Born Babasaheb Pandurang Adhav in 1930 in Pune, Baba, as he known in every side-alley of Pune’s working class areas, is a child of the freedom struggle. After a maternal uncle took him to a Seva Dal meeting while he was still in school, Baba became a committed activist, involved in many of the country’s major political upheavals. In 1952, he joined a satyagraha against high prices and food rationing during a drought, and went to jail – for three weeks – for the first time. “I have been (to jail) 52 or 53 times after that,” he says with a toothy chuckle. His most recent incarceration was in May 2008 when he served 14 days in judicial custody for protesting against, yet again, rising prices.
Trained as an ayurved doctor, Baba began his practice in Pune’s Nana Peth, where he saw first hand the hardships faced by hamals (head loaders) who had no legal protection. Hamals, mainly from backward castes, came from all over rural Maharashtra to Pune’s markets, unloading heavy sacks of grain or cement on their backs all day, with barely enough time off to find food, and no house which meant they would sleep in the same market. Political parties worked only with organized labour, leaving hamals with no protection from exploitation.
Baba organized them into “Hamal Panchayat”. Navnath Binawde came to Pune from a drought-prone part of Solapur as a young boy, and recalls the days when he couldn’t get work as a hamal. “Once the Hamal Panchayat came into force, the whole system was streamlined and everyone had equal opportunity for work,” says Binawde, now the panchayat’s secretary.
In 1956, the hamal went on their first-ever strike demanding decent wages. There were satyagrahas and arrests after which it was finally recognized as a trade union and minimum wages were fixed. After years of struggle, in 1969, the state government passed the Maharashtra Mathadi, Hamal and Other Manual Workers Act, the country’s first piece of legislation for the social security of unorganized labour. It has become the rallying point for dozens of other unorganized labour movements seeking social security legislation.
In the decades since, Baba has been actively involved in similar struggles for auto drivers, rag picker, hawkers, domestic workers and construction labourers. Each such collective has registered itself as a separate trade union.
Baba is also known for his social reform work, which is based on the ideology of Gandhiji, Jyotirao Phule and Babasaheb Ambedkar. “Caste is the root of inequality in Indian society and without a cultural revolution, we will never achieve quality,” says Baba, who set up the Vishamta Nirmoolan Samiti (Society for the Eradication of Inequality). “I realized a long time ago that people do not live for their stomachs alone. Where I disagree with Left parties is that they focus on economic structures alone,” he adds.
The Hamal Panchayat has also created a free secondary school, medical clinics, and a housing colony. The unions/ orvanizations are all funded through contributions and from small economic activities. One such is ‘Kashtachi Bhakar’, conceived by Baba as a place for the working class to get a cheap nutritious meal, which today feeds an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 workers every day in Pune. The only exception to the no-donations rule is the “Samajik Krutadnyata Nidhi” (Social Gratitude Fund) which is a corpus formed from donations made by veteran marathi actors, and used to pay a salary of Rs. 1,250 per month to 50 young activists working for different organizations across the state. For himself, Baba made it a rule never to take a salary more than three times that of the lowest-paid employee. He owns no property.
Still sprightly, with a schedule that keeps him on the road for much of his time, Baba lives in Pune with his wife, Sheela (74), a retired nurse who has been his rock of support. He has two sons and three grandchildren. Even in his finest hour, Baba remains a true working-class hero.
Team TOI
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