Course of an Ideal

Five years ago, in the village of Pothampalli near Hyderabad, Vinoba Bhave, ascetic disciple of the late Mahatma Gandhi, saw the light: the solution to India's problems was land redistribution. Thereupon, Bhave set out with a few of his own disciples to persuade India's landowners to give away portions of their land (TIME, May 11, 1953). Bhave's target was 50 million acres (one-sixth of India's cultivated land) for 50 million landless laborers, and his appeal was spiritual; he asked landlords to treat him as their "fifth son." Last week, having walked more than 10,000 miles, prayed and pleaded his cause in seven Indian states, Holy Man Bhave strode back to Pothampalli in a saddened mood.

Bhave has collected gifts amounting to 4,600,000 acres, but his disciples can point to only 213,000 acres actually redistributed. About half this amount has come from landlords in Bihar state, who have given Bhave large tracts of barren land, and thereby achieved a spurious odor of sanctity, while continuing to exploit tenants on their good land. Criticism of the muddled organization of Bhave's Bhoodan (land-gift) movement has steadily mounted. Cracked Bombay Governor Harekrushna Mahtab: "Gandhi wished to abolish poverty; Bhoodan merely distributes it."

Like many a disillusioned man, Bhave has changed his attitude from a vague idealism to a desperate radicalism. Said he, dashing aside the garlands that were thrust upon him last week: "Bhoodan stands for land revolution by abolishing private ownership. I want to wipe out individual land ownership."

In an attack on Congress Party corruption, Bhave outlined his latest solution for India's troubles: "The existing form of government must be liquidated at an early date and replaced by gram raj [village government]." The social structure would be recast by having everyone over 21 years elect "Bhoodan committees" to redistribute all the land, according to need based on the size of families. Though there is precedent for such ideas in the teachings of Gandhi, Bhave had found other sympathizers for his leveler's commonwealth. Said he: "The Communists have assured me of their cooperation."

For a man who had started out by telling the Communists: "The difference between you and me is the difference between a corpse and a living man," Bhave had come a long way. He still has the support of Socialist Leader Jaya Prakash Narayan (the most respected politician in India after Nehru), who had quit politics under the spell of Bhave's earlier idealism. But Narayan himself is deeply disturbed by the failures of redistribution, and now demands that every Indian university student compulsorily devote one year to Bhoodan work. Said Narayan last week: "We must be quick, or those who believe in violence will step over our dead bodies."

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