Late Shri B R Ambedkar

Last saturday saw the birth anniversary of the father of our constitution. Here are some important facts about the man,

Fullname: Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar

Born: April 14th 1889

Died:  December 6th 1956

● The First Round Table Conference was convened in London on November 12, 1930 and B.R. Ambedkar and Rao Bahadur Srinivasan represented the Depressed Classes.

● Ambedkar formed the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in August, 1936, which participated in the provincial elections of Bombay and won 13 seats out of 15 seats reserved for scheduled castes.

● Ambedkar was opposed to the strike by civil servants. For him strike is nothing more than a breach of contract of service. It is only a civil wrong not a crime.

● In July 1942, Ambedkar was appointed the member of Executive Council of Viceroy as a Labour member. He resigned from this post in May 1946. 

● The Independent Labour Party was transformed by Ambedkar as the All India Scheduled Castes Federation in 1942. It was a political party which participated in the general elections of 1946 but was completely defeated.

● In January, 1920 Ambedkar started a weekly paper called ‘Mooknayak’ (Leader of the Dumb) to champion the cause of the depressed classes in India. Some of his famous books include—The Untouchable : Who are They and Why They Have Become Untouchables; Buddha and His Dhamma; ‘The Rise and Fall of Hindu Women’, ‘Emancipation of Untouchables’, ‘The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India’; ‘Pakistan or Partition of India’, ‘Thoughts on Linguistic States’, etc.

● Ambedkar was appointed as the first Law Minister of Independent India, but he resigned from the Cabinet on September 1951 due to differences with Nehru on the Hindu Code Bill.

● Ambedkar was elected to the Constituent Assembly from Bengal but he lost his seat after the partition. However, he was chosen by the Bombay Congress Legislative Party in place of M.R. Jaykar who resigned earlier. It should be noted that he was defeated earlier in the election of Constituent Assembly in Bombay. It is interesting to note that in his interview with Cabinet mission on April 5, 1946, Ambedkar opposed the idea of Constituent Assembly as he feared it would be dominated by High Caste Hindus.

● Ambedkar was elected as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly. He is called the father of the Indian Constitution. However, K.V. Rao was of the opinion that Ambedkar was not the father but mother of the Indian Constitution as the vital decisions about the Constitution were taken by Nehru and Patel and Ambedkar followed the same.

● Ambedkar was defeated in the election to the Lok Sabha in 1952 mainly due to his advocacy of partition of Kashmir. However, he was elected as a member of Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra in March 1952. In May 1954, he again contested in the by-election to Lok Sabha but was defeated again. He realised that a party which has no base in rural areas has no future.

● Ambedkar considered the Right to Constitutional Remedy as the Soul of the Constitution.

● Ambedkar converted to Buddhism on October 14, 1956. He died on December 6, 1956 at Delhi due to severe diabetic neurosis.

● After his death, his political party the Scheduled Caste Federation was renamed as Republican Party of India in 1957 by his followers.

Quotes

"What are we having this liberty for? We are having this liberty in order to reform our social system, which is full of inequality, discrimination and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights."

"We are Indians, firstly and lastly."

"The sovereignty of scriptures of all religions must come to an end if we want to have a united integrated modern India."

"The relationship between husband and wife should be one of closest friends."

"So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you."