Baba Amte
Murlidhar Devidas Amte, though popularly known as Baba Amte, was an Indian social worker and social activist known particularly for his work for the rehabilitation and empowerment of people suffering from leprosy. He has received numerous awards and prizes including the Padma Vibhushan, the Dr. Ambedkar International Award, the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Templeton Prize and the Jamnalal Bajaj Award. He is also known as the modern Gandhi of India.
Murlidhar Devidas "Baba" Amte was born in an affluent Deshastha Brahmin family on 26 December 1914 in the city of Hinganghat in Maharashtra. His father, Devidas Amte, was a colonial government officer working for the district administration and revenue collection departments. Murlidhar Amte acquired the nickname Baba in his childhood.
Amte was the eldest of eight children. As the eldest son of a wealthy landowner, he had an idyllic childhood, filled with hunting and sports. By the time he was fourteen, he owned his own gun and hunted bear and deer. When he was old enough to drive, he was given a Singer Sports car with cushions covered with panther skin. Though he was born in a wealthy family, he was always aware of the class inequality that prevailed in Indian society. "There is a certain callousness in families like my family," he used to say. "They put up strong barriers so as to avoid seeing the misery in the outside world and I rebelled against it."
Trained in law, he developed a successful legal practice in Wardha. He soon became involved in the Indian independence movement and, in 1942, began working as a defense lawyer for Indian leaders imprisoned by the colonial government for their involvement in the Quit India movement. He spent some time at Sevagram, at the ashram started by Mahatma Gandhi and became a follower of Gandhism. He practiced Gandhism by engaging in yarn spinning using a charkha and wearing khadi. When Gandhi got to know that Dr. Amte had defended a girl from the lewd taunts of some British soldiers, Gandhi gave him the name – Abhay Sadhak (Fearless Seeker of Truth).
Baba’s encounter with a living corpse and leprosy patient Tulshiram, filled him with fear. Amte, never feared for anything till that incident and who fought one time with British men to save the honour of an Indian lady and was also challenged by sweepers of Warora to clean the gutters, was quivered in fright on seeing Tulshiram. However, Amte wanted to create a thinking and understanding that leprosy patients can be truly helped only when a society is free of fear and wrong understanding associated with leprosy. To dispel this thinking he once injected himself with bacilli from a patient, to prove the ailment was not highly contagious. In those days, people with leprosy suffered a social stigma and Indian society disowned these people. Amte strove to dispel the widespread belief that leprosy was highly contagious; he even allowed bacilli from a leper to be injected into him as part of an experiment aimed at proving that leprosy was not highly contagious. But Baba Amte and his wife used to prioritise the care and treatment and mainstreaming those affected by the dreaded disease of leprosy and lived amongst the affected and ensured that they got exemplary medical care which ended the scourge of the disease for them. For the rehabilitated and cured patients, he arranged vocational training and small-scale manufacturing of handicrafts and got things crafted by them. He struggled and tried to remove the stigma and ignorance surrounding the treatment of leprosy as a disease.
Amte founded three ashrams for treatment and rehabilitation of leprosy patients, disabled people and people from marginalised sections of general society in Maharashtra. On 15 August 1949, he and his wife Sadhna Amte started a leprosy hospital in Anandvan under a tree. The leprosy patients were provided with medical care and a life of dignity engaged in agriculture and various small and medium industries like handicrafts. In 1973, Amte founded the Lok Biradari Prakalp to work for the Madia Gond tribal people of the Gadchiroli District. Baba Amte was involved in other social cause initiatives like, in 1985 he launched the first Knit India Mission for peace-at 72 years he walked from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, a distance of more than 3000 miles, to inspire unity among Indian people and organised a march three years later travelling over 1800 miles from Assam to Gujarat. He also participated in Narmada Bachao Andolan in 1990, leaving Anandwan and lived on the banks of Narmada for seven years.
Amte devoted his life to many other social causes, most notably the Quit India movement and attempting to raise public awareness on the importance of ecological balance, wildlife preservation and the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The Indian Government awarded Baba Amte with a Padma Shri in 1971.
The famous Narmada Bachao Abhiyaan :
In 1990, Amte left Anandwan for a while to live along the Narmada River and joined Narmada Bachao Andolan ("Save Narmada") movement one of whose popular leaders was Medha Patkar, which fought against both unjust displacements of local inhabitants and damage to the environment due to the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada river.
Spreading happiness through Anandvan :
After spending some time acquainting himself with leprosy and its treatment, he set out with a young wife, two infants, a lame cow, four stray dogs, six people affected by leprosy and a handful of Rupees for 50 acres of scrubland donated by the Maharashtra government. Amte, who was now called ‘Baba’ (father), named the place Anandwan, or Garden of Joy, which he described as “an outcast land for outcast people.” Together, they turned these barren acres into a successful example of rural development and community living.
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| Image credits: TOI |
Baba’s wife, Sadhna Tai, deserves special mention. Raised in an orthodox Hindu tradition by a family of Sanskrit scholars, she relinquished all caste prejudices upon her marriage to Amte and worked alongside him in even the most difficult circumstances. In 1949, their untiring efforts led to the foundation of Maharogi Sewa Samiti (MSS), an organization for curing and rehabilitating the leprosy-affected. It was registered in 1951.
This was also the year that Vinoba Bhave inaugurated Anandwan. Bhave noted: “Its name ‘Anandwan’ is most appropriate…This is not a lepers’ colony, not a home or settlement for leprosy patients. Here a new epic of service and labor is being written.” More patients began to arrive, medical services were started, and within a couple of years it was self-sufficient in everything.
Awards :
Padma Shri, 1971
Ramon Magsaysay Award, 1985: "In electing MURLIDHAR DEVIDAS AMTE to receive the 1985 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes his work-oriented rehabilitation of Indian leprosy patients and other handicapped outcasts."
Padma Vibhushan, 1986
United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights, 1988
" Once our experience of being here is profound, whatever we do also becomes profound, and Dr Baba Amte is one such example and inspiration for us always "
Saying this we would conclude our blog.
Written by :
Indraneel Bhosale, 111911066, Metallurgy
Shivam Patil, 111911046, Metallurgy
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