Understanding Bhoodan Movement

The Bhoodan movement, also referred to as the ‘Bloodless Revolution’, was a voluntary land distribution and land reformation and distribution movement that was started in 1951 in the village of Pochampally, Telangana. This Bhoodan Movement was started by or  initiated by prominent freedom fighter Acharya Vinoda Bhave. Bhave was himself a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi. Hence, he was deeply influenced by Gandhian politics and the ideology of non-violence. So, his Bhoodan movement was deeply influenced by Gandhi’s idea of the Sarvodaya movement and “Gram Swaraj ”. The main objective of this movement was to persuade the wealthy landlords to voluntarily give up some portions of their land and distribute them among common peasants.

Bhoodan Movement

During the period 1947–1950, many wealthy landowners existed in India who had control over the majority of the land. They had sharecroppers and agricultural labourers to work in the fields, and these labourers and sharecroppers had no land ownership and were provided with a meagre portion of the crop as their fees. Most of the farmers during this time period in India were landless sharecroppers. For this reason, many peasant uprisings and revolts were organised during this time period (1930–1955), which also played an important role in India’s freedom movement. Through the Bhoodan movement, landless peasants were given the ownership of small plots of land where they could grow crops. Later, the Bhoodan act was passed, which stated that the beneficiaries wouldn’t have the authority to sell those lands or use them for non-agricultural activities such as forestry. One such example is that, according to the Bhoodan act, Maharashtra, section 25, the state can confiscate lands that are not cultivated or used for non-agricultural activities for two years. Bhave himself supported traditional farming and strongly believed in traditional sage-like lives. He urged the farmers to give up the use of machines in farming and also the use of money. This movement was strongly backed by the then Congress party, and even prominent leaders such as Jaya Prakash Narayan left active politics to join the social cause and Bhoodan movement. Bhave himself travelled across the country on foot to persuade the landowners (commonly known as the Zamindars) to voluntarily give some portions of their land to the farmers. Pochampally was the erstwhile centre of the communist movement, and peasants were violently resisting the oppressive landowners. Almost 700 families lived in that village, in which two thirds of the families were landless. After his persuasion and as an aftermath of the struggle, some of the landowners agreed to donate land. Prominent among them were the Nizam of Hyderabad, who donated 14,000 acres of land, V. Ramachandra Reddy, who donated 800 acres of the land, etc. Later, this movement turned into a nationwide sensation. The Maharaja of Ranka (a place in Jharkhand) donated about 1,02,001 acres of land to the Bhoodan movement, which was the largest amount of land donation in the movement. The Maharajas of Ramgarh donated a large amount of land prior to the initiation of the Bhoodan Act in Bihar.

GramDan Movement

This movement was so widespread that it took the shape of the GramDan movement, or gifting an entire village to the landless population. It advocated common or community ownership of the land. The very first village that was gifted under the GramDan movement was the village of Mangroth in the Hamirpur district of Uttar Pradesh. This movement also played a key role in the rise of Sarvodaya society (the rise of all social, economic and political orders) both in India and abroad. The Bhoodan movement played a major role in forming the Zamindari abolition act in India. But by the 1960’s, this initiative had lost its momentum and the concept of Sarvodaya society failed to generate mass movement and accelerate socio-economic transition. Though it failed, this movement made an important contribution in putting pressure on wealthy landlords, creating favourable conditions for landless farmers and boosting their morale. This also helped in elevating the status of the Harijans (who were considered untouchables) in society.

Conclusion

The Bhoodan movement is one of the most prominent land reformation movements in India and is often referred to as the “bloodless revolution” as the movement was voluntary in nature. This is an important historical event, and government exam aspirants should have good knowledge of it.