Short Essay on Baba Amte Social Worker - 470 Words

Murlidhar Devidas Amte was born on 26 December 1914 to a well to do family of Jagirdars at Hinganghat in the Wardha district of the Maharashtra state. He was born with a silver spoon in his  mouth. He was one of the greatest social reformers India ever had. He gave his lucrative career as barrister for social service.

Even though he was trained as a barrister and was operating a successful practice at Warora, he gave it all up to dedicate himself totally into social service when he noticed the poverty all around him. He was lovingly called Baba Amte.

He was so great as a person that he dedicated his entire life to the care and rehabilitation of leprosy patients. Often Baba Amte allowed his body to be used for carrying out experiments to grow leprosy germs.

The life of Baba Amte is full of touching incidents. His social project at Anandwan adjacent to Nagpur in the Indian state of Maharashtra is world renowned because it has done a lot to dismiss injustices against leprosy patients.

In the year 1985, Baba Amte started the Bharat Jodo or the Unite India movement beginning from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and then again from Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh in the year 1988. In the same year Baba invited leading environmental activists from all over the country to discuss the subject of big dams. 

His politics on behalf of the poor and oppressed led Baba to the banks of the Narmada to throw his moral weight behind the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), the movement of the tribal and farmers who were uprooted by the Sardar Sarovar Dam.   

The main objective was to reinstate peace and whip up environmental awareness. In the year 1990, Baba left Anandwan to reside alongside river Narmada with the objective to fight against social injustice to local inhabitants there.

Baba Amte was honored with numerous national and international awards for his selfless services to the society his entire life. The government of India presented him with the Padma Shree Award in the year 1971 and then the Padma Vibhushan in the year 1986. The welfare of the disabled award was presented to him in the year 1986 and Gandhi Peace Prize in 1999.

He was a man of steely determination and resolute courage, who defined both society and state in his pursuit of truth and justice. His mission to win a life of dignity for victims of leprosy went against the very grain of society which treated the leprosy afflicted as untouchable outcastes.

Baba Amte’s crusade against big dams challenged the state and forced its attention towards the tribal and farmer who were being meted out injustice in the name of development. This extraordinary person will live on in our minds for the good life he lived.