Amte couple chosen for Magsaysay Award
More than three decades after Baba Amte won the Magsaysay Award for public service, his son Prakash Amte was on Thursday chosen along with his wife Mandakini for the prestigious prize, called the Asian Nobel Prize, in the category of community leadership.
It was 35 years ago, following in the footsteps of his father that Prakash had set up the first hospital for the Madia Gond tribals living in deplorable conditions in the forests of Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra and nearby Bastar region, now part of Chhattisgarh. Equipped with a medical degree, he took up his father’s offer to serve the tribals. Baba Amte had won the award in 1975.
When news reached him that he and his wife have been chosen for the award, Prakash was doing what he is best at — rescuing animals. “It was a 8-ft-long python caught in a net. Some tribals found it in the jungle and brought it to me. I was extricating it from the net and tending to its injuries when I got the news,’’ he said.
The doctor couple were awarded for “enhancing the capacity of Madia Gonds to adapt positively in today’s India, through healing and teaching and other compassionate interventions’’, the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation said in Manila.
Prakash and Mandakini are among seven individuals and one organisation from India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka who have been selected for this year’s awards.
Besides working with tribals through his medical services in the remote, inaccessible and backward Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, Prakash is known for his love for wildlife and nature.
At his Hemalkasa camp, 350 km from Nagpur, Prakash has set up a virtual zoo which he likes to call “animal orphanage’’. Two years ago a Russell Viper’s he was tending, bit him almost pushing him to death. “It was my mistake, don’t harm the snake,’’ he exhorted family members. That snake now is a member of his zoo.
When he was studying, the senior Amte took him for a picnic to Bhamragad. It was there that he encountered the immense suffering of the Gond tribals living in poverty and deprivation without access to health care. When they returned from the trip, Amte asked if he would like to work for the tribals . Prakash’s answer was an instinctive ‘yes’. It was a decision that changed his life and that of poor tribals who found in him a selfless, unassuming doctor always ready to help.
The just-married Prakash and Mandikini then trudged some 50 km from Alapalli to reach Hemalkasa, where Baba had put up a hut. “Life was very tough then. For six months the place was cut off from the world with no bridges on rivers,’’ said Prakash. “We did not know the tribal dialect, making it impossible to communicate. They don’t speak any other language except Madia and that made matters difficult for us,’’ recounts says Prakash. The Gonds were suspicious of outsiders and resistant to the idea of visiting the Amtes for treatment.
When news reached him that he and his wife have been chosen for the award, Prakash was doing what he is best at — rescuing animals. “It was a 8-ft-long python caught in a net. Some tribals found it in the jungle and brought it to me. I was extricating it from the net and tending to its injuries when I got the news,’’ he said.
The doctor couple were awarded for “enhancing the capacity of Madia Gonds to adapt positively in today’s India, through healing and teaching and other compassionate interventions’’, the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation said in Manila.
Prakash and Mandakini are among seven individuals and one organisation from India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka who have been selected for this year’s awards.
Besides working with tribals through his medical services in the remote, inaccessible and backward Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, Prakash is known for his love for wildlife and nature.
At his Hemalkasa camp, 350 km from Nagpur, Prakash has set up a virtual zoo which he likes to call “animal orphanage’’. Two years ago a Russell Viper’s he was tending, bit him almost pushing him to death. “It was my mistake, don’t harm the snake,’’ he exhorted family members. That snake now is a member of his zoo.
When he was studying, the senior Amte took him for a picnic to Bhamragad. It was there that he encountered the immense suffering of the Gond tribals living in poverty and deprivation without access to health care. When they returned from the trip, Amte asked if he would like to work for the tribals . Prakash’s answer was an instinctive ‘yes’. It was a decision that changed his life and that of poor tribals who found in him a selfless, unassuming doctor always ready to help.
The just-married Prakash and Mandikini then trudged some 50 km from Alapalli to reach Hemalkasa, where Baba had put up a hut. “Life was very tough then. For six months the place was cut off from the world with no bridges on rivers,’’ said Prakash. “We did not know the tribal dialect, making it impossible to communicate. They don’t speak any other language except Madia and that made matters difficult for us,’’ recounts says Prakash. The Gonds were suspicious of outsiders and resistant to the idea of visiting the Amtes for treatment.
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