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Law and Social Transformation in India
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
LL.M. (Two Years) · Sem 1
2019 Dec Examination
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LL.M. (Two Years) Sem 1 Law and Social Transformation in India 2019 Dec Question Paper with Solutions
First published on munotes.in on 1 November 2026.
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Contents
The questions below are the paper as Karnataka State Law University set it at the 2019 Dec examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2019 Dec examination, reproduced as Karnataka State Law University set them, in the order it set them. Long reading passages are shortened to their first and last lines and our summary; the original paper prints them in full. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 80 · 10 questions answered
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
Q1Explain Sarvodaya Movement in India.[16]
Answer
For full marks, cover: the meaning of Sarvodaya; its sources (Ruskin's Unto This Last, Gandhi's 1908 paraphrase, Indian ideas of non-violence and service); its principles (non-violence, truth, trusteeship, decentralisation and Gram Swaraj, bread labour, equality of all work, antyodaya); the movement in three phases (Gandhi's constructive programme; Vinoba Bhave's Bhoodan from 18 April 1951, Gramdan, Sampattidan and the Chambal surrenders of 1960; Jayaprakash Narayan's jeevandan of 1954, the 1972 surrenders and "Total Revolution" in 1974); Sarvodaya as a model of change set against the Marxist and liberal legal models; its relation to law (land reform by law against land reform by gift, Sri Sankari Prasad Singh Deo and Kameshwar Singh; Bhoodan Acts; articles 40, 43, 47, 48; Panchayati Raj and the Gram Sabha, Orissa Mining Corporation); a table of the phases; an assessment; its relevance today; a conclusion.
Meaning
Sarvodaya means "the rise of all" or "the welfare of all". It is both a philosophy and a social movement. It aims at a society in which every person, beginning with the poorest, can live with dignity. In that society, change comes by love, persuasion and voluntary action. It does not come by force or by the compulsion of the State. It rejects the utilitarian aim of "the greatest good of the greatest number", because that aim allows the minority to be sacrificed. Sarvodaya asks for the good of all.
Its sources
Gandhi read John Ruskin's Unto This Last in 1904, on a train journey in South Africa. He drew three lessons from it. The good of the individual lies in the good of all. A lawyer's work and a barber's work have equal value, since all have the same right to earn a living. And a life of labour, such as the farmer's or the craftsman's, is the life worth living. In 1908 he paraphrased the book in Gujarati under the title Sarvodaya. Indian traditions of non-violence, service and village community, and the ideas of Tolstoy, also shaped it.
Its principles
- Non-violence and truth. Means must be as pure as ends. Social change must come through satyagraha, persuasion and change of heart.
- Trusteeship. The rich hold their wealth in trust for society. They may keep what they need, but should use the rest for the common good.
- Decentralisation and Gram Swaraj. Political and economic power should rest with self-governing, self-reliant villages.
- Bread labour and the equality of all work. Everyone should do some physical labour, and no work is lowly.
- Antyodaya. The welfare of the last and the least comes first.
- A classless, casteless society, achieved by co-operation, not by class war.
Phase one: Gandhi's constructive programme
Gandhi joined the freedom struggle to a programme of social reconstruction. It included khadi and village industries, the removal of untouchability, basic education (Nai Talim), communal unity, prohibition and the uplift of women. Sarvodaya was meant to build swaraj from below, so that independence would mean freedom for the villages, not only a change of rulers. After Gandhi's death in 1948, his followers formed the Sarva Seva Sangh to carry the work forward.
Phase two: Vinoba Bhave and Bhoodan
Bhoodan (gift of land). On 18 April 1951 Vinoba Bhave reached Pochampalli, in Nalgonda district of present-day Telangana. The area was then a centre of the communist-led Telangana peasant struggle against landlords. Landless Dalit families asked him for land. A local landowner, V. Ramachandra Reddy, offered 100 acres. Vinoba saw in this a non-violent answer to land hunger. He walked across India for years, asking landowners to give land for the landless. The movement soon asked for one-sixth of all private land.
Gramdan (gift of the village). The movement then asked whole villages to vest their land in the community. The first gramdan village was Mangroth in Uttar Pradesh, in 1952.
Sampattidan and Shramdan. The movement extended the idea of the gift to wealth and to labour.
Chambal. In May 1960, during Vinoba's peace march in the Chambal valley, twenty dacoits surrendered their arms before him. Sarvodaya treated the surrender as a change of heart rather than a defeat.
Phase three: Jayaprakash Narayan
In 1954 Jayaprakash Narayan, a leading socialist, dedicated his life (jeevandan) to the Sarvodaya movement. In April 1972 large batches of Chambal dacoits surrendered before him at the Mahatma Gandhi Seva Ashram, Joura, in Madhya Pradesh. In 1974 he called for "Total Revolution" (sampoorna kranti) in Bihar, a movement against corruption and for deep social change. That movement became part of the opposition to the Emergency.
Sarvodaya as a model of social change
Students of social transformation compare three models of change. Sarvodaya is best understood against the other two.
- The Marxist model. Change comes through class struggle. The workers and peasants take State power and abolish private property in the means of production. Force is accepted as the midwife of change. Law is seen as a tool of the ruling class.
- The liberal legal model. Change comes through the State. An elected legislature passes reform laws, and courts and officials enforce them. Rights are protected, and change is gradual and lawful.
- The Sarvodaya model. Change comes from below, through the conscience of individuals. The landowner is persuaded to give, not forced to surrender. Power is spread among villages, not gathered in the State. Law is a last resort, since a changed society needs few laws.
The Telangana setting of Bhoodan makes the contrast plain. The communists offered land through armed struggle. The Indian State offered it through ceiling laws and zamindari abolition. Vinoba offered it through the gift. The Constitution chose the second path, but it wrote parts of the third into Part IV.
Strength of the model. It avoids violence and the bitterness violence leaves behind. It treats the landowner as a person capable of good, not as an enemy. And change accepted by consent tends to last.
Weakness of the model. It assumes that conscience can overcome interest on a large scale. History suggests that it rarely does. It also has no answer for the owner who simply refuses to give.
Sarvodaya and the law
Gift against compulsion. Sarvodaya sought land justice by voluntary gift. The State sought it by law.
Facts. In Sri Sankari Prasad Singh Deo v. Union of India, AIR 1951 SC 458, decided on 5 October 1951, zamindars challenged the First Amendment, which protected land reform laws from fundamental rights challenges. Held. The amendment was valid. Parliament could amend Part III. Why it matters. Bhoodan began the same year. India pursued both paths at once: compulsory reform through law, and voluntary reform through Sarvodaya.
Facts. In The State of Bihar v. Maharajadhiraja Sir Kameshwar Singh of Darbhanga, AIR 1952 SC 252, the Bihar Land Reforms Act 1950, abolishing zamindari, was challenged. Held. The Act was upheld in substance, abolition of intermediaries being a public purpose. Why it matters. Zamindari abolition by law achieved in years what voluntary gift could not, which shows the limits of Sarvodaya's method.
Bhoodan Acts. Several States passed Bhoodan Acts to give legal effect to land gifts. These Acts vest donated land in a Bhoodan board or committee, which grants it to landless persons. The grant often bars the grantee from selling the land without the board's leave. Sarvodaya thus had to borrow the law's machinery to make its gifts secure. A gift without a title deed could be taken back. A gift with a statutory title could not.
The Constitution. Gandhian ideas entered the Directive Principles: village panchayats (article 40), cottage industries (article 43), prohibition (article 47) and protection of cattle (article 48).
Gram Swaraj in law. The Seventy-third Amendment (1992) and the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 gave the village assembly real power. Facts. In Orissa Mining Corporation v. Ministry of Environment and Forests, (2013) 6 SCC 476, mining was proposed on the Niyamgiri hills, sacred to the Dongria Kondh. Held. The Gram Sabhas were to decide whether the mining would affect their religious and cultural rights. Why it matters. The village assembly deciding its own future is close to what Gandhi meant by Gram Swaraj.
The phases at a glance
| Phase | Leader | Main programme | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1948 | Gandhi | Constructive programme, Nai Talim | Ideas in the freedom movement and Part IV |
| 1951 to 1960s | Vinoba Bhave | Bhoodan, Gramdan, Chambal | Large areas pledged; Bhoodan Acts |
| 1954 to 1977 | Jayaprakash Narayan | Jeevandan, Chambal 1972, Total Revolution | Political mobilisation |
Assessment
Achievements. Sarvodaya gave moral force to land reform and raised the dignity of the landless. It showed that non-violent methods could reach dacoits and landlords alike. It kept alive the ideals of village self-rule and decentralisation, which later shaped Panchayati Raj.
Failures. Much land pledged under Bhoodan was barren, disputed or never distributed. Gramdan villages often existed only on paper. The movement lost momentum by the 1960s. Critics on the left made a sharper point. Voluntary gifts, they said, cannot change a structure built on the power of landowners. Only law and the organisation of the poor can do that.
Why the method fell short. A gift depends on the giver. The landowner chooses what to give, and often gives the worst land. The receiver gets land but no seed, water or credit to farm it. And the movement had no machinery to follow up after the pledge. The State's land ceiling laws had the same aim but worked through compulsion, records and courts.
Relevance today
Sarvodaya's ideas survive in new forms. Decentralised planning and the Gram Sabha carry Gram Swaraj forward. Sustainable development echoes its preference for simple, local economies. Corporate social responsibility under section 135 of the Companies Act 2013 is sometimes compared to trusteeship. And Lok Adalats and mediation reflect its preference for settlement over litigation.
Conclusion. The Sarvodaya movement ran from Gandhi's constructive programme to Vinoba Bhave's Bhoodan and Jayaprakash Narayan's Total Revolution. It sought the welfare of all through non-violence, trusteeship and village self-rule. It won land gifts, dacoit surrenders and a lasting moral voice. But it could not by itself transform the land system. The law did more through zamindari abolition, as Sri Sankari Prasad Singh Deo and Kameshwar Singh show. Yet Sarvodaya's ideals now live within the law itself. They live in the Directive Principles, in Panchayati Raj and in the Gram Sabha's voice recognised in Orissa Mining Corporation. Its lasting lesson is that social transformation needs both law and a change of heart.
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