Thursday 13 June 2013
Though born into a family of Brahmin jagirdars, being a compassionate and sensitive child, he often ate with servants and played with children belonging to the lower castes, despite his parents' disapproval. After studying law he established a lucrative practice in Wardha. During the Quit India Movement in 1942, he organized lawyers to plead for the imprisoned leaders and was arrested by the British government for his efforts. But the sight of a maggot-eaten leper in Warora changed the course of his life. Relinquishing his robes and a comfortable lifestyle, he began to work with the lepers and the downtrodden.
Founding Anandvan, a leprosy rehabilitation centre in 1949, he took a formal course in the treatment of leprosy and even allowed experiments related to leprosy to be performed on his body. A sprawling self-sufficient centre, the ashram today houses more than 3,000 inmates. Funded largely by private donations and government grants, it has its own university, hospital, technical units, orphanage, dairy, and farmlands.
To promote national integration, Baba Amte launched two Bharat Jodo (Knit India) movements, from Kashmir to Kanni-yakumari in 1985 and from Assam to Gujarat in 1988. To mark his protest against the building of the Sardar Sarovar dam in the Narmada valley, and the resultant displacement of thousands of tribals, in 1989 he established a small ashram, Nijibal (inner strength), in a region, which would be -entirely submerged. Despite protests from the government, this 85-year-old crusader, crippled by cervical spondylitis, continues to stay in the ashram and work for the welfare of the tribals.
His humanitarian work has won him several awards including the Padma Shri (1971), the Rashtriya Bhushan (1978), the Padma Vibhushan (1986), and Ramon Magsaysay Award (1988), the United Nations Human Rights Award (1988), the Right Livelihood Award, Sweden (1992), and the International Gandhi Peace Prize (1999).
