NEW DELHI, India -- Acharya Vinoba Bhave, who crusaded for a ban on the slaughter of cows and walked 40,000 miles to convince rich landholders to give property to landless workers, died Monday, the Press trust of India said. He was 88.
Widely revered as the spiritual heir of India's independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, Bhave died 10 days after suffering a heart attack. He had refused to take food or medicine.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited Bhave at his Panaur hermitage about 500 miles east of Bombay last week but was unable to convince him to eat or accept medical help, the domestic news agency said.
Bhave told Mrs. Gandhi he 'decided to take samadhi (salvation)' in the small village in the western state of Maharashtra, where Bhave set up a hermitage more than 20 years ago, the agency said.
Born on Sept 11, 1895, Bhave joined the independence movement under Mahatma Gandhi's leadership at a young age. He was jailed for three years under British rule.
After Gandhi's assassination by a Hindu fanatic in 1948, Bhave walked from village to village in a 'land gift' campaign, appealing to rich farmers to donate land to landless agricultural workers.
His 40,000-mile trek through thousands of villages took 13 years during which rich farmers donated some 4.5 million acres of land. But much of the land was fallow and Bhave gave up the movement to settle at Paunar.
Bhave crusaded for a ban on the slaughter of cows, revered as sacred by millions of Hindus. Five days after beginning a fast to press his demands, the federal government and several state governments agreed to legislate the ban on the slaughter.
Nearly two-thirds of India's 22 Indian states have enforced the ban.
National leaders often visited him to seek his guidance and his blessings. He never married.
Mrs. Gandhi, who was in Moscow Monday attending the funeral of the late Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, was informed of Bhave's death.
He will be buried Tuesday on the banks of the Dhar river, near Paunar, the Press Trust said.
