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Introduction
In this post we will emphasis on Ambedkar’s early life, parents and relations, and childhood education.
Devi Dayal, who worked as a personal assistant to B. R. Ambedkar for more than eight years, sums up Ambedkar’s life thus:
To write Babasaheb’s biography was not easy. He was such an outstanding personality. He was versatile. He was an amalgam of world’s top talents. He had the literary studiousness and wit of Johnson. He had the undaunted reformism of Martin Luther, who had shaken by his doctrine the very foundation of papal bigotry. He had the moral courage and truthfulness of Voltaire, who had torn apart by his essays, speeches and satires the very fabric of conservatism in France. Babasaheb had the scholastic diligence of Karl Marx. He had the intrepidity of Bonaparte, patriotism of Lincoln, and of Garibaldi. He had the eloquence of Burke and competence of Bismark. Above all, Babasaheb had the loving-kindness and compassion of Lord Buddha, and his prophetic vision as well. Endowed with these myriad virtues, Babasaheb was too complex a character for me to describe. (Dayal 2001:38)
Given the insight that Ambedkar had a complex character, how do we approach his life and ideology? Today Ambedkar symbolize different person as to different people. Hindu nationalists call him “anti-national”; Hindu fundamentalists call him “a savior of Hindu society”; neo-Buddhists believe him to be an incarnation of Buddha. And for millions of Dalits across the country he is the symbol of their struggle and their hope. As a member of Dalit community, Ambedkar championed their cause and fought relentlessly throughout his life to ensure equality, social justice, self respect and freedom for them. Ambedkar, thus, stood for social liberation, economic emancipation and political advancement of the downtrodden millions – a task never undertaken by any high caste Hindu leader with as much vigor and force.
Ambedkar’s Early Life
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956), popularly known as Baba Saheb to millions of Dalits across India, was born at MHOW (Military Headquarters of Wars), a military town close to Indore in Central India, on 14 April 1891. He was the fourteenth child of Ramji Sakpal and Bhimabai. Ramji came from a well-off Mahar family from the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. Ramji’s father Maloji Sakpal was retired military man. Like his father, Ramji also joined the military and rose to the rank of Subedar-Major in the 2nd Grenadiers. He served as the master of a military school for 14 years and after his retirement in 1893 on a pension of Rs. 50 per month, he settled down at Dapoli in the Ratnagiri district. In 1984 he was re-employed as a store-keeper in the Public Works Department, Ratnagiri, and was later transferred to Satara.
Ambedkar was fortunate to have good parents. His father was industrious and devotional by nature. He was stout, impressive, generous and voluble. He offered prayers in the morning and evening, when invariably, his children joined him. He also read the Ramayana and Mahabharat and recited devotional songs by Marathi saint-poets like Moropant, Mukteshwar, and Tukaram. Such regular readings and recitations of epics and songs had a deep impact on his children from an early age, so much so that Ambedkar would often quote Tukaram in many of his writings and speeches in later years.
Ramji also had other exceptional qualities. He was a confirmed teetotaler and never touched meat. When young, he played cricket and football very well and continued to enjoy good health. He was a contemporary of Mahatma Jotiba Phule who was the founder of Satya Shodhak Samaj (The Truth-Seeking Society) and a pioneer of anti-caste movements of non-Brahmins in Maharashtra. As a friend and admirer of Phule, Ramji worked hard to address some of the social problems of his time and society. In 1892 when the British Government issued orders banning the recruitment of Mahars in the Indian Army as a result of a petition by the upper castes, Ramji took a lead to protest against the order. He mobilized people and with the help of Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade drafted a petition and submitted it to the Government to rescind the unjust order. Many years later Ambedkar found a copy of the petition in a bundle of his father’s old papers.
Ambedkar’s mother Bhimabai came from Murbad village located in the Thana district of Bombay state. The family was comparatively rich. She was beautiful with a fair complexion, a broad forehead, curly hair, round glowing eyes and a short nose. She was very kind and caring. Her father and her six uncles were all Subedar-Majors in the Army. They also were members of the Kabir Panth, which Ambedkar inherited.
Ambedkar’s Early Education
Ambedkar started his formal education at Dapoli where his father settled down after retirement from the Army. At the age of five, young Bhimrao was sent to a local Marathi school. Later, when his father was transferred to Satara and joined a civilian job, he was admitted to a school there. After completing his primary education, Ambedkar joined Satara Government High School in 1990. His official name in the school register was Bhima Ramji Ambavadekar. The original surname of his family was Sakpal. But his ancestors preferred to call themselves after their ancestral village Ambavade which was in Khed taluka in the Ratnagiri district. One of the Brahmin teachers in the high school liked Bhimrao’s honesty and intelligence so much so that he wanted to make him his protégé. The teacher was kind and obliging. He would often share his food and advise Bhim to work hard and set a high goal in life. As a mark of love and respect to his teacher, Bhimrao began to call himself Ambedkar and throughout his life remained grateful to him. When Ambedkar went to England to attend the Round Table Conference in 1930, the teacher sent him an congratulatory letter. He must have been proud to see Ambedkar progressing so well in life.
But Ambedkar had to face the stigma of untouchability from the very beginning of his life. In fact, before Ambedkar arrived on the political scene, caste oppression was extremely harsh because of the orthodox Brahmanism prevalent then. Physical contact with the untouchables was said to be ‘polluting’ and worse still, even their shadows were considered ‘defiling’. At one time of the untouchables were required to tie an earthen pot around their neck and a broom around their waist while walking in the street so that their spittle and footsteps may not defile the roads which the upper caste people had to tread. Very heavy and harsh were the penalties for the depressed caste people if they even unwittingly transgressed the restrictions placed on them. Having suffered such indignities, Ambedkar was imbued with hatred for the Hindu social system which condemned him and his class of people to a life of utter degradation. Many painful incidents made the young Ambedkar realize that caste system was based on discriminatory provisions. Therefore, he took it as a mission in life to annihilate caste.
One summer day, Bhim and his elder brother, along with their little nephew, set out on a train journey to meet their father who worked as a cashier at Goregaon. They got in at Padali railway station and travelled up to Masur. As their father had not received their letter in time, he did not turn up at the station to receive them. After waiting for long, they persuaded the station master, a caste Hindu, to secure them a bullock cart and started for Goregaon. The cart had not gone far when the god-fearing caste Hindu cart-man came to know that they were from an untouchable family and instantly threw them out of the cart. But when the boys paid him double the fare, the cart-man allowed them to sit in the cart. While Bhim’s elder brother drove the cart, the cart-man fearing pollution, followed the cart on foot. The boys travelled from evening till midnight without getting a drop of water on their way. Whenever they requested people to give them some water, people either pointed to some filthy water or asked them to go away. This was the first rude shock for Bhim, a realization that he belonged to a family of untouchables, who according to the Hindu caste rules were degraded to eat and drink filthy things. A few days later Bhim, as a mark of protest, was seen drinking water from a public place. When the upper castes caught him, he was beaten black and blue.
Later Bhim discovered many more barbaric rules of the caste Hindu society towards the so-called untouchables population. He, for example, came to know that the barber who happened to be his co-religionist and countryman would not cut his hair for fear of pollution. So his sisters cut her hair. Being humiliated and subjected to inhuman treatment regularly from his fellow-men, Bhim’s character started to take a unique shape of its own. He was pugnacious, resourceful and fearless. So much so that he could defy anybody and anything that dictated rules of conduct and discipline. Nobody could forbid him to do a thing without being challenged. One day he went to school soaked in rain because his classmates challenged him to go to school without an umbrella. When he entered his class in a dripping shirt and dhoti, his class teacher, Pendse by name, was moved at the sight. He at once asked his son to take Bhim to his residence, give him a hot bath and piece of cloth to wear and to hang up his wet clothes to dry.
During his school days he was discriminated by both his teachers and school mates. He was forced to sit separately from his classmates in the classroom. He could not mix with other boys or play cricket or other games with them. The teachers would not touch his notebooks either. Perhaps, one cannot do better than to quote Dhananjay Keer, Ambedkar’s biography, in order to understand Ambedkar’s bitter experience during his school days:
He and his brother were usually made to squat in a corner of the class on a piece of gunny cloth which they carried to school. The teachers would not touch their notebooks, nor did some of them even ask them to recite poems or put questions to them for fear of being polluted! When these two boys felt thirsty in the school they turned their mouths upward and then somebody would kindly pour drinking water into their mouths as if through a funnel. (Keer 1990:14-15)
With such a discouraging environment Bhim had little or no love for his studies. He started indulging in different hobbies rather than studying. From his childhood gardening had fascinated his mind so much that he spent every pie he could lay his hand upon, in purchasing new plants and caring for them. At one point he got fed up with such pursuit and started tending to cattle rearing goats. Keer quotes one of Ambedkar’s speeches where he mentions about working at a railway station as a coolie, “On one occasion I actually did some hamal work at Satara station. My aunt terribly felt humiliated at this conduct of mine, but she loved me so much that she had no heart to punish me.” (Keer 1990:15)
His family situation also made Bhim become tough. After his first wife passed away, Ramji, Bhim’s father, married a second time. Although he had no intention to re-marry, he got married for the sake of his children. Bhim did not like the idea of another woman taking the place of his mother and he hated his step-mother for wearing his mother’s ornaments. Bhim decided not to depend any longer on his father’s income and resolved to earn his own bread. He had heard from his two sisters who were in Bombay after their marriage that jobs were available in Bombay mills. Bhim decided to go to Bombay and become a winding boy in a mill. But he had no money for the fare. He chalked out a plan to steal the purse of his aunt, in whose company he slept on the floor. This confession of Ambedkar came many years later in the following words:
For three successive nights I tried to remove the purse tucked up at the waist of my aunt, but without success. On the fourth night I did get hold of purse, but to my disappointment I found only half an anna in it. And in half an anna, of course, I could not go to Bombay. The four night’s experience was so nerve-racking that I gave up the idea of collecting money in this shameful manner and I came to another decision – a decision that gave an entirely different turn to my family. I decided that I must give up my truant habits; that I must study hard and get through my examinations as fast as possible, so that I might earn my own livelihood and be independent of my father. (Keer 1990: 15-16)
From that day onwards, Bhim gave up all his irregular habits and activities and became so diligent in his studies that his teachers, who were disappointed in him earlier now advised his father to give him the best possible education.
When his job at Satara was terminated, Ramji shifted his family to Bombay in 1904. They lived in a small room in a chawl at lower Parel. The chawl, situated in an area where only the mill workers lived, had the atmosphere of the underworld. Two of his daughter had already got married and settled down in Bombay. They helped Ramji from time to time. Ramji got his sons admitted to the Maratha High School. He received Rs 50 for his monthly pension. Such a small amount of money was never sufficient for supporting his family’s needs. And yet Ramji was determined to educate his children.
Bhim in the meantime had made a lot of progress in his studies. He did very well in English as compared to other subject. After a few months Bhim was sent to Elphinstone English High School which was one of the leading schools in Bombay then. Though Bhim studied hard, he continued to face difficulties. The one-room chawl has virtually no space. The room was full of domestic articles and utensils. It was smoky and crowded. But Bhim had to adjust to the situation. He slept on a quilt. Near his head lay a grindstone huddled next to the wall and a she-goat lay panting near his feet. He woke up every early morning and studied in the light of a flickering oil-lamp with no glass cover. In spite of all the difficulties, Bhim was very regular and punctual to class.
Compared to Satara High School, Elphinstone High School gave Bhim some respite from caste discrimination. Being a Mahar, he could not play cricket at Satara, but in Bombay there was no such restriction and he could play games as much as he wanted. But the atmosphere in the school was not free from casteism. One day his class teacher called upon Bhim to come to the blackboard to solve a problem. Instantly there was a uproar in the class. The caste Hindu children used to keep their tiffin-boxes behind the blackboard. Fearing that their food would be polluted when Bhim touched the blackboard they rushed to the blackboard and moved their tiffin-boxes aside. Bhim felt humiliated.
The school also did not allow Bhim and his elder brother to take up Sanskrit as a second language. According to Hindu laws, the lower castes and women had no rights to read and write Sanskrit because it was considered to be Devabhasa, the language of the gods. So Bhim and his elder brother had to opt for Persian instead. After many years, Ambedkar of course, studied Sanskrit partly by himself with the help of some Sanskrit scholars. After pursuing these two classic languages for years, he held the opinion that Persian stood no comparison with Sanskrit because the latter was the golden treasure of epics, the cradle of grammar, politics and philosophy and the home of logic, dramas and criticism.
Notwithstanding such deliberate insults and humiliations by the caste Hindu society, Ambedkar worked hard and excelled in his studies. Of course, some broad-minded human beings came to help him in his endeavor. He passed the matriculation examination from Elphinstone High School in 1907. This was certainly an uncommon achievement for an untouchable. The even was therefore, celebrated by his community. They called a meeting in Bombay to felicitate Bhimrao for his success. S.K. Bole, a well known social reformer, presided over the meeting. Krishnaji Arjun Keluskar, another social reformer and a well-known Marathi writer also attended the meeting. Charmed by the hard work and perseverance of Ambedkar, Keluskar presented him his latest book, Life of Gautam Buddha. Thus Ambedkar got exposed to Buddha’s life and philosophy at a very early age. It was a coincidence that towards the fag end of his life he embraced Buddhism leaving Hindustan for good.
