Baba Amte

Murlidhar Devidas Amte, popularly known as Baba Amte, (26 December 1914 – 9 February 2008) 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.

His wife, Sadhanatai Amte, explains that he came to be known as Baba not because "he was regarded as a saint or a holy person, but because his parents addressed him by that name."

Amte was the eldest of eight children.

As the eldest son of a wealthy land owner, 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).

However one day his encounter with a living corpse and leprosy patient Tulshiram, filled him with fear.

Amte, who 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 plight of Tulshiram.

However, Amte wanted to create a thinking and understanding that leprosy patients can be truly helped only when a society is free of "Mental Leprosy"-fear and wrong understanding associated with disease.

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.

The Indian Government awarded Baba Amte with a Padma Shri in 1971.

Amte married Indu Ghuleshastri (later called Sadhanatai Amte).

She participated in her husband's social work with equal dedication.

Their two sons, Vikas Amte and Prakash Amte, and daughters-in-law, Mandakini and Bharati, are doctors.

In 1973, Amte founded the Lok Biradari Prakalp to work for the Madia Gond tribal people of Gadchiroli District.

Baba Amte also involved in other social cause initiatives like, in year 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 second march three years later travelling over 1800 miles from Assam to Gujarat.

He also participated in Narmada Bachao Andolan in year 1990, leaving Anandwan and lived on 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.