Baba Amte

His two sons and their wives are all medical doctors and they too have dedicated their lives to social service taking forward the legacy of Baba Amte.

He lived a long life spent mostly in making lives better for the diseased and downtrodden. He died in 2008 at the age of 94.

He was born as Muralidhar Amte to Devidas Amte and his wife Laxmibai in Wardha district. His father was a British government official and his family was very wealthy and prosperous. “Baba” was his childhood nickname.

He enjoyed an idyllic childhood and even possessed his own gun by the time he was a teenager! He loved hunting and watching movies. In fact, he even wrote reviews for a film magazine and communicated with actresses like Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer.

When he attained the age of driving, his father gave him a Singer sportscar. He was living such a luxurious life as a youngster!

After receiving legal education, Baba set up a successful law practice in Wardha. At that time, the Indian Nationalist movement was in full swing and he too joined the freedom struggle.

He became a defense lawyer for the freedom fighters who were imprisoned by the British authorities during the 1942 Quit India Movement.

As a freedom fighter he became acquainted with Mahatma Gandhi and spent some time at the seva gram ashram. Impressed by Gandhi’s principles he became his follower and started wearing khadi.

It was around this period that he became aware of the miseries leprosy patients were subjected too. People believed that leprosy was contagious and thus the patients were treated as outcasts and ostracized.

Wanting to do something to not just help leprosy patients, but to enable them to live a life of self-respect and dignity, he founded the Anandwan Ashram in 1948.

He established the Anandwan ashram, a community rehabilitation center for leprosy patients and disabled people. It is a self-sufficient community primarily dependent on agriculture where everyone learns a skill and earns their livelihood through hard work.