Gandhian Thought

Acharya Vinoba Bhave,

Bhoodan movement and
Gandhi
Course Instructor: N Sreekumar

Shivraj Singh Negi

HS07H022
 Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Bhoodan movement and Gandhi

Table of Contents
Table of Contents...................................................................................................... 2
Short Bio .................................................................................................................... 4
Participation in Independence Movement...................................................................4
Movements Post Independence..................................................................................4
Bhoodan.................................................................................................................. 5
Gramdan .................................................................................................................... 6
Ideas and Foundations................................................................................................7
Afteryears................................................................................................................... 8
Criticism..................................................................................................................... 8
Bibliography...............................................................................................................9

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 Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Bhoodan movement and Gandhi

All revolutions are spiritual at the source.

All my activities have the sole purpose of
achieving a union of hearts.

—Vinoba Bhawe

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 Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Bhoodan movement and Gandhi

Short Bio
Vinoba Bhave was born on September 11 1895 in Gagode, Maharashtra. His family
was a traditional Brahmin family, and he was named as Vinayak Narahari Bhave. His
mother died when he was 23. His two brothers, Balkoba Bhave and Shivaji Bhave,
were also social workers. He was a freedom fighter and worked towards
implementing Gandhian ideals after independence. He was called as ‘the first
individual sataygrahi’ by Gandhi. He pioneered the Bhoodan and the Gramdan
movements. For his social work he was awarded the first ever Ramon Magsaysay for
Community Leadership in 1958 and Bharat Ratna (posthumously) in 1983. He died
on Novemeber 15 1982 when after falling ill he stopped eating and taking
medicines, preferring voluntary death instead.

Participation in Independence Movement

Although he excelled in college, especially in mathematics, he left college in 1916
to begin his spiritual quest. He was attracted by Gandhi’s movement and
participated in social reform efforts of the movement. In 1924 he led a temple entry
movement for untouchables in southern India and worked to remove basic socio-
economic problems of industrial workers. Due to this he was jailed by British
authorities in 1932. He preached Gita to his fellow prisoners. These talks were later
published in the form of a book. He led the national protest campaign against
Britain's wartime policies in 1940.

Movements Post Independence

Vinoba believed that after Independence the objective of the swaraj has been
achieved and Gandhians should now work for achieving welfare for all ‘sarvodaya’.
Thus a new Sarvodaya movement was started. Many different organizations who
were working for social development, were brought together to make Sarva Seva
Sangh (Organization for Serving All) and became the principle leader of the
movement. It was a Gandhian organization working for broad social change in
accordance with Gandhian principles. In 1951, after the annual sarvodaya
conference Vinoba decided to bring peace and development to the strife torn
Telangana region and thus began one of the greatest Gandhian mass movements in
history of independent India.

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 Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Bhoodan movement and Gandhi

Bhoodan

In the early 50s, Telangana was in turmoil as communist elements tried to break the
monopoly over land resources by rich landlords. They were supported by poor
landless farmers. Their methods were violent and lead to widespread bloodshed. To
quell the extremists and to restore law and order, army was sent in. Army resorted
to its own brutal tactics to control the situation and was determined to win. The
villagers were now caught in the crossfire, as each side would kill people suspected
of supporting the other. It was in this scenario that Vinoba intervened and tried to
bring peace to the region. He hoped to talk to people and set out on foot for the
affected villages.

It was in a village named Pochampalli in Nalgonda district that Vinoba found the
solution. In the erstwhile communist stronghold, the landless Harijans 1 of the village
told Vinoba that they support communists because of the promise of land
redistribution. They will support the government if it promises them land. Vinoba
was not satisfied with the proposal, and held a larger meeting next day. This was
attended by people from all sections of the area. When he posed the probelm to the
assembly, one of the landlords stood up and said that he is ready to donate 100
acres of land. Further the Harijans declared that they don't need more than 80
acres. This was a truly remarkable solution to the problem, and Vinoba declared
that he would walk through the entire Telangana region to collect land for the
landless from the landed farmers. The movement was named Bhoodan or literally a
'gift of land'. His simple appeal to the farmers and the landlords was, 'Consider me
as your fifth son. Give me my equal share of land'. Village after village farmers
donated land voluntarily, much to Vinoba's surprise.

It was due to saintly Vinoba's personality and character that made the villagers
ready to donate the land. It was not limited to big landlords but even farmers who
had small landholdings donated. Vinoba was seen as Mahatma's successor who had
come to teach and practice Gandhi's methods. The purpose of the movement also
was not just about social justice, but also to awaken people. As the movement
gained momentum, Vinoba started collecting hundreds of acres a day, and the
region became less tense and violent. By the end of two months he had collected
over ten thousand acres of land, and his Sarvodaya workers continued to collect
land in his absence.

The success of the Telangana experiment inspired Bhave to launch the program on
a nationwide basis, to eliminate the single largest cause of poverty in rural India:
'lack of land titles'. He wanted to expand the campaign to achieve 'sarvodaya' a
complete transformation of Indian society, to bring about a socialist revolution
through peaceful means. He made several hundred small teams of Sarvodaya

1
Outcastes or Untouchables of the Hindu society, called Harijans (God’s own people) by
Gandhi.

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 Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Bhoodan movement and Gandhi

Sangathan volunteers, who started collecting land from all over India. Vinoba
continued to tour without taking a break in spite of his failing health. He walked
from village to village in a method reminiscent of Gandhi’s Dandi March. He was
welcomed like a saint everywhere. He preached the importance of love, kinship,
sharing and non-violence.

The aim of the movement was to collect over 50 million acres of land and
redistribute it. He succeeded in collecting only 5 million acres, much out of which
was wasteland. Many landlords reneged on their promises. Eventually, he
distributed one million acres of land, which was many times than the land
distributed by the government schemes.

Even as Bhoodan movement was underway, Bhave set his sights higher. This
movement was what Vinoba considered to be the next step to Bhoodan. He started
asking for donations of entire village, calling it ‘Gramdan’.

Gramdan
According to Bhave, in a gramdan village the entire land was a commonly owned
property which cannot be sold or bought. The land was to be distributed among the
individual families based upon need, and could not be forcibly evicted from the
land. A village level self-governance mechanism was to make decisions related to
land and no decisions could be adopted until it had the consensus of everyone. With
the common land ownership and cooperation in decision making, Vinoba wanted to
break the very divisiveness of society that he considered to be the root cause of all
misery. He considered this as an important step towards establishment of Gandhian
‘village republics’. A Gramdan village was supposed to form a village assembly,
transfer the title deeds of their land in favor of the assembly and create a common
fund meant for social welfare and economic development which was to be financed
by the earning from the land. Many villages decalared themselves as Gramdan
villages, but the movement soon ran into practical difficulties.

Gramdan movement although failed to repeat even the limited success of Bhoodan,
and only a few thousand villages converted to Gramdan system. Even in these
villages, the system failed to take full roots. Although the conditions for percentage
of land required to be donated for common ownership was reduced, by 1971, the
movement had collapsed. Those villages which adopted the system were left behind
as islands of Gandhian dream, where committed workers settled in for long-term
development efforts. They became the new experiment sites for helping India’s
poorest organize Gandhian style development and non-violent campaigns against
the social injustices.

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 Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Bhoodan movement and Gandhi

Ideas and Foundations

The idea of Bhoodan and Gramdan was derived from the Gandhian social
reconstruction idea. Gandhi believed that for transformation of Indian society it is
necessary that the elites participate and work for social reengineering. Abolition of
untouchability and promotion of village based industries was focal point of this
initiative. He wanted to establish a society based on morals. Social reconstruction
programs were also supposed to keep workers involved with society in absence of
mass campaigns for independence.

Non-cooperation movement was first such campaign that combined different social
and political objectives. Gandhi wanted to create an alternative to the western
liberal democratic societies. Simultaneously he wanted to give poor and exploited
greater voice. For Gandhi, political workers should work for a movement with an
objective, and continue to work for social change also. Congress and its leaders
engrossed themselves with a program of grand economic planning and
industrialization after independnce, and some Gandhian workers went to work in
villages for social change. Sarvodaya was part of their objectives.

It was based on Gandhian concept of trusteeship in economics. One is considered

not an owner but a trustee of the property. While using the property for satisfying
minimum consumption one should also take care of needs of the poor. If such an
ideal is absent in society then people should work in a non-violent manner to
achieve it. A Gandhian society has no role for economic inequality and exploitation.

Gandhi believed that for India to prosper, its villages should become self -sufficient.
As against the traditional model of rural periphery depending upon the urban
centers, he wanted them to be independent. Agricultural economy and related
activities will take care of their needs and whatever little surplus they produce they
can give it to urban areas. Industrialization and urbanization should not destroy the
village life. Technology should be used at minimum, only to serve the needs of
people.

Vinoba saw practical difficulties in implementing Sarvodaya in rural India. The

economic inequalities have to be addressed first, and the most effective way of
doing that was to reduce inequality in land ownership. The root of all oppression, for
Bhave, was greed. He wanted people to practice Gandhian 'aparigraha' or non-
possesiveness. If people can practice non-possesion then, the social inequalities and
exploitations in the society can be eliminated. He wanted to establish a 'Kingdom of
Kindness'. He was initially skeptical about the participation of land owners in such a
movement, but Telangana experiment gave him a hope and he expanded the
movement in scale as well as meaning. Bhoodan was followed by Gramdan.

Vinoba also used the Gandhian ideas of decentralized political power. The village
assembly is in charge of all the resources and takes care of everyone's welfare. This

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 Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Bhoodan movement and Gandhi

leads to proper utilization of scarce resources. The institution of commercial dealing

of land, which was introduced by British in India, was to be done away with. Land
and other natural resources were God's gift to man and were to be utilized for the
benefit of all.

Afteryears
After continuosly marching and campaigning for twenty years, Vinoba came back to
his ashram in Paunar, Maharashtra in June 1970. He continued to work for social
reconstruction. He launched new programs for women empowerment and
preserving traditional agricultural methods. Vinoba’s work was appreciated
worldwide and he was featured on the cover of Time magazine. He worked for anti
cow slaughter campaign also. As another Gandhian stalwart, J P Narayan (who
unlike Vinoba focussed more on political aspects of Gandhian philosophy, instead of
social ones) started his movement of total revolution rifts began to develop in the
Sarva Seva Sangha. He was supportive of Indira Gandhi and supported imposition of
Emergency and called it Anushasana Parva (Time for Discipline).

Criticism
Vinoba Bhave was subject to much criticism due to his socio-political activities.
Communists claimed that the Telangana experiment succeeded because landlords
were afraid of being targeted by and losing all land to communists. They happily
preferred the option given by Vinoba. V S Naipaul said that Vinoba tried to emulate
Gandhi to excessive limits and lacked connection with realities of human nature. His
support of emergency and curtailment of democratic rights was also criticized. The
eventual failure of the two mass movements was cited as evidence of impracticality
of Gandhian model by his critics.

Although Gandhi adopts non-violent methods to achieve socialist ideals, but the end
state achieved is the same as socialist heaven. He wants to work against the basic
human nature of self interest and being driven by incentives. For such a system to
work all members of society have to give up these characters and instead be driven
by Dharma. If it is adopted by only a few members, then it might not be fully
successful or may fail like Bhoodan. But then if it is possible in the first place for all
members of the society to give up those characteristics, and had it been so easy
and people were that easy to change, then an ideal utopian society might have
been established long back.

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 Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Bhoodan movement and Gandhi

Bibliography
Shepard, M. (1987). Gandhi Today : A Report on India’s Gandhi Movement and Its
Experiments in Nonviolence and Small Scale Alternatives. Seven Locks Press.

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