Incarnations: India in 50 Lives   /     Bhimrao Ambedkar: Building Palaces on Dung Heaps

Description

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's constitution; and to India's 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's 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." Producer: Mark Savage.

Subtitle
Bhimrao Ambedkar, fighter of caste discrimination and the author of India's constitution.
Duration
860
Publishing date
2016-03-14 00:00
Link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0736s58
Contributors
  BBC Radio 4
author  
Enclosures
http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download/proto/http/vpid/p03mnn99.mp3
audio/mpeg