New Delhi: Beginning with his birth in 1891 and ending with the revolutionary Mahad Satyagraha in 1929, Becoming Babasaheb is the first part of an ambitious two-volume biography on Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. It provides a new perspective on Ambedkar’s life, allowing readers to learn more about the man behind the jurist the economist, the social reformer and the father of India’s Constitution. The book accords a deep, character-driven account of Ambedkar’s life and some of the most important components of his current legacy, all of which unfold as a story of remarkable tenacity.
Since all of Ambedkar’s works and speeches are available online, there will always be new books explaining and expanding upon his ideas. His relationships, as well as the myths and inaccuracies surrounding his thought processes and life events, continue to circulate. To correct the historical record, Becoming Babasaheb was published on the basis of original archive research. Both editions of this biography paint a vivid picture of the man and his era, giving readers a fresh look at the real Ambedkar.
“As an international specialist on Ambedkar, I have observed how global interest about him has started surging, but still there is a paucity of high-quality biographies. The main life-sketches available date back to the 1950s, and even contemporary biographies rely upon those dated works for their (dubious) factual details. I sought to correct this with Becoming Babasaheb, the only biography of Ambedkar based entirely upon original archival research, with total fidelity to the historical facts — I also unearth a lot of details never heard before. This is a vivid portrait of the man in his times, where I present readers with a new Ambedkar, the true Ambedkar,” the author Aakash Singh Rathore said.
Among Aakash Singh Rathore’s nine works is Ambedkar’s Preamble: A Secret History of the Constitution of India, which has earned him acclaim as a philosopher on a global scale. Over a dozen works have been edited by him, including B.R. Ambedkar’s The Buddha and His Dhamma: A Critical Edition (published in 2011) and B.R. Ambedkar: The Quest for Justice (published in a five-volume set in 2021).
Talking about the book, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of Equality Labs, and author of The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition said, “Accessible and finely researched, it humanizes Dr Ambedkar while providing new detail to the incredible hurdles he faced as he worked tirelessly to end caste.”
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