What began as an ambitious social revolution in the 1950s by way of gramdan (donating land for the benefit of the entire village) under Vinoba Bhave is today nothing short of a curse for the villagers. There are over 200 Gramdan villages in Rajasthan and the system has emerged as a stubborn obstacle in the 21st-century quest for economic aspiration and growth. https://theprint.in/ground-reports/a-grand-socialist-revolution-is-now-a-curse-rajasthan-villages-cant-exit-vinobas-gramdan/2000131/
People like Kumar are not landless but they don’t have a single piece of land to their name. Over 3,600 villages in India still operate under the Gramdan system.
The last village in Rajasthan to become a Gramdan was Jaisalmer district’s Bhairava in 2003. Now, people are looking for ways to get out of the system.
The original Gramdan generation is either gone or too old to carry the torch. And younger inheritors never fully bought in. As times changed, cracks started to show.
“The Gramdan work gradually became lax and people started facing problems. Gramdan institutions and the people associated with it did not work properly. Now people want to abolish this law so that ownership of land can become individual,”