Ambedkar Awakening India’s Social Conscience

Hon’ble M Hamid Ansari, vice president of India recently released a title Ambedkar Awakening India’s Social Conscience, authored by Narendra Jadhav and published by Konark Publishers Pvt Ltd.

Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar was a great social reformer, a valiant champion of human rights and an emancipator of the downtrodden masses of India, who dedicated all his life to awaken the social conscience of modern India. This book is the first ever intellectual biography of Dr Ambedkar. While a fair amount of writings by Dr Ambedkar is available, there is only one English biography—the one by Dhananjay Keer, first published in 1954. Two other notable biographies of Dr Ambedkar are in Marathi and were written in 1960s. All the three biographers were close associates of Dr Ambedkar and had great advantage of being able to interact with him in person. On the other hand, these biographers did not have the benefit of accessing all writings and speeches of Dr Ambedkar, which became available only in the subsequent period.

This intellectual biography incorporates all of Dr Ambedkar’s writings and most important speeches that he delivered. Deviating from the conventional style of biography writing, this book focuses primarily on Dr Ambedkar’s intellectual making, evolution of his thinking and thought processes and the strategic stance that he took from time to time, over his momentous public life.