NEW DELHI (AFP) — Indian social activist Murlidhar Devidas Amte, who created a rural commune that provided a home and jobs to the country's widely shunned leprosy sufferers, died Saturday aged 93, family said.
Amte -- known popularly as Baba (Father) Amte -- died at his home in the Anandwan commune in India's western Maharashtra state after a long illness.
"His work spans almost 70 years," his older son Vikas Amte, a doctor at the commune, told AFP on Saturday, describing Anandwan (Forest of Joy) as "a sanctuary for someone who has no home -- a sanctuary of love."
Inspired by independence icon Mahatma Gandhi, Amte began his work among India's "untouchables" -- those at the bottom of India's caste hierarchy treated as pariahs by other Hindus for their work clearing human waste.
But after seeing a leprosy patient lying abandoned in a sewer, Amte, a lawyer by profession, turned his attention to helping lepers cast out by their families fearing the curable but disfiguring disease might spread.
In 1951, Amte, born into a prosperous high-caste Brahmin family, set up Anandwan, a self-supporting commune now home to around 2,500 people, both leper patients and those with other physical disabilities.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed his condolences to the family, calling Amte a "saint of our times."
"It is with a deep sense of grief and loss that I heard about the demise of Baba Amte," said Singh in a statement.
"A true Gandhian who worked hard to uphold Gandhian values in their true spirit, Baba Amte became a legend in his own lifetime," Singh said.
"I pay homage to a truly great son of India," he added.
Amte called Anandwan a "kibbutz for the sick," borrowing the term for communal farming settlements in Israel.
The commune has hospitals, an orphanage and schools, and everyone who is physically able contributes by doing some work.
Some 35,000 people are believed to have received treatment at the commune's hospital over the decades.
Amte was awarded the world's leading spiritual award, the Templeton Prize, for his work in 1990.
The prize was established in 1972 by US-born financier and philanthropist Sir John M. Templeton to honour those who advance knowledge in spiritual matters.
Amte is survived by his wife, two sons and two adopted daughters. His funeral is expected to take place on Sunday.
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