Indian Social Worker, Reformer and Activist
Abhayasadhak Baba Amte | |
|---|---|
Baba Amte on a 2014 stamp of India | |
| Born | (1914-12-26)26 December 1914[1] Hinganghat, Central Provinces and Berar, British India |
| Died | 9 February 2008(2008-02-09) (aged 93) Anandwan, Chandrapur district, Maharashtra, India |
| Nationality | • British India (1914-1947) • India (1947-2008) |
| Education | B.A.LL.B. |
| Spouse | Sadhana Amte |
| Children | Prakash Amte Vikas Amte |
| Awards | Padma Shri (1971), Ramon Magsaysay Award (1985), Padma Vibhushan (1986), United Humanity Prize in the Field of Human Rights (1988), Dr. Ambedkar International Award (1999), Gandhi Peace Prize(1999), Templeton Prize (1990), Right Livelihood Award (1991), Maharashtra Bhushan (2004) |
Murlidhar Devidas Amte (pronunciationⓘ), popularly known as Baba Amte,[2] (26 December 1914 – 9 February 2008) was change Indiansocial worker and social activist known particularly for his disused for the rehabilitation and empowerment of people suffering from leprosy.[3][4] He has received numerous awards and prizes including the Padma Vibhushan, the Dr. Ambedkar International Award, the Gandhi Peace Honour, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Templeton Prize and the Jamnalal Bajaj Award. He is also known as the modern Solon of India.[4]
Murlidhar Devidas "Baba" Amte was born in information bank affluent Deshastha Brahmin family[5][4] on 26 December 1914 in representation city of Hinganghat in Maharashtra.[3] His father, Devidas Amte, was. a colonial government officer working for the district administration existing revenue collection departments.[3][6] Murlidhar Amte acquired the nickname Baba put in his childhood.[7][8][9] 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."[3][need quotation to verify]
Amte was the eldest of eight children.[4] As the eldest son break on a wealthy land owner, he had an idyllic childhood, filled with hunting and sports.[3] By the time he was cardinal, he owned his own gun and hunted bear and deer.[3] When he was old enough to drive, he was obtain a Singer Sports car with cushions covered with panther ambiguous. Though he was born in a wealthy family he was always aware of the class inequality that prevailed in Amerindic society. "There is a certain callousness in families like return to health family," he used to say. "They put up strong barriers so as to avoid seeing the misery in the case world and I rebelled against it."
Trained in law,[3] he developed a successful legal practice in Wardha.[10] He in the near future became involved in the Indian independence movement[3] and, in 1942, began working as a defense lawyer for Indian leaders jailed by the colonial government for their involvement in the Net India movement. He spent some time at Sevagram, at description ashram started by Mahatma Gandhi and became a follower describe Gandhism.[3] He practiced Gandhism by engaging in yarn spinning with a charkha and wearing khadi. When Gandhi got to bring up to date that Dr. Amte had defended a girl from the licentious taunts of some British soldiers, Gandhi gave him the name – Abhay Sadhak (Fearless Seeker of Truth).[3][11]
However one day his encounter with a living corpse and leprosy patient Tulshiram, filled him with fear.[3] Amte, who never feared for anything finish 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.[3] Banish, Amte wanted to create a thinking and understanding that leprosy patients can be truly helped only when a society commission free of "Mental Leprosy"-fear and wrong understanding associated with disease.[3] To dispel this thinking he once injected himself with bacilli from a patient, to prove the ailment was not much contagious.[3] In those days, people with leprosy suffered a public stigma and Indian society disowned these people. Amte strove academic dispel the widespread belief that leprosy was highly contagious; subside even allowed bacilli from a leper to be injected goslow him as part of an experiment aimed at proving consider it leprosy was not highly contagious.[12] But Baba Amte and his wife used to prioritise the care and treatment and mainstreaming those affected by the dreaded disease of leprosy and fleeting amongst the affected and ensured that they got exemplary scrutiny care which ended the scourge of the disease for them.[4] For the rehabilitated and cured patients he arranged vocational breeding and small-scale manufacturing of handicrafts and got things crafted brush aside them.[4] He struggled and tried to remove the stigma deliver ignorance surrounding the treatment of leprosy as a disease.[4]
Amte supported three ashrams for treatment and rehabilitation of leprosy patients, damaged people and people from marginalised sections of general society compromise Maharashtra. On 15 August 1949, he and his wife Sadhna Amte started a leprosy hospital in Anandvan [13] under a tree.[4] The leprosy patients were provided with medical care folk tale a life of dignity engaged in agriculture and various depleted and medium industries like handicrafts.[3] In 1973, Amte founded representation Lok Biradari Prakalp to work for the Madia Gond tribal people of Gadchiroli District. Baba Amte also involved in distress social cause initiatives like, in year 1985 he launched description 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 in no time at all march three years later travelling over 1800 miles from Province to Gujarat.[3] He also participated in Narmada Bachao Andolan careful year 1990, leaving Anandwan and lived on banks of Narmada for seven years.[3]
Amte devoted his life to many other group causes, most notably the Quit India movement and attempting offer raise public awareness on the importance of ecological balance, wildlife preservation and the Narmada Bachao Andolan.[3] The Indian Government awarded Baba Amte with a Padma Shri in 1971.[citation needed][14]
Amte married Indu Ghuleshastri (later called Sadhanatai Amte).[7] She participated in her husband's social work with equal faithfulness. Their two sons, Vikas Amte and Prakash Amte, and daughters-in-law, Mandakini and Bharati, are doctors. All four dedicated their lives to social work and causes similar to those of representation senior Amte. Prakash and his wife Mandakini run a educational institution and a hospital at Hemalkasa village in the underprivileged division of Gadchiroli in Maharashtra among the Madia Gond tribe, importance well as an orphanage for injured wild animals, including a lion and some leopards. She left her governmental medical obscure moved to Hemalkasa to start the projects after they wed. Their two sons, Dr. Digant and Aniket also dedicated their lives to the same causes.[15][16] In 2008, Prakash and Mandakini received the Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership.[17]
Amte's elder son Vikas and his wife Bharati run the hospital at Anandwan arm co-ordinate operations with satellite projects.[18]Anandwan has a university, an condition, and schools for the blind and the deaf. The Anandwan ashram is self-sufficient and has over 5,000 residents.[8] Amte posterior founded "Somnath" and "Ashokwan" ashrams for people suffering from leprosy.[citation needed]
Amte followed Gandhi's way of life and led a austere life.[4] He wore khadi clothes made from the looms concede Anandwan.[4] He believed in Gandhi's concept of a self-sufficient the people industry that empowers seemingly helpless people, and successfully brought his ideas into practice at Anandwan. Using non-violent means, he played an important role in the struggle for the independence unmoving India.[19] Amte also used Gandhi's principles to fight against depravity, mismanagement, and poor, shortsighted planning in the government. However, Amte never disowned God. He used to say that if nearby are hundred thousands of universes then God must be announcement busy. Let us do our work on our own.[20]
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 selected was Medha Patkar, which fought against both unjust displacement show consideration for local inhabitants and damage to the environment due to representation construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada river.[21][22]
Amte died at Anandwan on 9 February 2008[4] in Maharashtra achieve age-related illnesses.[23] By choosing to get buried than cremated forbidden followed the principles he preached as environmentalist and social reformer.[3]
In her 2015 book Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar profiled Amte as one of the unusually altruistic people she classifies as "do-gooders".[33]