Baba Amte's legacy lives on

R Krishna Das visits Anandwan a week after its creator Baba Amte's death and finds his vision for India alive and glowing

Baba Amte never wanted anybody to keep crying. He wanted them to keep trying. While the whole world was grief-stricken following his passing away on February 9, life in Anandwan "" the symbol of the country's exemplary experiments in humanity and community living that Baba Amte had built in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra "" returned to normalcy within a day.

Work was back on track after a day of mourning in seven communes and about 40 manufacturing units of paper, carpet, metal furniture, and the farmlands which supply all food to the over 440-acre world created by the Baba.

Taxiing around the village, now declared a panchayat, is to release how the community which started with a budget of Rs 14 and six leprosy patients half a century ago, today has 2,500 inmates and an annual budget of Rs 1.7 crore.

Three hospitals, several vocational training centres, all are abuzz with life.

They, collectively, like the people living in the seven communes of the Ashram, breathe the vision of Amte, something he saw for the outcastes of society and also for rural India.

Humanitarian and social worker Murlidhar Devidas Amte, fondly called Baba Amte, had taught only one lesson to the people of Anandwan "" work and have confidence in your two hands. His motto of "production-oriented social service" was powered with his loud saying: "Work builds, charity destroys".

The Baba's encounter with Tulshiram, a man in the final stages of leprosy, was the turning point in his life and sowed the seeds for Anandwan. His wife Sadhanatai is back in Anandwan and is like a guardian angel overseeing the seven communes of Anandwan already abuzz with life, as if Baba Amte were still there.

She narrates the well known story of Tulshiram as if it happened yesterday.

At that time, Amte ran from the scene in fear. "Baba was shocked, speechless," recalls Sadhanatai, using the name by which she addressed her husband and which ultimately stuck to him for good.

"But his conscience was stirred and he rushed back to nurse Turlsiram. Tulshiram died, but not without arousing the flame of resolve in Baba's heart to work for patients of leprosy who were little more than outcastes, '' she says.

He attended a six-month course at the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine and started training leprosy patients in nearby villages after founding the Maharogi Sewa Samiti (MSS) in 1951.

Baba moved to Anandwan "" then rock-strewn land, tucked away unobtrusively about two kilometres from the sleepy town of Warora in Chandrapur district, she keeps her narrative going.

With a cash of Rs 14, Baba had six badly afflicted leprosy patients, wife and two baby sons to take care in the land surrounded with overgrown bushes and inhabited by wildlife and poisonous snakes.

"The wild animals ate our dogs and created terror," says Sadhanatai "" who took care of and nursed the leprosy patients, cooked food for them and washed their cloths.

Baba, however, put the patients at work and dug a well to generate a source of water. Within three years, there was a community of 60 leprosy patients, who helped in yielding substantial harvest of grains and vegetables for their requirement and sold them in the market.

Now, after 57 years, Anandwan has developed into a forest of bliss "" about 120 km from Nagpur "" perhaps the largest community of leprosy afflicted and physically challenged people in the world, it hums with activity.

With 2,500 inmates, of them 1,600 leprosy afflicted, everyone has a job to do "" from screen printing to steel welding. "Initially, Baba's critics castigated him for asking the leprosy patients to work. But that was his distinct dream and vision to change their life," says Sitakant Prabhu, an activist of Anandwan.

Baba used to say, adds Prabhu, that if he want to see smile on the face of socially ousted leprosy patients, he has to raise their confidence and dignity And, that was possible only when they work and have confidence in their hands.

Baba envisaged a set-up, not restricted to the mere provision of refuge and treatment, but one that would rebuild the spirit and dignity of those shattered by social revulsion, scorn and ostracism.

He emphasised that whatever else they may lose "" the citizens at Anandwan should never give away their self-respect" Kaustubh Amte "" Baba's grandson and assistant secretary of MSS "" says. Everyone who works here is paid according to their job. The earnings is their saving as inmates in the Anandwan get free food, medicines, cloth, and accommodation.

The young couples take care of the elder ones who cannot work. The complex has seven communes with common kitchen for each, three hospitals, bank, post office, vocational training centres, schools, colleges. The inmates produce cloths, mattresses, carpets, readymade garments, leather products, metal furniture, greetings cards, handicrafts and a lot more.

The annual budget of the MSS has crossed Rs 1.7 crore, much of which is generated by the members of the community themselves. "We are on expansion plans to bring professional and modern touches to the institution," says Kaustubh.

The modernisation plan can also help the institution to increase the revenue, which it requires to continue the noble cause. The MSS get grants for 1,200 leprosy patients from the state government and that too, a nominal amount of Rs 14 per head per day.

Now that Baba is no more, his sons "" Vikas and Prakash "" and others in the large family of associates are committed to continue doing things to his bidding. Even in death, Baba had served the humanity.

For, he wished that his mortal remains be buried and not consigned to flames as the woods used to burn a body could help cooking food for at least 1,000 people while the buried body is of a great help for micro-organisms.

Awards came in torrents. But Baba never had a desire for one. He used to quip: Noble enterprise is important than a Nobel Prize.