Meeratayi Koppikar, veteran Gandhian who ran Vatsalya Dhama, a commune of natural farmers and Khadi and village industries workers in Mudhol, passed away on Friday. She was 97.
She was ailing for sometime, but continued to spin on the Charkha and do her chores around the house, commune sources said.
Born in an affluent family, she plunged into the freedom struggle while still a teenager. The British jailed her twice. After advice from Mahatma Gandhi, she joined the Sarvodaya movement. She also joined the North Karnataka efforts of the Bhoodan movement of Vinoba Bhave.
She refused to go to Bengaluru to accept the Rajyotsava Award in 2009. And, Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa visited the ashram to present it to her. She had said that she would dedicate the ₹1 lakh award money for the uplift of the poor.
She set up Vatsalya Dhama, a commune of people who believed in simple living, natural farming and Khadi and village industries in two-and-a-half acres of land on the outskirts of Mudhol.
Shivaji Bhave, Vinoba Bhave’s brother, inaugurated the ashram in 1984.
Vatsalya Dhama has small patches of land where natural farming is practised, along with spinning on the Charkha and making daily usage items such as clothes, soap, caps, brush and farm equipment of wood.
Koppikar used to say that the commune was so self-contained that the two dozen inmates had to buy only matchboxes, cooking oil and salt from outside. She ran it for four decades, till her death.
Irrigation Minister Govind Karjol, who represents Mudhol in the Assembly, has expressed his deep condolences on the death of the Gandhian. “She refused to accept the Rajyotsava Award in 2009. We had all expected it. I took the then Chief Minister (Mr. Yediyurappa) to Vatsalya Dhama and convinced Koppikar to accept the award. She reluctantly accepted it, only to spend the award money on the poor,’’ the Minister recalled.
