Acharya Vinoba Bhave, a spiritual follower of Mahatma Gandhi, launched the Bhoodan movement in 1951 from a village in southern India to persuade India’s rich landowners to voluntarily give up a part of their holdings to the landless. The movement was a huge success and collected hundreds of thousands of acres of land, and many state governments passed Bhoodan Acts. Over the years, the movement lost its steam and corruption took charge of the efforts, as with most other early initiatives of free India.
