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Arguably, there is no more important historical figure in contemporary India, after Mahatma Gandhi, than Dr Ambedkar. All political parties seek to lay claim to his legacy. Yet he is not as well known to general readers globally as he deserves to be.
To be born into an 'untouchable' family in 1891 would normally have guaranteed a life of neglect, poverty and discrimination. Not only did Ambedkar rise above the circumstances of his birth, but he achieved a level of success that would have been spectacular even for a child of privilege. An heir to millennia of discrimination, he became the first law minister of a free India, in the most impressive cabinet ever assembled in New Delhi. Ultimately he achieved a set of set of distinctions few have matched: he successfully challenged millennia-old discrimination against Dalits ('untouchables'); instituted the world's oldest and farthest-reaching affirmative action programme for them and entrenched it in the constitution; promoted liberal constitutionalism in a traditionally illiberal society; and articulated the most cogent and enduring case for the principles and practices of democracy in a country emerging from imperial rule.
Shashi Tharoor's biography stresses Ambedkar's role as a constitutionalist and a builder of democracy as well as a social iconoclast. This book will be a starting point to encourage readers, writers and scholars to engage with Ambedkar's ideas and fight for the principles he stood for.