Abhay Sadhak Baba Amte

 

There is a certain callousness in families like my family. They put up strong barriers to avoid seeing the misery in the outside world and I rebelled against it.

                                                    - Dr. Murlidhar Devdas(Baba) Amte.

A lawer by degree, a doctor out of compassion, a patriotic freedom fighter and an environmentalist at heart,  Baba Amte is  and  will always be a living example of selfless service and courage of conviction.

Murlidhar Devdas (Baba) Amte  was born into an affluent Brahmin family on  26th December1914.  His father was a colonial government officer working for the district administration  and revenue collection department.

Being the eldest of the eight sons in an affluent family, he had a luxurious life. At  the tender age of 14 he owned a gun and had hunted down a bear and a deer.  When he was old enough to drive, he was given a singer sports car cushioned with panther skin.

Who would know that a 14 year old deer hunter would turn towards Ahimsa and give selfless service to humans as well as all other beings of nature

However  this young care-free  lad had a kindred spirit within him.  Beneath all this extravagance,  Baba was restless. 

"There is a certain callousness about families like my family. They put up strong barriers to avoid seeing the misery of the outside world and I rebelled against it." He would say.

It was during one Deepawali when he saw a blind beggar, he emptied his full pocket of coins into his begging bowl. The beggar feeling the weight thought as though he was being made a fool of and exclaimed "I am only a beggar young sir, please do not put stones into my bowl".

This incident had a lasting impression on him. He disliked the rigidity of his father's world. He played with the servants' children even though his father disapproved of it.  He did not understand why humans had manufactured so many ways of dividing themselves rather than striving for oneness.

Baba Amte always wanted to be a doctor but his father wanted him to become a lawer and handle the family estate.

Baba Amte completed his law degree in the year 1936  and for a few years, enjoyed the idyllic life of a rich young man but soon realized that he must serve a bigger purpose in life.  He began to help and volunteer wherever and whenever possible.  In 1942, He acted as a defence lawer for  the prisoners of Mahatma Gandhi's quit India movement.

Influenced by Bapu's non-violent fight for justice, he abandoned legal practice and settled in Gandhi's ashram at  Sewagram, Maharashtra and adopted Gandhism. It was around this time that he protected a lady from the lewd taunts of British soldiers, Gandhiji then gave him the name Abhay Sadhak.

However Baba Amte did have his encounter with fear. It was when he encountered Tulshiram, a leprosy patient at the last stage of his disease. The person had become a living corpse with two holes for a nose, the entire body infected with germs.

He lived the agony of this crisis for the next 6 months, even though he cared for the man, his fear would not leave him. 

"Where there is fear, there is no love and where there is no love, there is no God" he thought to himself.

He realized that there was only one solution to this problem, he must live with leprosy patients and care for them. 

He was disgusted with the inhumane apathy these patients were  met out by the society. He regarded this apathy as "Mental  Leprosy". He quoted " The most frightening disease is not losing one's limbs but losing one's strength to feel kindness and compassion for other human beings.

Fortunately he met an equally kindred soul in his wife Smt. Sadhnatai Amte.

 Baba Amte founded 3 ashrams for the treatment and rehabilitation of leprosy patients, differently-abled people and one of the general marginalized communities of Maharashtra.

On 15th August 1949, Baba Amte and his wife Sadhnatai Amte started the first leprosy hospital under a tree by the name Maharogi Seva Samity(Leprosy Service Society) in Warora. Baba chose to call this paradise Anandwan (Forest of Bliss).

Baba strove to dispel the widespread  belief that leprosy is highly contagious, he even allowed the bacilli from a patient to be injected into his own body as an experiment to prove that leprosy is not as contagious as believed.

Baba Amte and his wife Sadhnatai Amte  prioritized exemplary medical care for the leprosy patients to lessen the scourge of the disease for them. For cured and rehabilitated patients, Baba arranged vocational training in agriculture and handicrafts and got things crafted by them, thus ensuring they live a life of dignity. 

During the 1960's Baba Amte introduced formal education for the visually impaired in order to mainstream them and a college to bring higher education into rural India.

In the year 1973, Baba Amte started Lok Biradri Prakalp for the Madia Gond tribal people.  This was dedicated to the education, vocational training and health care of the tribal people and today is a huge project working towards their upliftment and also serves as a sanctuary for animals.

In the year 1985,  Baba Amte started the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan. At the age of 72, he marched from Kanyakumari to Kashmir to encourage the unity for India during a riot driven time. 3 years later, he organized a second   march and walked from Gujrat to Assam.

In the year 1990 Baba Amte  left Anandvan  to participate in the Narmada Bachao Andolan along with Medha Patkar. This was against the Sardar Sarovar Dam project which threatened the livelihood of the tribal people as well as the ecological balance of Narmada Valley.

He returned to spend his last days in Anandvan. In the year 1971, Baba was awarded with Padma Shri.

Baba breathed his last on 9th february 2008.

The land of India has indeed been blessed to have such a great soul take birth on it's soil. Baba amte shall forever be remembered as the incarnation of  selfless service  and a ray of inspiration for the entire human kind.