Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar is considered the Messiah of the Dalits in India. In 1947, the Constituent Assembly appointed him as the chairman of the Drafting Committee constituted for drafting the Constitution for independent India. He played a key role in building the Constitution.

He was born on 14 April 1891 at Mhow (near Indore), a small town of present Madhya Pradesh. He was the fourteenth child of Subedar Ramji and Bhimabai Sakpal. Being from the Maharcaste, he was treated as an ‘untouchable’. His father and his grandfather had served in the British Army. Good schools were arranged by the then government for the education of the children of all military personnel. Therefore, despite being from a low caste, he got a good education.

In 1937, Dr Ambedkar introduced a bill to end the ‘Khoti’ practice of Mahars working as official slaves in the Konkan region. When India became independent in 1947, he adorned the post of the Minister of Law. He had made a clarion call—‘Lost rights are never regained by begging... but by relentless struggle’.

For his remarkable work, he was posthumously awarded India’s highest civilian award ‘Bharat Ratna’ in the year 1990.

Pankaj KishorePankaj Kishore is a freelance author. He is a graduate from Delhi University and holds Diploma in Journalism. He has authored more than 15 books and writes columns for various Newspapers and Journals.