Vinoba Bhaves Ashram at PAUNAR near Nagpur

Vinoba Bhaves ashram at PAUNAR, 10km by road south of Wardha on the Nagpur Road, has an altogether more dynamic feel than its more famous cousin at Sevagram. Bhave, a close friend and disciple of Gandhi, best remembered for his successful Bhoodan or "land gift" campaign to persuade wealthy landowners to hand over farmland to the poor, founded the ashram in 1938 to develop the concept of swarajya, or "self-sufficiency". Consequently, organic gardening, milk production, spinning and weaving have an even higher profile here than the regular meditation, prayer and yoga sessions. Another difference between this institution and the one up the road is that the sadhaks here are almost all female.

In the ashrams living quarters, Bhaves old room is kept as a shrine. Stone steps lead down from the upper level to a small terrace looking out over the ghats, where two small memorials mark the spots where a handful of Gandhis, and later Bhaves, ashes were scattered onto the river: Gandhis is the circular plinth at the end of the long, narrow jetty, Bhaves the brass urn on the small stupa-shaped dome to the right. Every year, on January 30, the ghats, which are immersed by floods for four months during the monsoon, are inundated with half a million people who come here to mark the anniversary of Gandhis death.