Bhimrao Ambedkar: Building Palaces on Dung Heaps

Published: March 14, 2016, 2:46 p.m.

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Professor Sunil Khilnani, from the King\'s India Institute, looks at the life of Bhimrao Ambedkar, champion of the community previously known as \'untouchables\' whom he renamed as Dalits. Ambedkar, who was a Dalit himself and fought against caste discrimination. His face can be found on posters, paintings and coloured tiles in tens of millions of Dalit homes. To Indian schoolchildren, he is the man who wrote the country\\u2019s constitution; and to India\\u2019s politicians he is a public emblem of how far India has come in addressing the blight of caste. "Both readings simultaneously exaggerate and ghettoize Ambedkar\\u2019s contribution," says Professor Khilnani. "He was a sophisticated, long-sighted Constitutional collaborator whose interests extended past caste to the very structure and psychology of Indian democracy."\\nProducer: Mark Savage

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