Who was Ramabai Ambedkar behind the songs & statues? She suffered, sacrificed, snapped back

Ramabai’s early death on 27 May 1935 stoked the mythology around her. To many Dalits, she is Ramai but to Ambedkar, she was Ramu— ‘What if you had not found these orders of poverty sweet?’

BR Ambedkar with his first wife Ramabai. She died at the age of 37 but left a lasting impression on his life | Commons

In the bustle near Mumbai’s Byculla railway station, in front of a Hanuman temple, an open shed in a fish market became the altar for one of India’s most consequential unions. A girl of nine, though some accounts say she was older, married a boy of 15: Ramabai and Bhimrao Ambedkar.

Bhimrao went on to become the chief architect of the Indian Constitution and led the fight for Dalit emancipation. But when the wedding took place, around 1907, he was still a student. Decades later, he recalled the wedding feast to an aide, saying they had run out of plates and some guests had to eat out of tavas.

In his biography A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B.R. Ambedkar, author Ashok Gopal wrote that very little is known about Ramabai, who has since been mythised today.

“We cannot even be sure about bare facts. Khairmode and Keer reported that at the time of her marriage, Ramabai’s name was Rami and she was nine or ten years old. But in an interview he gave in 1974, Yeshwant, Ramabai’s only surviving child, said that his mother’s natal name was Parvati, and she was twelve to fifteen years old when she got married,” Gopal noted.

Ramabai remains tucked between footnotes and folklore. She wrote no manifestos, addressed no rallies, and occupied no institutional space. Her life played out in the constraints of poverty and domestic struggle. Little is known about her, but she has been idealised in films, books, and devotional plays that hover uneasily between reverence and reduction. Her early death, on 27 May 1935, only added to the mythology.

To generations of Dalits, she is ‘Ramai’ but to Ambedkar, she was ‘Ramu’, the one who bore the unrelenting grind of their early years.

 

Sacrifice, endurance, and flashes of defiance

Ramabai’s life was shaped by hardship. She had lost her parents even before she married Ambedkar. She gave birth to five children, but only one survived. They barely had money for food.

When Babasaheb set sail for Columbia University in 1913, it was Ramabai who stayed behind in Bombay, raising their children in a single-room chawl in Parel. The extended family had to make do with whatever Ambedkar could send from the scholarship he received for his studies.

“Only two bhakris could be made per meal, and Ramabai and Laxmibai [her sister-in-law] ate small portions after feeding the children,” wrote Gopal.  

In a letter to Ramabai in 1921, Ambedkar expressed his worry about their ailing son, Gangadhar, urging her to remain strong and not be consumed by anxiety.

“Have faith in yourself. Worry would lead to nothing… I am also on the verge of starvation. I have nothing to send to you but I am trying to arrange something. If it takes time or if you have nothing left, sell off your jewellery to run the household.” Bhimrao wrote. 

Eleanor Zelliot, who chronicled the Dalit movement in her book Ambedkar’s World: The Making of Babasaheb and the Dalit Movement described Ramabai with admiration— a woman of extraordinary strength, dignity, and endurance.

“Her legacy is deeply felt in Maharashtra and Andhra, but in North India, she still hasn’t broken into mainstream consciousness,” said Priya Kumar, a multidisciplinary Dalit artist from Delhi. “People mostly talk about Babasaheb, not about what Ramabai endured or all that she gave up.”

Of the couple’s five children, only Yashwant survived into adulthood. The others—Gangadhar, Indu, Rajratna, and Ramesh—died in early childhood. The way she ensured hardship left a deep impression on Ambedkar.

He dedicated his 1941 book Thoughts on Pakistan to Ramu. The inscription read like a belated love letter: “As a token of my appreciation of her goodness of heart, her nobility of mind and her purity of character and also for the cool fortitude and readiness to suffer along with me which she showed in those friendless days of want and worries which fell to our lot.”

It’s often claimed that it was her thwarted desire to visit Pandharpur temple, where Dalits were not allowed to enter, that led him to eventually renounce Hinduism and embrace Buddhism alongside nearly half a million Dalits in 1956, over two decades after her death.

According to Matoshree Ramabai Ambedkar Yaancha Sahavasat by Radhabai Varale, a close family associate, Ramabai once snapped at Ambedkar when he insisted she learn to read and write: “I am illiterate. If that bothers you, get an educated woman as your second wife. But I am not going to study at this age.” Ambedkar, furious, stormed into his room and locked himself in, but Ramabai, unfazed, told Radhabai she was used to such outbursts and likened his behavior to that of “a small child”.

 

The woman behind the symbol

 There are very few photos of Ramabai, but one family portrait conveys the woman she was. Ambedkar sits next to her in the centre, flanked by their son Yashwant, Ambedkar’s sister-in-law Laxmibai, and her children. Their dog Toby sits on the ground. But it is a frail Ramabai who dominates the frame.

“Wearing a traditional Marathi sari and a three-fourth-sleeve blouse that reveal her bony arms, she is looking at the photographer with an expression of utter weariness. Her deep, sad eyes speak of a saga of sorrow endured till her death, one year after the photo was taken,” Gopal wrote.

B.R. Ambedkar and Ramabai at Rajgruha, their residence in Hindu Colony, Dadar. Also seen (from left) are their son Yashwant, sister-in-law Laxmibai, nephew Mukund | Commons

And it is this sorrow, he argues, that is the centre of the legend of Ramabai.

Her story slips through the seams of official records. But in the oral traditions of Maharashtra, lokgeet and bhimgeet—folk and devotional poems—extol how she walked miles for water, fasted through fever so Bhimrao could study, quietly buried her children when they died. The song “Mazya Ramai Che Upkar” by Dhamma Dhanve recounts her sacrifices and contributions to the Bahujan community.

A powada, a traditional Marathi ballad, hails her as “Navkotichi Mata Ramai”—the mother of millions. Marathi films such as Ramabai Bhimrao Ambedkar (2011), directed by Prakash Jadhav, and Ramabai (2016), directed by Makarand Sawant, attempt to reclaim her image beyond that of the devoted wife.

In an intimate letter to Ramabai, translated into English by scholar Pradeep Attri, Ambedkar offers a glimpse into the private devotion he rarely voiced in public: “Rama, what if you had not come in my life?”

He writes not of politics but of poverty: “What if you had not found these orders of poverty sweet?”

When the hostel Varale ran for Dalit students ran out of provisions, according to Gopal’s book, Ramabai offered to pawn her jewellery to feed the boys. A few years later, in the early 1930s, when Ambedkar was struggling to raise funds to build a home in Bombay, she once again agreed to sell her jewellery.

Ramabai died in 1935, at 37 years of age, after a long illness. Babasaheb ensured her last rites were performed according to Hindu customs, choosing her favourite white sari over the traditional green for cremation.

On May 30, 2018, in Pune, then President Ram Nath Kovind unveiled a statue of Ramabai Ambedkar. Here, at last, she stood alone. Not beside Ambedkar. Not behind him.