Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar: A leader ahead of his times

Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar, the iconic Dalit leader, lived a complex life, wore many hats and came to be widely recognised as the father of the Indian Constitution. He trained as a lawyer in London, apart from being an economist and a professor. He served as Law and Justice Minister in the first Cabinet of PM Jawaharlal Nehru. Before that, for eight years, he served as a nominated member of the Bombay Legislative Council, where he advocated the rights of marginalised communities.

Ambedkar belonged to the Mahar caste, categorised as ‘untouchable’; his angst against oppression was so deep that he dared to publicly burn the ‘Manusmriti’, an ancient Hindu law text that imposed severe social and legal restrictions on them, as a symbolic protest.

Born on April 14, 1891, in Mhow cantonment, Madhya Pradesh, his father was a Subedar in the British Indian Army. Though he originally carried the surname Sakpal, his Brahmin teacher, Krishnaji Keshav Ambedkar, later changed it to Ambedkar as a mark of recognition for his academic brilliance.

He studied at Elphinstone College, the University of Bombay, and later at Columbia University and the London School of Economics, which was an achievement for him. The Maharaja of Baroda sponsored his higher education in the US as the ruler wanted him to serve under the princely state and he did join the Accountant-General’s Office there.

When he returned to India after spending about four years in foreign lands, Ambedkar went to Baroda where none of the hotels allowed him to stay. A Parsi inn owner agreed to keep him after reaching some kind of compromise. He had to run for his life when the other inmates of the inn found out that he was ‘untouchable’, he wrote in his autobiographical document ‘Waiting For a Visa’ written during the period 1935-36 but published as a booklet in 1990.

His childhood was marred by caste-based discrimination, including being segregated at school and denied basic amenities like water. When they needed to drink water, someone from a higher caste would pour water from a height, mostly the peon at the school, which is the basis of his writings “No Peon, No Water”.

Ambedkar’s role in the Independence struggle was complex. He gradually made his position strong enough in the Indian political scene and often clashed with the Indian National Congress due to his interventions and advocacy centred more around the protection and furtherance of Dalit rights. He vouched for a separate electorate for backward classes which Mahatma Gandhi thought would break people into splinter groups.  Gandhi undertook a fast unto death to reverse the British acceptance of demands raised by Ambedkar, who was a part of a committee that was preparing the Government of India Act, 1919, to increase the participation of Indians in the government. Ambedkar had to give in under the Poona Pact of 1932, under which reserved seats were formed in provincial assemblies, instead of separate electorates.

Ahead of the times, one of Ambedkar’s most significant contributions as a policymaker was his attempt to reform Hindu personal laws through the Hindu Code Bill. This groundbreaking legislation sought to modernise and ensure equality in matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and adoption. However, the Bill faced vehement opposition both within Parliament and from conservative sections of society.

The government was forced to withdraw it, and Ambedkar, frustrated with the lack of political will to advance this form of social justice, resigned from the Cabinet. In 1956, Ambedkar converted to Buddhism, and the very same year, on December 6, he passed away.