Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891 in the town and military cantonment of Mhow known as Dr Ambedkar Nagar) (now in Madhya Pradesh). He was the 14th and last child of Ramji Maloji Sakpal, an army officer who held the rank of Subedar, and Bhimabai Sakpal, daughter of Laxman Murbadkar. His family was of Marathi background from the town of Ambadawe (Mandangad taluka) in Ratnagiri district of modern-day Maharashtra. Ambedkar was born into a Mahar (dalit) caste.In 1897, Ambedkar’s family moved to Mumbai where Ambedkar became the only untouchable enrolled at Elphinstone High School. In 1906, when he was about 15 years old, he married a nine-year-old girl, Ramabai. By 1912, he obtained his degree in economics and political science from Bombay University, and prepared to take up employment with the Baroda state government. In 1913, at the age of 22, Ambedkar was awarded a Baroda State Scholarship In 1926, he successfully defended three non-Brahmin leaders who had accused the Brahmin community of ruining India and were then subsequently sued for libel. He was appointed to the Bombay Presidency Committee to work with the all-European Simon Commission in 1925.By 1927, Ambedkar had decided to launch active movements against untouchability. He began with public movements and marches to open up public drinking water resources. He also began a struggle for the right to enter Hindu temples. On 25 September 1932, the agreement, known as the Poona Pact was signed between Ambedkar (on behalf of the depressed classes among Hindus) and Madan Mohan Malaviya (on behalf of the other Hindus). The agreement gave reserved seats for the depressed classes in the Provisional legislatures within the general electorate. Due to the pact the depressed class received 148 seats in the legislature instead of the 71, as allocated in the Communal Award proposed earlier by the colonial government under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. The text used the term “Depressed Classes” to denote Untouchables among Hindus who were later called Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under the India Act 1935, and the later Indian Constitution of 1950.Upon India’s independence on 15 August 1947, the new prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru invited Ambedkar to serve as the Dominion of India’s Law Minister; two weeks later, he was appointed Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution for the future Republic of India. At Yashwantrao Chavan English medium CBSE School, we celebrated the birth anniversary of D.R Babasaheb Ambedkar jayanti with all team auspiciously.
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