Whose Ambedkar Is He Anyway?

• The Beginning Ambedkar’s name derives from his name village ‘Ambavade’, located in Ratnagiri district in Maharashtra

• Soldier Dad His father Ramji Maloji Sakpal retired as a subedar from the British Indian Army in Mhow

• First Student Ambedkar was the 14th and last child of his parents. He was the only one of them to go to high school.

• In Bombay Ambedkar was the first ‘unto­uchable’ to enter Elphinstone High School, affiliated to University of Bombay

• Home Life When Ambedkar was 15, his marriage was arranged with 9-year-old Ramabai. She passed away in 1935.

• Second Marriage In 1948, he married a Brahmin doctor, Sharda Kabir, who then took on the name Savita

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On October 13, 1935, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar announced at the Depressed Classes Confer­ence in Yeola, in the Bombay Pre­s­idency: “I had the misfortune of being born with the stigma of an Untouchable. However, it is not my fault; but I will not die a Hindu, for this is in my power.” A few months later, in May 1936, he published Annihilation of Caste, a devastating cri­ti­que of Hinduism, focusing on its most distinguishing and dogmatic feature—caste.