Bhimrao Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891 in the town and military cantonment of Mhow in Madhya Pradesh.
Signing the pages of Constitution of India, Dr Ambedkar had written his name as ‘Bhimrao Ramji Aambedkar’.
His father Ramji Maloji Sakpal, an army officer who held the rank of Subedar.
Bhimrao Ambedkar was born into a poor low Mahar (dalit) caste. Other people treated him as untouchables and subjected to socio-economic discrimination.
Ramji Sakpal retired in 1894 and the family moved to Satara two years later. Ambedkar’s mother died shortly after the move.
In 1897, Ambedkar became the only untouchable enrolled at Elphinstone High School after his family moved to Mumbai.
In 1906, his parents married 15 years old Ambedkar to nine-year-old girl Ramabai.
He graduated in 1912 from Elphinstone College, Bombay, and went to the USA on a Baroda State Scholarship to join Columbia University.
Ambedkar completed his master’s degree in economics in 1915 and PhD in 1916. He taught at the Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics in Bombay.
In October 1916, he enrolled for the Bar course at Gray’s Inn, and at the same time enrolled at the London School of Economics.
Ambedkar returned to India and started his legal practice at the Bombay High Court in 1924.
In 1926, he was nominated as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Bombay. He held the position till the year 1934.
In 1927, Ambedkar started a movement at Mahad in Maharastra to provide the untouchables the right to drink water from the Chavdar Tank.
In 1930, in order to provide the so called untouchables the right to enter the local temples, he started Satyagraha at Kalram Temple, Nasik.
Ambedkar Jayanti is an annual festival observed on 14 April to commemorate the memory of B. R. Ambedkar.
The Ambedkar founded The Independent Labour Party in 1936. The aim of the party was to spread education among all and establishing social equality.
In 1942, British Government nominated him(first untouchable) to the Viceroy’s Executive Council. He became first untouchable to be nominated to Viceroy Council.
In October 1956, along with some 2,00,000 Dalits, Ambedkar converted to Buddhism at a ceremony in Nagpur.
In 1955 BBC interview, he accused Gandhi of writing in opposition of the caste system in English language papers while writing in support of it in Gujarati language papers.
Upon India’s independence on 15 August 1947, Ambedkar to serve as the nation’s first Law Minister.
On 29 August, Interim government appointed him as Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee. He important contribution in drafting India’s new Constitution.
Ambedkar’s first wife Ramabai died in 1935 after a long illness. By late 1940s, his health deteriorated, so he went to Bombay for treatment, and there met Dr. Sharada Kabir, whom he married on 15 April 1948, at his home in New Delhi.
Ambedkar with his second wife Savita in 1948
Ambedkar resigned from the cabinet in 1951, when parliament stalled his draft of the Hindu Code Bill, which sought to enshrine gender equality in the laws of inheritance and marriage.
Since 1948, Ambedkar suffered from diabetes. He was bed-ridden from June to October in 1954 due to medication side-effects and poor eyesight. Ambedkar died in his sleep on 6 December 1956 at his home in Delhi.
The Government of India established a memorial for Ambedkar in his Delhi house at 26 Alipur Road.
The Indian Government of India declared his birth date as a public holiday known as Ambedkar Jayanti or Bhim Jayanti.
The Government awarded him India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna posthumously, in 1990.
