A Profile-BR Ambedkar.

 Ambedkar Jayanti falls on 14^th April.

“An idea needs propagation as much as a plant needs watering.”

Bhimrao Ambedkar (1891–1956)
Founding Father, modern India
MA 1915, PhD 1927
LLD 1952 (hon.)

Ambedkar was a leader in the struggle for Indian independence, the architect of the new nation's constitution, and the champion of civil rights for the 60 million members of the "untouchable" caste, to which he belonged.

He spoke and wrote ceaselessly on behalf of "untouchables," but his passion for justice was broad. In 1950 he resigned from his position as the country's first minister of law when Nehru's cabinet refused to pass the Women's Rights Bill. Ambedkar was committed to maintaining his independence, and many of the positions he staked out in a long and complex relationship with Gandhiji.

BR Ambedkar was selected by Nehru as the first law minister of the government of India (1947-51).

Born of an untouchable Mahar family of western India, he was as a boy humiliated by his high-caste schoolfellows. His father was an officer in the Indian Army. He was awarded a scholarship by the Gaekwad the ruler of Vadodara, he studied at universities in the United States, Britain, and Germany.

He entered the Baroda Public Service at the Gaekwad's request, but, again ill-treated by his high-caste colleagues, he turned to legal practice and teaching. He soon established his leadership among Harijans, founded several journals on their behalf, and succeeded in obtaining special representation for them in the legislative councils of the government. Contesting Mahatma Gandhi's claim to speak for Harijans, he wrote What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables.

In 1947 Ambedkar became the law minister of the government of India. He took a leading part in the framing of the Indian constitution, outlawing discrimination against untouchables, and skillfully helped to steer it through the assembly. He resigned in 1951, disappointed at his lack of influence in the government to pass Women’s Rights Bill.