In this laidback town in north Karnataka's Belgaum district bordering Maharashtra, gossip was gobbled like spicy pakoras. When Patil returned home that evening in 1991, his wife and two sons were sombre. They urged him to give up his work, but the thought tormented him all night. At the first glimmer of dawn his jeep trundled towards the abode of Siddalinga Mahaswamigalu at GadagÑhis spiritual crutch.

"Don't give up," the Swamiji told him. "Be like the candle which, even as it melts, leads the way for others." It steeled his determination to save the Devadasis from prostitution. "Sometimes innocent villagers call him 'Prostitutes' lawyer'," said Patil's wife Shanta. "And these days he just smiles in response."

By 1998, Patil was revered in north Karnataka, particularly in Athani taluk. He had touched the lives of one lakh Dalits and over 10,000 Devadasis inhabiting this drought-afflicted region.

Patil accepted Jogan as his guru. The disparity in age did not matter-Jogan was on the threshold of adulthood while Patil was in his mid-40s, with two sons.

A tear ran down his cheek as Patil, 50, recently recounted his story to an audience of children licking their ice candies under a swaying banyan tree. Born in 1946 into the Lingayat family of Lakhmagouda Patil in Mallabadi village, he was named Basavaprabhu after the 12th century philosopher-saint Basava. Lakhmagouda, owning 135 acres of farmland, was the village headman respected for his ability to mediate conflicts. "It is said that my father ensured that the disputes in Mallabadi never reached the police station," said Patil. "However, he had one defect; he practised untouchability."

Patil remembers skipping back from school and touching the sweat-drenched banian of their Harijan servant, who was chopping wood. The blisters that his father's walking stick inflicted on his behind still make him wince. "But then, as if to get even with my father, I would go to the servants' quarters and demand water to drink," he said.

When he was 11, cancer snatched away his father, but his uncles, B.H. Patil and N.Y Patil (the first legislator of the town), had a profound influence on his life. "When I was in the ninth standard my uncle presented me Tagore's Geetanjali," said Patil. N.Y. Patil wanted his nephew to be an English teacher and manage his vast inheritance.

During his pre-university years at the local college, Patil persuaded fellow students to donate their old text-books to a mobile library he ran for poor students. By 1972, Patil married Shantamma, graduated in law and started practising. "My mother had arthritis and I married because I wanted somebody to take care of her," admits Patil. When famine struck that year, he visited the nearby villages, listed their problems and sought remedies from the local authorities. He also established 'gruel centres' for the starving villagers.

When the Land Reforms Act came into force in 1974, it was boom time for lawyers. Illiterate farmers milled around their offices, paying as much as Rs 500 to fill an application form.

Braving the heat, Patil ventured into the villages with a folding-chair, filling the farmers' applications for nothing. A board outside his house offered free legal advice to the Dalits and the poor. It was the beginning of his popularity and a flourishing legal practice. In 1981, he was elected vice-president of the Karnataka Liberal Education (KLE) SocietyÑwhich figured prominently in making education accessible to the masses.

It was then that he met Jogan, formed a committee and organised a seminar on the ills of the Devadasi system. The committee, named Vimochana Devadasi Punarwasati Sangha, organised the seminar in Kokatnur village, known for the Goddess Yellamma temple where girls from the scheduled castes are dedicated as Devadasis.

After a month, Vimochana found five Devadasis willing to get married at Kokatnur. Only two surfaced at the marriage pandal; the others feared to break the tradition. With the three betrayed grooms looking on, the two bold girls entered into matrimony, amid music and drum beats. History had been made in Athani.

For the man who had made it happen, it was just the beginning. Besides abandoning his legal career, Patil relinquished positions in several cooperatives to work full time for Devadasi rehabilitation. It led to the marriage of 143 Devadasis. Once he visited a red-light area in Mumbai. "I went into a house run by an old woman named Tangeuvva," he recalled. "My intention was to seek the daughter of a prostitute from Athani as a gift for the school I planned to start." Hearing him call Tangeuvva 'sister', the old woman wept; no one had ever shown her such respect. Although Patil failed to rescue the girl, he returned to perform seven Devadasi marriages that year, despite resistance from society.

"Even educated people condoned the Devadasi system for economic reasons," said Patil. Besides, rehabilitating the Devadasis with government assistance was easier said than done since the aid was erratic. Accustomed to easy earnings, some Devadasis clandestinely pursued their old profession, even after rehabilitation. Patil's hopes lay in educating the next generation.

Patil was virtually ostracised by the society and accused of contaminating the environment with prostitutes' children. Then fortune smiled. Chancing upon a news report, the Christian Children's Fund (CCF) of America offered to fund Vimochana's proposed school, for which Patil was expected to do a survey of Devadasi children in 73 villages of Athani taluk. Patil and his team were not exactly welcome at the Dalit settlements. "At some places they said that they were quite capable of looking after their children," said Patil.

Patil spent his own money on the survey, including photographing and preparing a profile of each child. The CCF rejected many photographs of questionable quality, said V.S. Manavadi, secretary of Vimochana. Fortunately, Babu Kaka Shivgaokar of the Ugar Sugar Mills helped them out by donating Rs 5,250.

For the next few years the Patils were virtually ostracised for befriending the Devadasis and Dalits. There was also trouble from the state government, which rejected Vimochana's request for eight acres to build the school. Since caste Hindus refused to rent out property, Patil went to Mallabadi, 20 km away, where his mother lived. Here, in his ancestral home, 300 children attended the first classes in 1990.

"I often wondered what my father's reaction might have been if he found a group of Dalit kids learning the alphabet in what was once his bedroom," said Patil.

A few children were lodged in the school, and others in small houses he rented. Caste Hindus accused him of contaminating the environment by bringing in prostitutes' children. As swamijis, international sponsors and journalists began visiting the remote hamlet, their hostility turned to respect. "It appeared that everybody wanted to be a part of the silent revolution gaining momentum in Mallabadi," said Patil. "Their attitude changed dramatically and other communities also sent their children to my school."

Now the school needed more room. Feeding the children in batches consumed nearly four hours, eating into their study time. Patil's wife donated eight acres she had inherited. He constructed a spacious dining room here, naming it 'Shri Guru Mahanta Nilaya' after the Swamiji, one of Vimochana's main benefactors. Donations for a school building started trickling in.

A piggy savings collector from Dharwad donated his life's savings of Rs 25,000 to the school. "When I gave him the receipt, he tore it up saying that he was making the donation anonymously," said Patil. The donor still sponsors an award of Rs 1000 for the best student in matriculation. A Californian sweeper donated 500 dollars from which the 'Kathleen Garden' emerged. Jewellers Zaveri Brothers of Mumbai chipped in with huge sums for the classrooms. Finally on the recommendation of the Pejawar seer, the government accorded recognition to the school.

The CCF adopted 500 Devadasi children, paying their expenses, and later doubled its support to cover 1,002 children. Today Patil has 325 students in his school, 110 of them children of Devadasis. "We did not want to isolate the Devadasis' kids," said headmaster S.H. Talwar, explaining that the intermingling would help in their integration with mainstream society.

Some time ago, the students went on an unruly hunger strike, angry that the rotis had no ghee. Shouting slogans, they marched towards Patil Kaka's house as he was driving towards the school. He convinced them to return, but felt hurt at the way the kids had behaved. "I realised I should not expect anything in return," he said.

A psychologist told him that rebellious behaviour was natural in kids from difficult backgrounds. The sight of their mothers being sexually used would have scarred their young minds.

The school applies salve on them. Said Radha Nooli, a reformed Devadasi of Anathpur: "My only son Madhar goes to Patil's school. He has earned us respectability in society." Enrolling him in the school has also brought them medical and monetary help from Vimochana's schemes funded by the CCF. The Dalits of Anathpur respect Patil for installing an Ambedkar bust in a playground. "Initially we regarded him with suspicion," said Tukaram Laxman Hanganur of Budhuvada. "We thought this high-caste man planned to sell our kids to the foreigners accompanying him. But after he gave us jowar, buffaloes and houses, we trusted him."

Vimochana trains the Devadasis in readymade garment making at a unit in Athani. The 12 women trainees there get a daily stipend of Rs 20 and they compulsorily save Rs 5. After the training, they receive a sewing machine. Vimochana also has a nylon rope-making unit at Lokur.

At Kohalli, 20 Devadasis pedal away at their charkhas. They make wool yarn, and occasionally blankets and mats. "We make about Rs 50 a day," said Suvarana Rudrappa Kannal. "I was suffering from cancer and Vimochana paid for my treatment."

Vimochana also trains 40 Devadasis in handloom weaving. Each trainee gets a loan, a loom and a house. "But we are not doing too well here," said Manavadi. "There is no regular power supply, water and raw materials. Most houses have caved in with the rains." He fears that the women might return to prostitution if the government does not rush aid.

A co-operative society, started by Devadasis at Athani in 1992, is making profits. Devatha Kamble, its director, visits the society once a week from Hulagabali, 12 km away. "All of us buy our provisions from here," she said.

Last year, Vimochana completed a family welfare project in six villages. Meanwhile, at Mallabadi, the World Bank has helped conserve groundwater and build overhead tanks for supplying drinking water to the 4,000 villagers. The state government also initiated a Rs 15-lakh project to conserve groundwater.

Patil wants to set up a vocational training centre for his matriculates on an eight-acre plot from the government. "Since most of them do not pursue higher studies, our whole objective of making them successful is defeated," said Patil.

Patil's wife Shanta has stood by him in all his endeavours. She recalled an incident of 1980, when their newborn twins died following medical complications. Even before he had washed after cremating his children, two boys were at his door, seeking money to pay examination fees. Patil forgot his tragedy and emerged with a few hundred rupees. He sat down with the children, gave them a fistful of peanuts to munch, and asked them to come to him if they had any doubts in their lessons. "That day I saw the greatness of my husband," said Shanta.

At the 85-acre farm, Shanta single-handedly supervises the workers. "All the rations for the school kids goes from here, absolutely free," she said.

Patil's older son Sadananda, studying for a commerce degree, plans to continue his father's work. His brother, Manjunatha, just out of a technical training institute, has set his sights on Bangalore or Pune to make it big. Patil's adopted daughter Sarla is the warden of the school. "Without him I don't know where I would have been," she said. "I want to spend my life taking care of the children, but he doesn't listen." He wants her to get married.

Meanwhile Patil is trying hard for grant-in-aid from the government to take care of the teachers' salaries, but it says no school opened after 1986 is eligible for the grant. "Despite this our salaries match that of government teachers," said Patil. "It is ironic that an institution which has received the national award has not been recognised by the state government."

The construction of a boys' hostel, which started in 1994, is underway. "We hope the CCF funding (amounting to Rs 50 lakh annually) continues," said Patil. "If they stop, I'll go insane."