Recalling Saint Gadge Maharaj: Who rooted India’s Swachchta Abhiyaan Mission decades ago

NewsBharati 20-Dec-2017

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Amravati, December 20: While India is striving on its mission to achieve #SwachchataAbhiyaan goal, the soul who started this road towards cleanliness decades ago was none other than great Saint Gadge Maharaj. The man who not only worked for poor but he also worked for whole society. Saint Gadge Maharaj: A hero of 19^th century who ‘fed the hungry’, ‘gave shelter to the needy’ and ‘protected the environment’.

Saint Gadge Maharaj was great saintly reformist who strived for the material as well as spiritual upliftment of the poor and to eliminate superstition, illiteracy and unsanitary conditions.

Maharaj was born in Shedgaon village in Amravati District of Maharashtra in a washerman's family. A public teacher, he traveled from one place to another wearing his food pan upturned on his head and carrying his trademark broom. When he entered a village, he would instantly start cleaning the gutters and roads of the village. He also told the citizens of the village that their congratulations would have to wait until his work was done. In return the villagers gave him money. From this money Maharaj built educational institutions, dharmasalas, hospitals and animal shelters. He conducted his discourses in the form of "Kirtans" in which he would emphasize values like service to humanity and compassion. During his kirtans he would educate people against blind faiths and rituals. He would use Dohas by Saint Kabir in his discourses.

He tried to embody the values that he preached: hard work, simple living and selfless service to the poor. He abandoned his family (wife and 3 children) to pursue this path. Maharaj met the spiritual teacher Mehar Baba several times. Mehar Baba indicated that Maharaj was one of his favorite saints and that Maharaj was on the sixth plane of consciousness . Maharaj invited Mehar Baba to Pandharpur , India , and on 6 November 1954 thousands of people had Maharaj and Mehar Baba’s darshan

Maharaj died on December 20, 1956 on his way to Amravati, on the banks of river Pedhi near Valgaon. The Government of India has started a 'Sant Gadgebaba Swachta Abhiyan' in 2000-01 in his honour. This programme awards prizes to villagers, who maintain clean villages.

Chief Minister Devendra Fdanavis paid tributes on the death anniversary to Saint Gadge Maharaj.

Currently almost all organizations build by him are functioning well. He devoted his entire life in eradicating ignorance, blind faith, innocent beliefs and improper traditions from the society. He used the media of Kirtan towards this goal. In his Kirtan, he would question the audience to make them aware of their ignorance, bad qualities and behavioural traits. His sermons would be simple and straightforward. His sermons would include simple lessons like don’t steal, don’t take loans from moneylenders, don’t become addicts, don’t kill animals in the name of god and religion, don’t follow caste differentiation and social quarantining. He tried to imprint on the common man’s mind that God was in human beings and not in a stone idol. He considered Saint Tukaram Maharaj as his Guru. At the same time he would proclaim that he himself was not a Guru to anyone, nor did he have any disciples. To get his message across to the common man, he would use the colloquial language, especially the Vidharba dialect. He made ample use of Saint Tukaram’s Abhanga (devotional songs) in his Kirtan. Prabodhankar Thackeray, who wrote Gadgebaba’s biography, had this to say - "He would entrance people from all walks of life, from the village ignoramus to the slick urbanites, and convince them of his ideology. I find myself incapable of accurately describing his Kirtan".

On December 20th, 1956 the Great Saint left this mortal world. Even so many years have passed since his departure there is lot of following for him. Government of Maharashtra state also runs a village cleanliness programme named after him. University of Amravati was renamed as Sant Gadge Baba University.

Saint Gadge Maharaj Maharashtra Society Death Anniversary