The establishment wants to enshrine Baba Amte so that it can ignore his message, says ANIL SADGOPAL IT WAS in January 1998 that more than 25,000 peasants, fishermen and boatmen carried out a satyagraha under the banner of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) at the Maheshwar dam site, a hydel power project that was being built on the river Narmada in Madhya Pradesh. They were resisting the Big Dam concept of development and also demanding a just rehabilitation policy. Unable to go ahead with construction, the Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Limited, promoted by the textile giant S. Kumars (whose Reid & Taylor brand has Amitabh Bachchan as its ambassador) sought Baba Amte's intervention. Baba, then living in his Gandhian hut on the banks of the Narmada, refused to oblige. Allegedly, those controlling S. Kumars used their personal links with one of India's leading corporate scions to persuade the Baba. NBA activists recall that the powerful industrialists even considered withdrawal of the support being given to Baba's multi-purpose Anandwan in Chandrapur district, Maharashtra. But they underestimated the stuff Baba was made of. For here was a man who had once injected serum carrying leprosy bacteria into his own body