NDA (I) 2025 General Ability Test · Question 56 of 150

Correct — A, the target was to get one-sixth of India's cultivable land as donation. Vinoba Bhave's Bhoodan (land-gift) movement, begun in 1951, set itself the goal of collecting 50 million acres of land as voluntary donations — a figure usually described as about one-sixth of India's roughly 300 million acres of cultivable land — to redistribute to the landless. Of the four statements this is the only defensible one; note honestly that 'one-sixth' is a paraphrase of the 50-million-acre target rather than an exact stated fraction, which is why this pick is graded medium confidence.

• (b)It was approved through a Central Government Act — False — Bhoodan was a voluntary, Gandhian moral movement led by Vinoba Bhave, not a scheme created by a Central Act of Parliament (some states later passed Bhoodan Acts to handle the donated land, but the movement itself was non-statutory).
• (c)It was ensured that the donated land was free from all litigation — False — a serious weakness of the movement was that much of the donated land was poor-quality, disputed or entangled in litigation, so it could not always be redistributed.
• (d)The first donation of land was in Bihar — False — the first Bhoodan donation was at Pochampally (then in Andhra/Telangana) on 18 April 1951, when landlord Vedre Ramachandra Reddy gave 100 acres; the movement only later gathered pace in Bihar.

Bhoodan ('land-gift') was launched by Acharya Vinoba Bhave — Gandhi's 'spiritual heir' — during his walk through Telangana in 1951. He appealed to landlords to voluntarily donate land for the landless; a later phase, Gramdan, sought the gift of whole villages. It was moral, not legislative, persuasion aimed at bloodless land reform.

Only statement (a) survives scrutiny; the other three misstate the movement's legal status, the quality of donated land, and the site of the first donation. The 'one-sixth' framing restates the well-documented 50-million-acre target, so (a) is the intended answer despite the loose wording.

• Bhoodan was started by Vinoba Bhave in 1951; the first donation (100 acres) was at Pochampally on 18 April 1951.
• Its stated target was about 50 million acres of donated land — commonly described as roughly one-sixth of India's cultivable land.
• It was a voluntary Gandhian movement, not a statutory/Central-Act programme.
• Gramdan (the gift of a whole village) was the later, more radical phase of the same movement.

• Thinking Bhoodan was created by a Central law — it was a voluntary movement.
• Placing the first donation in Bihar; it was at Pochampally (Telangana/then Andhra).

Asked on Bhoodan's founder, its first-donation site (Pochampally), or as a true/false statement set.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Bhoodan Movement was started by

  • (a)Jayaprakash Narayan
  • (b)Vinoba Bhave
  • (c)Mahatma Gandhi
  • (d)Acharya Kripalani

  Answer(b) Vinoba Bhave — he launched it in 1951.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The first land donation of the Bhoodan Movement (1951) took place at

  • (a)Sevagram
  • (b)Pochampally
  • (c)Champaran
  • (d)Wardha

  Answer(b) Pochampally — 100 acres donated on 18 April 1951.