By Darryl D\’Monte, IANS
I have two images of Baba Amte in my mind. The first is a ramrod-straight, weather-beaten Roman gladiator, perennially clad in a sleeveless, open-necked white vest and matching white shorts, ready to take on all odds – physical pain as much as social and environmental wrong-doings. The second is of him bed-bound, keeping an eagle eye on the ‘dharna’ that is milling around his cot, out in the open, in a dusty, tribal village in the heartland of India.
Far from being contradictory, the two Amtes complement each other: he may be laid low with spondylosis, a crippling degenerative disease, which compelled him to stand or sleep (he could never sit) but his spirit remained unbroken – unlike his back. In the early 1970s, he was operated in London for this devastating ailment: it saved his life but prostrated him. His rugged, aquiline features reveal his indomitable courage in the face of tremendous obstacles; his refusal to allow adversity to mar his countenance.
Amte was a living legend who steadfastly refused to be deified. This ‘Baba’ bore no trace whatsoever of even the faintest whiff of anything religious: it was his mother’s nickname, which simply stuck.
He was much feted in his eventful life – but also returned his Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan in protest against the ill treatment of tribals displaced by the Sardar Sarovar dam across the Narmada.
I had heard of his selfless work in treating leprosy patients in the sprawling farm campus he set up at Warora, not far from Wardha, where his mentor Gandhiji had his ashram. But in 1984, I was prompted to pay him a visit only when I learned that he was to lead a march against two dams in Gadchiroli district, at the remote easternmost extremity of Maharashtra.
I do not think Amte would have taken on this struggle were it not for the fact that his reclusive younger physician son, Prakash, was running the Lok Biradari (Brotherhood) Prakalp at Hemalkasa, deep in this belt. Launching his life’s mission to restore leprosy patients their dignity by providing them shelter, work and, not least dignity, Amte – who is very much a son of central India – thought of establishing an outpost to similarly bring succour to the impoverished Madia Gonds at Bhamragad village, some 300 km south of Warora, in the early 1970s.
It was a decade later that the Inchampalli and Bhopalapatnam dams were planned on the Godavari and its tributary the Indravati in these densely wooded forests. The dams would have swamped 170,000 hectares of prime deciduous forest, said to harbour the second best teak (after Burma) in the world.
In 1983, Amte wrote to Indira Gandhi that the dams “would submerge the homeland of the Madia Gond people. At least 40,000 people (out of a total of 75,000) will be uprooted, along with millions of trees…Today the Madia Gond people maintain their struggle for survival only because of the support system that these forests provide.”
I accompanied the march that he and local tribal and Congress leaders organised in protest against the dams in Gadchiroli. “From Surat in the West to Bihar in the East the tribal belt runs across the country – like the cummerbund you see me wearing,” Amte thundered before the 5,000-strong audience.
Whether due to the shortage of funds or other compulsions, the decision to go ahead with the two dams was abandoned – thanks in no small part to the leading role played by Amte.
It was this baptism in the politics of the environment that spurred Amte to larger issues. In 1988, he invited environmentalists to Anandwan, his headquarters in Warora, to examine the issue of big dams in their entirety. A declaration issued by all participants stated that such dams – India has 1,500 – did not reap the benefits that were ascribed to them and only benefited the urban elite and rich farmers. It was only days after this reaffirmation of faith that the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) decided to oppose big dams, as distinct from only campaigning for proper rehabilitation of people ousted by them.
In 1989, the NBA held a massive rally at Harsud, on the banks of the river in Madhya Pradesh. Amte was ill and enfeebled, but that did not prevent him, once again, from attending the rally in his specially designed ‘ambulance-van’. It attracted 50,000 people. Amte said: “The Indian village, like a woman, carries the future of the nation in her womb. Yet our government is preparing to wipe 500 Indian villages from the face of the earth. No one is allowed to arrange the funeral of our future.”
On returning to Anandwan, Amte started contemplating moving to the Narmada valley as an expression of his will to resist. He discussed it with Medha Patkar, the feisty NBA leader, who supported the idea. He is then reported to have offered to let his body become an offering, by putting it on the line, as it were. He moved to Choti Kasravad, on the outskirts of Badwani in Madhya Pradesh.
His arrival at Kasravad sparked off a big demonstration of 10,000 peasants and tribals – the two classes who stood to lose by the dam – who barricaded a bridge in Madhya Pradesh in 1990. Angered by his presence, the Madhya Pradesh government harassed him by installing loudspeakers near his humble abode. Later that December, he led a Long March of 6,000 people from Rajghat bridge near Badwani to the site of the Sardar Sarovar dam in Gujarat, 200 km away. At the border, they were halted by the wife of then chief minister Chimanbhai Patel and supporters of the dam. They held signs like: “Baba Amte Go Back, Your Leprosy Patients Miss You”.
There was a fierce face-off, with both sides shouting slogans. Finally, Baba and a few others were allowed to enter Gujarat. Weakened by this confrontation, Amte fell unconscious in January 1991 but the Baroda district collector refused to allow him to proceed by his vehicle, saying that he had to travel by foot. Three days later, Amte decided to return the two national awards he had received – the Padma Shri and the Padma Vibhushan.
It was ten long and lonely years later that Amte decided to return to Anandwan. He stated in 2000: “It is a great battle; we have already won the war. No IMF or World Bank will, in the future, ever give money for any big dam like the Sardar Sarovar. The battle is going on and we feel this is a very brave battle.”
Leaders like Baba Amte are meteors that explode in the firmament once in a lifetime and illumine the darkness that envelops us. We shall always remember him as the person who refused to compromise with truth, as he saw it, and lived a life that was honest to the core.
(Darryl D’Monte is a veteran environmental journalist. He can be contacted at [email protected]. The piece is excerpted from “Icons: Men & Women Who Shaped today’s India, recently published by Roli Books)