact on the lives of many.
[edit] See also
[edit] Books by Satish Kumar:
- The Buddha and the Terrorist: The Story of Angulimala
- Images of Earth & Spirit A Resurgence Art Anthology (editor)
- You Are Therefore I Am - A Declaration of Dependence
- Only Connect: Soil, Soul, Society
- No Destination: an autobiography
[edit] Sources:
- Big Picture TV Free video clip of Satish Kumar
- [1]
- [2]
- [3]
