A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BHOODAN-GRAMDAN MOVEMENT

The Bhoodan-Gramdan movement was initiated by Vinoba Bhave on 18th April,1951.

After leaving his community (Ashram) at Pavnar he attended  the final day of conference of Third Annual Sarvodaya Conference which was held at Shivarampali on April 11th 1951,at Shivarampali in which Vinoba Bhave announced that on his walk home to Pavanar he & a few companions would tour the Communist infested areas of Telangana to spread the message of Peace i.e. Non-violence. Once in Telangana, Vinoba quickly showed his sensitivity to the new situation. On April 17th, at his second stop, Vinoba learned at first hand that village people were afraid of the police as well as the Communists & that the village was torn along class-lines.

On April 18th 1951, the historic day of the very genesis of the Bhoodan movement, Vinoba entered Nalgonda district, the centre of Communist activity. The organizers had arranged Vinoba’s stay at Pochampalli, a large village with about 700 families, of whom two-thirds were landless. Vinoba went to visit the Harijan (the Untouchables) colony in pochampalli. On demand of the Harijans asked for eighty acres of land, forty wet, forty dry for forty families Vinoba queried about if the government's possible role of land grants but surprisingly Ram Chandra Reddy, a local landlord, expressed his eagerness to donate of 100 acres of land to those people.This incident neither planned nor imagined was the very genesis of the Bhoodan movement & it made Vinoba think that therein lay the potentiality of solving the land problem of India. This movement later on developed into a village gift or Gramdan movement. This movement was a part of a comprehensive movement for the establishment of a Sarvodaya Society (The Rise of All socio-economic-political order), both in India & outside India.

The movement passed through several stages in regard to both momentum & allied programmes. In October 1951, Vinoba was led to demand fifty million acres of land for the landless from the whole of India by 1957. This was indeed a very remarkable achievement for a constructive work movement. The enthusiasm for the movement lasted till 1957 & thereafter it began to wane.

Meanwhile the Bhoodan Movement had been transformed from a land-gift movement to a village-gift or Gramdan movement, in which the whole or a major part of a village land was to be donated by not less than 75% of the villagers who were required to relinquish their right of owner-ship over their lands in favour of the entire village, with power to equitably redistribute the total land among village’s families with a proviso for revision after some intervals. The main features of the scheme of ‘Sulabh Gramdan’, were as follows:
1. At least 75 per cent of the landowners should surrender ownership of their land to the village community–that is, gramsabhas, meaning the assembly of all the adult male and female population

2. This land should at least be 51 per cent of the entire cultivable village land.
3. At least 75 per cent of the people of the village should accept Gramdan.
4. Five per cent of the land vested in the gramsabha would be given to the landless.
5. The remaining 95 per cent of the land would remain with the original owners and their descendents. However, it can be transferred within the village only, and that too with the permission of the gramsabha.
6. The villagers would give 2.5 per cent of their earnings or produce to the gramsabha with which the ‘gram-kosh’ would be formed. This would be used for providing aid to the needy, for overall development of the village or for public works. On fulfillment of these conditions the village would deemed to be a gramdani village. All the adult men and women of the village would sit together in the gramsabha and discuss and decide about the village affairs, make plans and execute them. The decisions of the gramsabha would be taken by consensus–either by unanimity or with everyone’s consent, and not by vote.  The gramsabha should have all the powers that are necessary to discharge its duties.

With the advent of Sulabh Gramdan, the number of Gramdans in the country started increasing. To fit them in a legal framework, many states passed laws. Substantial powers have been given to the gramdani villages in terms of these Acts. After fulfilling the necessary requirements–which show the keenness of the villagers to advance towards gram-swaraj and demonstrates their fitness for it–any village can opt for Gramdan and get those powers. Even today, Gramdan Acts are the most potent instruments for village self-government.

In December 1963, the Sarvodaya conference at Raipur adopted the three-point programme of Sulabh Gramdan, village-oriented khadi and Shanti-Sena, and it was decided to intensify the Gram-swaraj movement throughout the country on the basis of that programme. To make the movement widespread and effective it was necessary to focus on a particular area and concentrate all the energies there. In May 1965, he threw a challenge to the workers of Bihar that if they are prepared to bring 10,000 villages under Gramdan in six months, he was ready to come to Bihar. He gave the word–‘toofan’ (typhoon). The workers of Bihar accepted this challenge.

Though The Gramdan idea did not prove popular in the non-tribal areas & this partly accounted for the decline of the movement at the end of the 1950s. All this continued till 1974. from the view-point of its ups & downs. But there was another aspect as well & it related to allied programmes unfolded from time to time. Those progammes were Sampattidan (Wealth-gift), Shramdan (Labour-gift), Jeevandan (Life-long commitment to the movement by co-workers), Shanti-Sena (Peace-army), Sadhandan (gift of implements for agricultural operations).

As regards attitudinal transformation, the propagation of ideas combined with the above material achievements, could not but affect the mind of the thinking people. The movement directly influenced the life-style of the co-workers, especially the life-long co-workers & through them many workers & associates or fellow-seekers. By adopting Gandhi’s ideas to the solution of the basic economic problem of land collection & equitable redistribution among the landless, the Movement kept Gandhi’s ideas of socioeconomic reconstruction alive at a period when the tendency of the educated elite was to overlook, if not to reject Gandhi’s ideas as irrelevant. The Movement kindled interest in the individuals to study Gandhi’s ideas & to assess their relevance.

To conclude taking an overall view it cannot be gainsaid that the Bhoodan-Gramdan Movement, despite all its real & apparent limitations, it would ever be deemed as a glorious attempt for a peaceful & non-violent solution of the basic land problem of Indian society & through it for a non-violent reconstruction of the Sarvodaya socio-economic-politico order of universal relevance & significance giving self reliance and power to people.