Ambedkar: Papads and milk

Illustration/Uday Mohite

In his early days as a student in London, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar struggled on a tight budget - though he wasn't Dr or Babasaheb yet. He literally skipped lunch because he couldn't afford it. For dinner, his landlady served him Bovril, a meat paste soup. Fortunately, he had "a supply of papad given to him by a Gujarati friend. Each night at 10 pm he would ration out four to eat, along with a cup of milk, to stave off hunger through the night". This is one of many insights in the wonderful, vivid biography, Becoming Babasaheb: The Life and Times of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, Birth to Mahad (1891-1929) by Aakash Singh Rathore (HarperCollins India, hardcover Rs 699; first of a two-part volume). It brings alive Dr Ambedkar's life: despite horrific discrimination because of poverty and caste, he emerged as a remarkable scholar, barrister, leader of the Dalits and key architect of India's Constitution. It is the latest in a number of his biographies by authors from CB Khairmoday and Dhananjay Keer, to Eleanor Zelliot, Gail Omvedt, and Christophe Jaffrelot, with Ambedkar's own book Waiting for a Visa, including autobiographical fragments.

Rathore's preface is delightfully titled "There will be blood", so he's looking to recreate a flesh and blood portrait of a revolutionary devoted to the annihilation of caste. His meticulous, original research and accessible style makes for an engrossing biography of a man who, like us - struggled to pay the bills, fell in love, dealt with crises - yet the average middle class Indian may have little in common with the relentless lifelong discrimination he faced, or indeed, his prodigious achievements. From a kid, one of 14 born in a Mahar (Dalit, untouchable) family in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh, who had to sit on a gunny sack cloth in a corner of the school classroom, to earn a BA (Elphinstone College, Mumbai), an MA and PhD in Economics from Columbia University, New York, and an MSc and DSc (Doctorate) in Economics from the London School of Economics, and a law degree at Gray's Inn, London, are staggering achievements. He even submitted a paper proposing that the origins of caste lay not in race (Aryans subjugating Dravidians), but the control of women's sexuality i.e. the practice of "beti bandi" or endogamy, marrying within the clan/community. He recommended ending this by promoting intercaste marriages. Unlikely he'd have called it love jihad, but essentially it promoted co-mingling - unlike the weaponising against minorities it has become today, that simply results in more body bags.

Nor is the book hagiographic: Rathore includes, for instance, parts of a love letter to Ambedkar, written by Frances ‘Fanny' Fitzgerald/Proust, his widowed landlady in London. Her letters, usually starting ‘My darling Bhim,' signed off with the letter F. "Ambedkar published a long, full-page dedication to her in his new book on Gandhi and the Congress party… ‘To F., In Thy Presence is the Fullness of Joy,'" Rathore writes.

A renowned philosopher and author, Rathore has written nine books, including Ambedkar's Preamble: A Secret History of the Constitution of India, and edited over a dozen books, including BR Ambedkar's The Buddha and his Dhamma: A Critical Edition, and BR Ambedkar: The Quest for Justice (five-volume box set). His Hegel's India was shortlisted for the Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the Tata Literature Live! Book Awards. He has also taught politics, philosophy and law at Jawaharlal Nehru University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Ambedkar aimed to annihilate caste on many fronts, including editing newspapers, proposing Bills as a member of the Bombay Legislative Assembly; practising as a lawyer, and teaching at the Government Law College, to direct action, such as at the Mahad Conference in 1927, when he and a large group of ‘low' castes broke social codes by drinking water from the Chavdar lake in Mahad, Maharashtra.

A lot of upper castes, who take for granted the basics of life, like food, water, shelter, education and employment, are still outraged if the ‘lower' castes get or share the same. Babasaheb, thou shouldst be living at this hour!

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com