A Popular Dictionary of Hinduism
(1891–1956) leader of the untouchables, who fought for their emancipation by legal means. As the son of an army school headmaster, he received a good early education. Supported by the Mahārāja of Baroda, he obtained a grant and was the first untouchable to be awarded a B.A. degree in Bombay in 1912, then in Columbia an M.A. in 1915 and a Ph.D.
in 1916. Later he studied law at Gray’s Inn and Political Science in the London School of Economics, before entering politics back home. He was the first Law Minister (1947–51) in independent India and drafted its Constitution, which outlawed castes and untouchability. As his efforts to raise the actual status of his fellow untouchables in Hindu society made little headway because of widespread Hindu prejudice, he saw no place for them or himself within Hinduism and publicly embraced Buddhism in October 1956. Many mass conversions of untouchables took place subsequently. He died suddenly on 6th December of the same year.
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