On his 88th birthday: Baba Amte - The man who has tasted humanity (Dec 27)
By Salam Rupachandra

Baba Amte, a great son of India who was born on the December 26, 1914 in Wardha district of Maharashtra attained eighty-eight years of age a few days ago. Despite being born and brought up in the wealthy family of Jagirdar Harshaji and Laxmibai, he was a puzzle to his father, a stern and dutiful government official of the British Raj. From his childhood, he was not what his affectionate but uneducated mother as once on a Diwali, he put the handful of coins his mother gave him in the tin of a blind beggar who pleaded for charity in the sunshine. At fourteen, he slipped away from home to learn hunting from the Madia Gonds tribes in the Gadchiroli districts of Maharashtra.

Although he wanted to become a doctor, he took law degree as his father wanted him to run the family estates. His mixed character was revealed as he took to fancy pinstripes suits and fast cars, drinking beers and smoking while a young lawyer, then juxtaposed it when, like many idealistic young men of the day, he turned to Mahatma Gandhi, Vinobha Bhave and Rabindranath Tagore. He organized lawyers to represent jailed leaders during Quit India Movement and for this, he was thrown into prison. In his village he began to eat with his servants and dug wells for the Harijans. The citizens of Warora elected him to the municipality. In an unusual way, he proposed Sadhana Tai (Indu Ghule) as his life partner in 1946.

He gave up his law practice, his involvement with his family estates and started a working place for inter-caste living and manual labor. In 1948, he became vice president of Warora Municipal Corporation and when the night soil carriers went on strike, he carried tins of night soils on his head for cleaning the town's latrines.

On one rainy night, he saw a leper with rotting mass of human flesh with holes in place of a nose, without a trace of fingers and toes with worms and sores where there had been eye sockets. For the first time, the Abhay Sadhak (seeker of fearlessness) a title awarded by Mahatma Gandhi because of his fearless stand against the Britisher's attitude towards an Indian bride in the train, fled but feeling ashamed he returned, picked up the leper, gave him food and took care of him until he died.

He studied leprosy at the school of Tropical Medicines at Calcutta. He set up Maharogi Sewa Samity for treatment, training and rehabilitation of leprosy. In 1951, he with a dream for having a place that was full of joy, established 'Anandwan' with his wife, two small sons, six leprosy patients, twenty five acres of reserved forest land on a rocky place on lease by the government, a lame cow and rupee fourteen in cash. His dream has now come true - Anandwan in Chabdrapur district of Maharashtra now holds three thousand inmates on a land of 176.54 hectares. There is a general hospital for treatment, training and rehabilitation of leprosy patients, a college for arts, science, commerce and agriculture, a school for blind, deaf and mute people, Sandhi Niketan, a vocational training center for orthopaedically handicapped youths, Uttarayan, a home for senior citizens, Gokul, a community nursery for leprosy patients and orphans, Yuva Gram, a vocational training center for rural dropouts, Sneh Savli (Home for Affection) for the afflicted elderly. Other activities include agricultural works on one hundred and twenty hectares of land for intensive modern farming for crops, vegetables and seed production, improved method of farming and agro industries, dairy farming, poultry etc. etc.

Anandwan did not remain as the only mission of this great social activist. Under his tireless and endless inspiration, extended activities have been carried out at different places called Somnath, Ashokawan, Nagepalli and Hemalkasa. Hemalkasa is a place where 'Brotherhood to People Projects' are being carried out, mainly working for social exposure, imparting formal and non-formal education to the highly primitive and exploited Madia Gonds tribes. Besides taking care of human beings, the operators of Hemalkasa, who are the doctors son and daughter-in-law of Baba Amte, maintain an 'orphanage' for wild species like panthers, bears, deer, foxes, giant squirrels, birds, reptiles, crocodiles etc. numbering around sixty to seventy. Here the wild animals never show any kind of wildness.

After serving with the most neglected and discarded section of human beings, Baba Amte launched two marches called the Knit India Cycle March from Kanyakumari to Kashmir (1984) and from Arunachal Pradesh to Gujarat (1988) carrying the message of peace and harmony, leading a couple of hundred youths, both girls and boys. Baba Amte has inspired millions by his poetic and significant lines. A few of these run as follows:
1. I have cured the leprosy of the body, now I must cure the leprosy of the mind.
2. A society that remains silent is a society silenced.
3. Youth proposes, middle aged opposes and old aged disposes.
4. Work builds, charity destroys
5. As for awards, the smile on the face of man who is oppressed, or a child, which is, suffering is what I covet more than any award.

The Narmada anti dam movement drew Baba Amte to the river in 1990. He left Anandwan in March that year and threw his might behind the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The Sardar Sarovar Project threatened to displace thousands of tribal and Baba vowed to spend his life fighting its construction. But failing health forced him to withdraw from the frontline.

The world did not remain indifferent to his spirit. Baba has been conferred much honor and many awards at various levels. At the national level he has been awarded Padmashree (1971), Padmabibhusan (1986), welfare of the disabled (1986) but these three were returned under protest to the President of India since 6th January 1991. He has won, internationally, Damein Award (USA) the highest International Award in the field of leprosy (1983), Magsaysay Award (Philippines) Award of Public service (1985), G.D. Birla International Award for outstanding contribution in the field of Human Rights (1988), Templeton Prize, USA (6,84,000 US dollars)- world's largest cash prize popularly known as "Nobel prize for Religion " (divided-1990), International Giraffe Award, USA (1990), Global 500 UN-United Nation's Environment Program Awards for outstanding contribution towards environment (1991), Right Livelihood awards, Sweden, an award popularly called 'Alternate Nobel prize for environment "(1992), Gandhi Peace Prize, (International - 1999), value of rupees one crore for outstanding contribution of Gandhian approach towards peace and harmony (1999). 

Also, he has been honored with Doctor of Literatures by four Indian Universities including Vishwa Bharati (Shantiniketan). He donated the proceeds of these awards to Maharogi Sewa Samity (Anandwan).

Baba Amte is a source of great inspiration and admiration to many. Citing some of their words of admiration for this man who remains undaunted despite suffering a near fatal accident a couple of decades ago that left him nearly paralyzed, shall show the measuring of the greatness inside the soul of this uncommon flesh. One Ratna Rao Salkhar said, " 'Generation to come', wrote Albert Einstein of Mahatma Gandhi, 'will scarcely believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth'. This may well be said of Baba Amte a few years of now for he and his family are of such stuff as legends are made."

In visiting his Anandwan once, the Tibetan Noble Laureate - His Holiness Dalai Lama commented, "Baba, you have a quite sophisticated mind that keeps track of everything. I am amazed." On his receiving the Gandhi Peace Prize, the President of India said, "Baba Amte is a living legend of our time and a shining example of Gandhian spirit and approach to current and compelling social problem of the country."

Consuming a dozen of tablets a day for all the ailments in his body, he always reiterates the lines inscribed on the hospital wall of Anandwan by an anonymous writer:
"I sought my soul, my soul I could not see,
I sought my God, my god elude me,
I sought my brother, and I got all the three."

(Courtesy: The Imphal Free Press)