Reaction to Baba's Politics:

These ideas and related work won Baba a vast fan following. But many of his most ardent supporters and admirers were dismayed by his shift from humanitarian work to political action which threatens to rock the boat. His opposition of the SSP and decision to move to Kasravad were even ridiculed as a misguided emotional gesture. But the toughest test of Baba's patience and equanimity came at the peak of the NBA's activities in 1992. That was when the Madhya Pradesh police practiced-what Baba Amte called- 'shout-at-sight tactics'. The police set up camp near his house and blasted various kinds of noise and abuse from loudspeakers round the clock. And then, in December 1992, there was the agonizing blow of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and the communal violence which followed, all over the country. Baba and Tai immediately rushed to Surat, from where there were reports of the most barbaric violence. As he moved through different localities in his van, people warmly welcomed his soothing, loving presence. It was not a moment to dwell upon differences over the SSP.

Weeks later, when Mumbai suffered a prolonged period of communal violence, Baba and Tai went and parked themselves near Behrampada, one of the worst-affected areas. This allowed him to rush there in the middle of the night to oppose Shiv Sena workers who were preventing the fire brigade from reaching burning homes. He could not stop the riots but he could be with the suffering. Having witnessed all this, Baba returned to Kasravad a deeply saddened man.

Baba has always felt an affinity to the story of Christ. Echoing in his consciousness is the sound of Christ's lute falling from his hand, as the Roman soldiers nailed him to the cross:

The Cross on which you spent your last breath has become to me not a sign that your service has come to an end, I see in it the sum of all that gives value to our life. To me it is not a symbol of violence wrought on you. To me it has become the voice of compassion. The Cross ... asks us to yield up the love of life for the life of love, to back our conscience with our blood. Where there is fear there is no love. Fear of leprosy, fear of loneliness in the tribal belt, this scarecrow of fear cannot be allowed to guide your conscience. Everyone should attempt to walk in the shadow of that Cross. That means you are in the company of that life which scuttled itself to save carry the others. I haven't the arrogance to say I can carry the mighty load of His Cross, but I do try to walk in its shadow. He wants to carve your life like a crucifix. Every calamity is a crucifixion, crucifying your ambition, your lust. Each is a tiny lesson, and then the imprint of the crucifixion is on your life. What is your plan of sacrifice today? You and I, petty souls, sacrifice for our children. Christ sacrificed for tomorrow's whole world. Whenever I see slum-dwellers, with their hunger and poverty, that obscene poverty, I feel He is crucified like that. When I come across a person suffering from leprosy, foul-smelling, ulcerous, I can see the imprint of His lips, His kiss. What did they not do to sufferers of leprosy in His time, yet the carpenter's son cared for them and touched them. That hand is an emblem for me, that hand which cared for the loneliest and the lost. The Christian is ... he who not only lights the darkest corner in the world but also the darkest corner in his own heart.

This means living and working for a mission, not seeking death in its name. So though Baba sees himself as a ' . . . blood-hound sniffing out the sacrifices of martyrs in all times ' he is ' . . - just living here by the river. I will not rush into the swirling waters, but if the water rises above my house I will not move.'

Several times over these years the waters did rise over sixty feet, from the regular sandy bank of the river, to touch the doorstep of Baba and Tai's home. In 1994, as the water crossed the danger mark, the local District Collector ordered Baba and Tai to be moved to the Circuit House. Why did Baba allow this? 'What was I to do?' asks Baba with some exasperation, 'kick and scream, bite their hands?'

And so Baba Amte has arrived at an unexpected dilemma or crossroads. He expected to live by Rewa Maiya, for as long as fate decreed and then surrender to the flow of the river, if and when the time came. Both options are being denied to him. It is almost certain that every time the waters rise beyond the danger mark the authorities will remove him from his home. All the quibbling over whether this is an arrest or 'safe-custody' will not ease Baba's plight.

Cut off from the day-to-day hurly-burly of the movement, Baba is sometimes exasperated by the physical limitations on his mobility. He can no longer travel to the front-line of action as activists of the NBA set up various kinds of constructive work projects in the valley and simultaneously spread the struggle to the other dams to be constructed further upstream.

A Supreme Court stay order and shortage of funds has delayed completion of the SSP. But if the dam's wall rises any higher, at some point Baba Amte's vanprastha ashram at Kasravad will be submerged. 'Where will you go then?' his sons ask Baba. What next? He does not have a ready answer. This uncertainty troubles Baba Amte. Yet he rallies with the faith that God and nature will provide an answer.

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