Shashi Tharoor, a leader in the Congress, recently declared that he would publish a biography of BR Ambedkar the next month. The book, which Aleph will publish, will include details on the great leader’s life and times.
The press release continued by saying that the leader’s disagreements with historical titans like Mahatma Gandhi and Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru would also be covered.
The Congress MP traces the arc of Ambedkar’s life from his birth into a family of Mahars in the Bombay Presidency on April 14, 1891 to his death in Delhi on December 6, 1956 in “Ambedkar: A Life,” in which he will also attempt to address the question of whether Ambedkar was the greatest Indian of modern times.
According to a release from publisher Aleph, he also discusses the numerous “humiliations and difficulties” Ambedkar had to overcome in a culture that stigmatised the community he was born into, as well as the unwavering resolve with which he surmounted every challenge he faced.
The statement said: “We are given insights into the numerous battles Ambedkar fought to outlaw untouchability, his disagreements with the other political and intellectual giants of his era, including Gandhi and Nehru, and his determination to invest India with a visionary Constitution that enshrined within it the inalienable rights of the individual and modern conceptions of social justice.
Ambedkar “changed the lives of millions yet to be born, heaving an ancient civilisation into the modern era with the force of his brain and the power of his pen,” according to Tharoor, by doing this.
The book will be available on October 1st. The number of statues honouring Ambedkar throughout the nation is second only to those honouring Mahatma Gandhi. In a recent poll with over 20 million votes cast to select the “greatest Indian” of contemporary times, he even defeated Gandhi.
To the Dalits, he is a revered figure who was primarily responsible for outlawing untouchability and fighting to give the community dignity. Most importantly, he is hailed as the father of India’s Constitution. All the major political parties compete with one another to claim him as their own.
