Becoming Babasaheb: The Life and Times of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (Volume 1): Birth to Mahad (1891-1929)

Aakash Singh Rathore

2023-04 · Pardavėjas „Harper Collins“

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There are many intellectual biographies of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, but until now none has sought to reveal the personality of the man. They will tell you what he thought or what he wrote, but remain silent about who he actually was, his inner struggles, how he felt. They give information about Ambedkar, but do not talk about his interior life, his personal growth or how he came to be the man who left such an indelible mark on modern India's constitutional, political, social and religious landscapes.

The first of an ambitious two-volume biography, Becoming Babasaheb traces Ambedkar's life journey, from his birth in 1891 to the transformative Mahad Satyagraha in 1929. It takes a completely fresh look at Ambedkar's lived experiences and teases out the nature and character of the man behind the legend. It offers an extensive, personality-driven narrative covering Ambedkar's life, along with salient aspects of his contemporary legacy, unfolding as a tale of remarkable tenacity, which it chronicles in all its rich vitality.

All of Ambedkar's books and speeches are publicly available, so large volumes will forever appear interpreting his writings and presenting his ideas. Meanwhile, old myths and inaccurate 'facts' about his thought and life events, even his relationships, persist. Becoming Babasaheb has been written on the basis of entirely original archival research to set the historical record straight. A vivid portrait of the man in his times, both volumes of this biography will present readers with a new Ambedkar, the true Ambedkar.

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Aakash Singh Rathore is a philosopher of international repute and the author of nine books, including the bestselling Ambedkar's Preamble: A Secret History of the Constitution of India (2020). He has also edited over a dozen books ranging from political philosophy and law to literature and religion, including B.R. Ambedkar's the Buddha and His Dhamma: A Critical Edition (2011) and, more recently, B.R. Ambedkar: The Quest for Justice (a box set of five volumes, 2021). His Hegel's India was shortlisted for the Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the Tata Literature Live! Book Awards 2017. Professor Rathore has taught politics, philosophy and law at premier institutions such as Jawaharlal Nehru University and the University of Delhi (in India), UPenn and Rutgers University (in the US), the University of Toronto (Canada), Humboldt University, Berlin (Germany) and LUISS University, Rome (Italy). He is International Fellow at ETHOS, Rome, and was previously Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. Rathore serves as the series editor for the fifteen-volume ‘Rethinking India' book series (2020–23) and was the co-editor (with Ashis Nandy) of its first volume, Vision for a Nation. He is also the series editor for ‘Religion and Democracy: Reconceptualizing Religion, Culture, and Politics in Global Context' (published since 2015) as well as the long-running international book series, ‘Ethics, Human Rights and Global Political Thought' (published since 2011). Professor Rathore is also one of India's top-ranking Ironman triathletes. He tweets at @ASR_Metta.