ambedkar thesis in london school of economics 1923

India Votes 2024

In Saudi Arabia’s scaled-down plans for megacity across the desert – a warning sign for the future

These innovations have made Amrik Sukhdev Dhaba in Murthal the truck drivers’ favourite since 1967

Vinyl records, film cameras, synthesizers: What’s driving an analogue revival?

BJP Hyderabad candidate makes Muslim voters take off veil to check identity, booked for ‘misconduct’

Can AAP and Congress settle their differences to take on the BJP in Delhi?

Terror, separatism, rioting: NewsClick chargesheet makes sweeping allegations without clear proof

Thriller: A serial killer is on the loose, murdering India’s famous nuclear scientists one by one

SC to hear plea seeking immediate release of absolute voter turnout figures by EC after polling

In Sambhal, Muslims allege UP police stormed booths, snatched IDs and beat up voters on polling day

Why even those who don’t believe in deities love bhakti poetry

BR Ambedkar in London: A thesis completed, a treaty concluded, a ‘bible’ of India promised

An excerpt from ‘indians in london: from the birth of the east indian company to independent india’, by arup k chatterjee..

About two decades ago, when [Subhash Chandra] Bose was still at Cambridge, a letter dated September 23, 1920 arrived at Professor Herbert Foxwell’s office at the London School of Economics. It was written by Edwin R Seligman, an economist from Columbia University, introducing an exceedingly talented scholar – Mr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. Two months later, Foxwell wrote to the secretary of the School that there was no more intellect that the Columbia graduate could conquer in London.

The first Dalit to study at Bombay’s Elphinstone College, Ambedkar, was awarded a Baroda State Scholarship that took him to Columbia University in 1913. Three years later, he found his way to London, desirous of becoming a barrister as well as finishing a doctoral dissertation on the history of the rupee. Ambedkar enrolled at Gray’s Inn, and attended courses on geography, political ideas, social evolution and social theory at London School of Economics, at a course fee of £10.10s.

In 1917, Ambedkar was invited to join as Military Secretary in Baroda, earning at the same time a leave of absence of up to four years from the London School of Economics. Back in India, he taught for a while as a professor in Sydenham College in Bombay, while also being one of the key intelligencers on the condition of “untouchables” in India for the government, during the drafting of the Government of India Act of 1919.

In late 1920, Ambedkar was to return to London, determined more than ever before, not to spare a farthing beyond his breathing means on the city’s allurements. Each day, the aspiring barrister woke up at the stroke of six. After a morning’s morsel, he moseyed into the crowd of London to find his way into the British Museum.

At dusk, he would leave his seat reluctantly – after being made to scurry out by the librarian and the guards – his pockets sagging under the notes that would finally become his thesis, The Problem of the Rupee , some of whose guineas would eventually find their home in the Constitution of India that he was going to author about three decades later. Back at his lodging at King Henry’s Road in Primrose Hill, mostly on foot, Ambedkar would live on sparsely whitened tea and poppadum late into the night.

It was here that the daughter of Ambedkar’s landlady, Fanny Fitzgerald, a war widow, found her affections strangely swayed by the Indian scholar. Fitzgerald was a typist at the House of Commons. She lent him money in difficult circumstances and volunteered to introduce him to people in governance, with whom he could discuss the Dalit question that was raging in India.

An apocryphal story goes that Miss Fitzgerald once gave Ambedkar a copy of the Bible. On receiving it, the future Father of the Indian Constitution promised to dedicate a bible to her of his own authoring. True to his commitment, he would fondly dedicate his book What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables (1945) to “F”. The incident, when that promise was exchanged, occurred after Ambedkar was called to the Bar in 1923.

In March that year, his doctoral thesis ran into trouble possibly because of its radical approach to the history of Indian economy under the British administration. He might have taken the subtle hint that passages in his work needed tempering – a notion that a man of his vision was likely to have quietly pocketed more as a compliment than an insult.

Ambedkar would have been happy to chisel the nose from his David for the show, like Michelangelo had four centuries ago in order to appease the connoisseur-like pretense of Piero Soderini, who had quipped, “Isn’t the nose a little too thick?” That done, Ambedkar resubmitted his thesis in August. It was approved two months later and published almost immediately thereafter. He expressed gratitude to his professor, Edwin Cannan, who, in turn, wrote the preface to his thesis, before Ambedkar travelled to Bonn for further studies.

Babasaheb, as he was now beginning to be called, was to return to London for each of the three Round Table Conferences held between 1930 and 1932. Two months before the Third Round Table Conference – in which both Labour and the Congress were absentees – Ambedkar and Gandhi reached a historic settlement in the Poona Pact. In September 1932, from the Yerwada prison near Bombay, Gandhi began a fast unto death protesting against the Ramsay MacDonald administration that was determined to divide India into provincial electorates on the basis of caste and social stratification.

In the pact signed with Madan Mohan Malviya, Ambedkar settled for 147 seats for the depressed classes. But the pact to which he was forsworn – tacitly made in London with Fanny Fitzgerald – that of writing the bible of modern India, was brewing like a storm that would take the form of an open battle between him and Gandhi, in the years of the Second World War.

Despite the strong network of Indians at the London School of Economics, Ambedkar chose not to hobnob with India League members. What might have been a sort of marriage-made-in-heaven between him and [VK Krishna] Menon was forestalled. If Menon was Nehru’s alter ego, he would also be instrumental in shaping the early career of the man to become an alter ego – principal secretary –to Indira Gandhi.

In the winter of 1935, a twenty-something Parmeshwar Narain Haksar arrived in London, enrolled as a student at the University College. The following year, he made an unsuccessful attempt for the civil services. In 1937, Haksar became a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, a distinction conferred on him with support from noted anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski.

Although Haksar also studied at the London School of Economics, it probably never became public knowledge if he had acquired formal degrees from either university. Whether or not he did, as a scholar he commanded great attention from British intellectuals, especially in his arguments on the crisis of education in India, which he reckoned had been tailored to perpetuate British imperial interests and low levels of literacy in the colony.

Haksar was to be called to Bar at the Lincoln’s Inn, but, at the beckoning of Nehru, he would join the Indian Foreign Service in 1948. His red days in London were to yield him lifelong companions. In the 1930s, the Comintern came up with the policy of hatching popular fronts all across Europe with which to counter the growing threat of Nazism and Fascism. It was a phase in European ideologies that strongly affected British politics, and popular movements led by Labour leaders and student communists in London – a cosmopolitan and unswervingly left-leaning outlook that shaped much of the administration and policies of independent India until the years of the Emergency.

A socialist himself, Haksar held an influential position in the Federation of Indian Societies in UK and Ireland besides becoming the editor of its magazine, The Indian Student . His links with the Communist Party of Great Britain, Rajani Palme Dutt and the Soviet undercover agent at Cambridge, James Klugman – indeed with almost anyone of some consequence who supported the cause of Indian liberation – was more than enough for Scotland Yard to keep him closely watched in London.

In September 1941, when the India League organised a commemoration at the Conway Hall in Red Lion Square for the late Rabindranath Tagore a few months after his demise, Scotland Yard obliged by adding a leaf to their surveillance files. Inaugurated by M Maisky, a Russian ambassador, it was just one in a sea of events concerning India that the Yard and other intelligencers of His Majesty’s Government would tolerate during the interwar years. Almost all such gatherings featured subversive pamphlets and books published by the League and similar organisations that were openly lauded by Soviets and Soviet sympathisers.

It was just as well that Nehru also had to tolerate that under the shield of Haksar’s own watch a new romantic plot thickened around Primrose Hill, that of his daughter Indira and future son-in-law, Feroze. Feroze had his flat at Abbey Road and Haksar lived half a mile away, at Abercorn Place. Haksar was befriended by the Gandhis – Indira and Feroze – who introduced him to Sasadhar Sinha of the Bibliophile Bookshop. That, besides the India League and Allahabad connection, not to mention Haksar’s enviable culinary skills, ensured that he was soldered to the future of the Gandhis.

The future of the man who had leant the family his coveted surname would also take a blow on the burning issue of caste. Gandhi was not to be remembered as the sole nemesis of the British Empire. In an interview given to the BBC in 1955, Babasaheb indicated that one of the biggest reasons behind Clement Attlee handing over the reins of the Indian administration so suddenly was the persistent fear of a massive armed uprising in the colony.

He implied that the road to independence had already been paved by the Azad Hind Fauj brigadiered by Netaji. Bose had departed from London during Ambedkar’s days in the London School of Economics. But, he would return in Haksar’s time.

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956) was an Indian jurist, economist, social reformer and political leader. Perhaps best known as the principal architect of the Indian Constitution and a staunch champion of Dalit rights (or “Untouchables” as they were referred to in colonial India), Ambedkar completed a Masters in 1921 and a PhD in 1923, at LSE.  

Ambedkar played a key role in the discussions leading up to Indian independence, for example as one of the two Untouchable delegates chosen by the British to attend the Round Table conferences on India’s constitutional status in the early 1930s. He also served as the first Minister of Law and Justice in post-colonial India between 1947 and 1951. 

Despite his lowly caste, known as Mahar – a group which was viewed by the British as “inferior village servants”, Ambedkar’s father had become an officer in the Indian Army and was able to insist that his sons should be educated so Ambedkar was allowed to attend school. Ambedkar was the first in his community to graduate High School and went on to study for a BA in Economics and Politics at Bombay University, where he met Sayaji Rao III, the Maharajah of the princely state of Baroda.  

The Maharajah was an active advocate of social reforms, including the removal of untouchability. He sponsored Ambedkar’s further education abroad, first at Columbia University in New York where he completed a Masters and a PhD, and later at LSE. During this period Ambedkar studied economics, history and political science, and wrote on a wide range of topics, including the history of caste in India. There is also evidence in his letters at this time of his belief in education as a path to progress, with a particular emphasis on female education. 

Over the next twenty years, he played a key role in organising the Untouchables. He created Dalit newspapers, social and cultural institutions, attended more conferences of the Depressed Classes, initiated protests against discrimination in temple entry and access to water, and passionately promoted Dalit access to education. 

Despite Ambedkar’s differences with Congress, when India became independent in August 1947, Prime Minister Nehru invited him to be the first Minister of Law and Justice. Shortly after, the Constituent Assembly appointed Ambedkar as Chair of the Drafting Committee for the new Constitution.

Ambedkar’s influence can be seen in many aspects of the resulting Indian Constitution such as the strong emphasis on liberal democracy, the federal structure, and the provisions and safeguards for minorities alongside the emphatic abolition of Untouchability. 

Source:  LSE History Blog  

Columbia University Libraries

Dr. ambedkar and columbia university: a legacy to celebrate.

For those of you who may not know, Dr. Ambedkar is a Dalit, an Indian jurist, economist, politician, activist and social reformer, who systematically campaigned against social discrimination towards women, workers, but most notably, towards the Dalits, and forcefully argued against the caste system in Hindu society. Dr. Ambedkar was the main architect of the Constitution of India, and served as the first law and justice minister of the Republic of India, and is considered by many one of the foremost global critical thinkers of the 20 th c., and a founder of the Dalit Buddhist movement. Ambedkar’s fight for social justice for Dalits, as well as women, and workers consumed his life’s activities: in 1950 he resigned from his position as the country’s first minister of law when Nehru’s cabinet refused to pass the Women’s Rights Bill. His feud with Mahatma Gandhi over Dalit political representation and suffrage in the newly independent State of India is by now famous, or I should say notorious, and it is Dr. Ambedkar who comes out on the right side of history.

The bronze bust, sculpted by Vinay Brahmesh Wagh of Bombay, was presented by the Federation of Ambedkarite and Buddhist Organizations, UK to the Southern Asian Institute of Columbia University on October 24, 1991, and then the wooden pedestal on which the statue now rests was donated by the Society of the Ambedkarites of New York and New Jersey, and placed in Lehman Library in 1995. The bust is the only site in the city where Dr. Ambedkar is honored, and is one of the most popular sites in enclosed spaces on campus that I have seen (you have to walk past the library entrance to get to it). 

Every year, on April 14 th, Ambedkar’s birthday, Ambedkar Jayanti or Bhim Jayanti, is celebrated in India (as an official holiday since 2015), at the UN (since 2016), and around the world. On this day, many visitors flock to Lehman Library, to pay tribute to Baba Saheb and place garlands on the bust. The sight of the visitors– many of whom come to Columbia just to see the bust and pay homage to the man who changed Indian society, brings home the significance of recognizing our critical thinkers, across cultures, eras, languages, divisions and types of social injustice, in the public fora of libraries. It is a powerful reminder that it is through scholarship and indeed through libraries and learning that human differences and injustices can be better understood, addressed and perhaps overcome.  

Years later, Dr. Ambedkar writes: ‘The best friends I have had in life were some of my classmates at Columbia and my great professors, John Dewey , James Shotwell, Edwin Seligman , and James Harvey Robinson.'” (Source: “‘Untouchables’ Represented by Ambedkar, ’15AM, ’28PhD,” Columbia Alumni News, Dec. 19, 1930, page 12.)

Ambedkar majored in Economics, and took many courses in sociology, history, philosophy, as well as anthropology.

In 1915, he submitted an M. A. thesis entitled: The Administration and Finance of the East India Company . (He is believed to have begun an M. A. thesis entitled  Ancient Indian Commerce earlier. That thesis is unavailable at the RBML but it is reprinted in volume 12 of Ambedkar’s collected writings). By the time he left Columbia in 1916 Ambedkar had begun research for his doctoral thesis entitled: “National Dividend of India–A Historic and Analytical Study. About this thesis, Ambedkar writes to his mentor Prof. Seligman, with whom he forged a long and friendly correspondence, even after he left Columbia:  “My dear Prof. Seligman, Having lost my manuscript of the original thesis when the steamer was torpedoed on my way back to India in 1917 I have written out a new thesis… [ …from the letter of Feb. 16, 1922, Seligman papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University ” cited in Dr. Frances Pritchard’s excellent  online website about Ambedkar ]. In 1920, Ambedkar writes: “My dear Prof. Seligman, You will probably be surprised to see me back in London. I am on my way to New York but I am halting in London for about two years to finish a piece or two of research work which I have undertaken. Of course I long to be with you again for it was when I was thrown into academic life by reason of my being a professor at the Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics in Bombay, that I realized the huge debt of gratitude I owe to the Political Science Faculty of the Columbia University in general and to you in particular.” B. R. Ambedkar, London, 3/8/20” , (Source: letter of August 3, 1920, Seligman papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, cited in Pritchard’s website ).  Ambedkar would join the London School of Economics for a few years and submit a thesis there, but then, he would eventually come back to Columbia, to submit a Ph.D. thesis in Economics , in 1925 under the mentorship of his dear friend Prof. Seligman, entitled: The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India: A  Study in the Provincial Decentralization of Imperial Finance .  (It should be noted here that the thesis was first published in 1923 and again in 1925, this time with a Foreword by Edwin Seligman, by the publishers P. S. King and Son).

If it is Seligman he stayed in touch with and corresponded throughout, the person who most influenced his thought and shaped his political, philosophical and ethical outlook, was Dewey. For many thinkers, the links between Dewey and  Ambedkar’s ethical and philosophical thinking are obvious.  Ambedkar deeply admired Dewey and repeatedly acknowledged his debt to Dewey, calling him “his teacher”.  Ambedkar’s thought was deeply etched by John Dewey’s ideas of education as linked to experience, as practical and contextual, and the ideas of freedom and equality as essentially tied with the ideals of justice and of fraternity, a concept he would go on to apply to the Indian context, and to his pointed criticism of the caste system. Echoing many ideas propagated by Dewey, Ambedkar writes in the Annhilation of Caste : “Reason and morality are the two most powerful weapons in the armoury of a reformer. To deprive him of the use of these weapons is to disable him for action. How are you going to break up Caste, if people are not free to consider whether it accords with reason? How are you going to break up Caste, if people are not free to consider whether it accords with morality?” 

Having sat in several classes given by Dewey, and as early as 1916, Ambedkar would go on to address, at a Columbia University Seminar taught by the anthropologist Prof. Alexander Goldenweiser (1880-1940), his colleagues and friends with many of the ideas he later developed in his famous book: the Annihilation of Caste. The paper “ Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis, and Development ” contains many similarities to the Annihilation of Caste, and some of the books’ essential tenets., as acknowledged by Ambedkar himself ( Preface to the 3rd edition, Annihilation of Caste ).

The Columbia University Archives and the Columbia University Libraries hold many resources related to Dr. Ambedkar and to the Dalit movement and Dalit literature. For any inquiries regarding relevant resources, please do not hesitate to contact us: Gary Hausman : South and Southeast Asian Librarian , Global Studies; Rare Book and Manuscript Library: RBML Archivists

Happy Baba Saheb Ambedkar Juyanti!

Kaoukab Chebaro , Global Studies, Head

Today, for the first time studying for Civil Services I got to know about this great man. I think that in the galaxy of freedom fighters which India have produced he was the one we can truly say as the ‘Pole Star’. A true leader who walked the talk, he fought not only for country but also for the rights of the minority who were being annihilated for centuries. We should take cue from this man and try to go for equality, and that equality should be of thoughts, feelings and desires. It’s not at all wrong to aspire for greatness in life but to stifle a man’s path with the chains of societal norms is a sin in my sense. I hope to imbibe some of his qualities in my life. Let long live his legacy.

Thus my goodDr.BR. Ambedkar

Indeed Great emancipator of millions marginalised people, architect of Indian constitution, philosopher, economist, social reformer, jurist, astute politician no lastly father of modern India !! Jaibhim !!

What a great man. Wonderful article.

If it wasn’t for Dr.Ambedkar I wouldn’t be here in this country and have a life that I do now. I will forever be indebted to this Great Man’s courage in the face of adversity. Words cannot describe the gratitude I have for this man Thank you

Excellent effort to make this blog more wonderful and attractive.

Dr. Ambedkar was a great man.

Wonderful Article and an excellent blog. Greetings. Llorenç

Baba Saheb Dr. B R Ambedkar is alive in his works for humanity. Study Social Science or Law, or Education, or about farmers, or Dams and irrigation, or planning commission and budget or journalism, or human rights ……. on most of the subjects and disciplines, his live seen in his works and writtings. By reading him; his life, and his works, he inspires others by his works for the betterment of the society and a world, as a whole.

• Pingback: Ambedkar and the Study of Religion at Columbia University

Every breathe I take today is because of your struggle to give us an equal and fair society. It could not be possible to imagine even a single day without understanding your life and struggles. Each and every aspect of my existence is because of you Babasaheb. However, the current state of Dalit society pains me.

Such a great personality, tried hard to improvise the system in the country but had to face too much opposition and hatred. Salute to his strength and beliefs that he continued his fight for social justice despite such circumstances.

He was a great man, I considered India’s progress because of his work for the emancipation of millions of marginalized people in India

Is Columbia University conducting a Post Graduate course or PHD on Dr. Ambedkar thought?

Baba sahab Was great human Baba sahab is great human Baba sahab will great human .

Baba sahab god gifted and human for students, politicians, poor humans and all leaders ❤❤

I am thankful to Babasaheb Ambedkar for the beautiful living given to me by his at most efforts to eradicate the caste system through out India and to uplift the standard of living of the downtrodden of this country. He was a great man who fought for the rights and upliftment of the downtrodden and the dignity of women of this nation. A true Indian and a great patriot of the nation. I salute him for his work and knowledge.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CUL Blogs Home CUL Blogs Dashboard

• International
• Today’s Paper
• Premium Stories
• Express Shorts
• Health & Wellness
• Brand Solutions

In Ambedkar’s treatise on rupee, a clear-eyed vision

In 1947, ambedkar returned to the problem of the rupee. in a new preface he even promised a second volume that would bring his account up to the present and offer an updated solution..

ONE HUNDRED years ago, in the summer of 1923, a young lawyer arrived at the Bombay High Court back from London, where he had trained at Gray’s Inn. B R Ambedkar quickly made a name for himself, as Babasaheb, and his subsequent legal and political legacy continues to inspire Dalit activists and constitutional theorists around the world alike.

But the same year, 1923, also marked the culmination of a different and altogether lesser-known aspect of Ambedkar’s life as an economic historian and monetary reformer. When he arrived in Bombay, aged 32, Ambedkar had just completed a monumental history of Indian money that was crowned by a ferociously learned critique of British colonial monetary mismanagement.

The book, entitled The Problem of the Rupee: Its Origins and its Solution, appeared in London in December 1923 and it quickly distinguished Ambedkar as one of the world’s leading authorities on Indian currency and banking.

Having started its life as a dissertation completed earlier in 1923 at the London School of Economics (LSE) under the supervision of the economist Edwin Cannan, the book was immediately widely reviewed in India, Britain, as well as the US, and it earned Ambedkar a spot on the 1925 Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance.

This was not Ambedkar’s first dissertation. Already during WWI, he had completed a different thesis at Columbia University on the provincial decentralisation of Indian public finances.But before he could submit the manuscript, it was lost in 1917, after a German torpedo destroyed the Thomas Cook steamer that carried his luggage back to India. Every doctoral student will empathise with the apologetic letter Ambedkar was forced to write to his dissertation advisor.

In his LSE dissertation, Ambedkar now instead turned to the complexities of currency. The Problem of the Rupee sketched a comprehensive history of Indian money since the eighteenth century but also provided a captivating picture of contemporary Indian monetary exploitation. Ambedkar’s analysis removed money from the abstract realm of technical minutia and instead situated it as “the focusing point of all human efforts, interests, desires, and ambitions.”

This meant bringing the drama of money alive by confronting the reigning imperial monetary views of the India Office and its spokesmen, including those of a youthful John Maynard Keynes whose first book on Indian currency had still presented a fulsome defence of British monetary management in India.

But perhaps the single most stunning feat of The Problem of the Rupee was its dual ability not only to confront an imperial English audience with an unassailable display of technical virtuosity and overwhelming empirical persuasiveness but to simultaneously address a broad Indian public by capturing the pain associated with monetary mismanagement. The result was a pathbreaking account of how the rupee had become the financial pivot of the entire British colonial project through a series of brutal monetary reforms in the nineteenth century.

While India had long been accustomed to a wide variety of monies, including gold coins, in 1835, Britain imposed a uniform silver rupee — issued in the name of the East India Company — as India’s sole legal tender. As Ambedkar painstakingly showed, one aim of this policy had been to enable the extraction of gold from the subcontinent.

India’s vast gold treasures had been legendary since antiquity. But in the nineteenth century, bullion suddenly drained out of the country. Ironically, the one place in the British empire that was never part of the gold standard was India. Instead, Britain preferred to keep British India on a managed rupee standard in order to support its own finances with India’s gold reserves, now stored in vaults underneath the streets of London.

Having sketched India’s forced transition to a silver standard, Ambedkar investigated how the rupee-sterling exchange rate became suddenly destabilised in the 1870s, with devastating and traumatic effects for price stability. As India was dragged into a “vortex of perplexities”, Ambedkar explained, the “precision of value, the very soul of pecuniary exchange, gave place to the uncertainties of gambling.”

The question of monetary reform now animated Indian nationalists and colonial reformers alike. But once more, Britain decided to sacrifice Indian price stability for imperial gain. In 1893, the British closed the Mint in British India and switched the country to a managed token silver and paper currency that allowed the colonial government to issue new rupees when it so wished. While a young Keynes praised the superior efficiency of the system, Ambedkar showed through extensive charts and tables that the immediate result was once more a dramatic rise in Indian prices.

The Problem of the Rupee’s sweeping history culminated in a deft proposal for monetary reform. In a surprising twist, Ambedkar concluded that Indian money could only be effectively shielded against both British and upper caste domination by finally extending to the subcontinent the gold standard, that had accompanied Britain’s rise to power and whose possible restoration after WWI animated fierce monetary feuds around the world during the early 1920s.

This paradoxical, anti-colonial call for placing India on the gold standard is bound to perplex readers today and it has arguably contributed to the book’s forgotten status.

But The Problem of the Rupee was no orthodox defence of the natural virtues of gold or monetary discipline. Instead, it was driven by a pragmatic political logic that can be read both as a savvy ideology critique and an example of what the philosopher Tommie Shelby once dubbed “the ethics of the oppressed.”

Appealing to the aspirational principles of British monetary thought, while pointing to their violation in India, Ambedkar called out British hypocrisy. He simultaneously concluded that as long as India was not governing itself it would be far preferable to tie the hands of the colonial state rather than granting it discretionary powers.

Ambedkar was here writing as part of an older tradition of political economy that remained attuned to institutional questions of trust and power in a way that all too often dropped out of the picture with the rise of economics as the queen of the social sciences in the course of the twentieth century. But for Ambedkar, the politics and economics of money always remained closely entwined in a way that provides a salutary reminder today.

In 1947, now a renowned lawyer, Ambedkar returned to The Problem of the Rupee. In a new preface he even promised a second volume that would bring his account up to the present and offer an updated solution. This did not mean that he had changed his mind about the nature of the problem. But the crucial political context was in flux, the Reserve Bank of India had been founded in 1935, and the world had forged a new global monetary accord in Bretton Woods. The promised second volume would consequently update the monetary solution apt for the new situation.

Within weeks of writing these promissory lines, India gained her independence. Ambedkar was now engulfed, more than ever before, in constitutional law and politics at the highest level. As a result, we never got a second volume and with it an account of how Ambedkar himself would have imagined monetary politics in a democratic constitutional context beyond the gold standard.

Instead, it is up to us to look at money anew, through Ambedkar’s eyes, as not merely an economic convenience but itself a constitutional project.

The author is an Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University and the author of The Currency of Politics

(Suraj Yengde, author of Caste Matters, curates Dalitality)

Tavleen Singh writes: Modi on the backfoot? Subscriber Only

Uttarakhand’s burning forests: Cluelessness amid climate change Subscriber Only

In Ambedkar’s birthplace, Dalits resent politics over Constitution Subscriber Only

Toxic mothers and poor parenting in Hindi cinema and OTT

UPSC Key | Criminal laws, northern lights, flash floods and Subscriber Only

Tai Tzu Ying & Intanon Ratchanok's playing styles to leave Subscriber Only

AI chatbots want to be factual. But can they be Subscriber Only

How Shashank Singh was steered along by a cricket-mad father Subscriber Only

After coal and gas, govt bolsters hydro capacity to meet Subscriber Only

• Express Premium

40 Years Ago

Author and entrepreneur Twinkle Khanna dedicated the latest edition of her column Mrs Funnybones to discussing the evolution of a mother's roles and responsibilities since her own childhood and through her journey into parenthood. She further shared a funny anecdote involving her husband, actor Akshay Kumar, when he indirectly referred to her as a "cow".

EXPRESS OPINION

Best of Express

More Explained

May 13: Latest News

• 01 Hurdler Unnathi talks about ‘cool’ dad, ‘strict’ coach and Olympian mother who mediates
• 02 Ukraine’s first lady makes her premier visit to Belgrade
• 03 Palestinian public sector salaries squeezed as Israel withholds tax revenue
• 04 ‘If ideology is same, why remain separate’: Shashi Tharoor on potential merger of smaller parties into Congress
• 05 Minor boy dies, 5 of his family taken ill after consuming noodles in UP
• Elections 2024
• Political Pulse
• Entertainment
• Movie Review
• Newsletters
• Web Stories

Ambedkar’s Passion for Education—Overcoming Historical Deprivation and Ensuring Provision for the Deprived

• First Online: 18 August 2022

Cite this chapter

• Raosaheb K. Kale 3  

154 Accesses

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar is one of the greatest leaders and intellectuals of India. Although, extensively contributed in social, political and religious spheres of nation, he was conveniently ignored by the academic and reduced him into merely Dalit leader. In the changed time and circumstances, as thoughts, writings, speeches and work of Dr. Ambedkar increasingly becoming relevant, the great deal of interest is being shown by the present scholarship worldwide, in his life and mission. Dr. Ambedkar, a crusader of social justice, while fighting for Dalits to get their rightful place in society with equal status and progress, gave message to educate themselves and their children to liberate from social slavery. Importantly, out of sixty-five years of life span, Dr. Ambedkar spent almost forty years in education as a researcher, scholar, teacher, academic administrator and builder of educational institutes. Dr. Ambedkar severely criticized the educational policy of British, it being socially exclusive and of which benefits remained confined to small section of society particularly urban elites and upper caste. He pleaded for education of Dalits and asked the British to take special measures to protect their educational interest. Importantly, at the same time, he also pleaded with the British for free and compulsory primary education for all.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info
• Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Nanak Chand Rattu, born in 1922, in village Sakruli, in Hoshiarpur District of Punjab was the Private Secretary to Dr. Ambedkar for over 17 years, from January 3, 1940 up to Dr. Ambedkar’s death on December 6, 1956.

Rajesh Shukla, Megha Shree and P. Geetha Rani (2019) Explained: Gap between Skill India goals and current status https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/skill-india-why-there-is-a-gap-between-current-status-and-goals-explained/1520633/ Updated: March 19, 2019 7:14 AM Accessed on 26 June 2021.

Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014).  The second machine age: Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies . WW Norton & Company.

Google Scholar  

Constable, P. (2000). Sitting on the school verandah: The ideology and practice of ‘untouchable’ educational protest in late nineteenth-century western India. The Indian Economic & Social History Review, 37 (4), 383–422.

Article   Google Scholar  

Jogdand, P. G., & Kamble, R. (2013). The Sociological traditions and their margins: The Bombay school of sociology and Dalits. Sociological Bulletin, 62 (2), 324–345.

Kale, R. (2018). Indian higher education: A perspective from the margin . Aakar Books.

Kumar, V. (2016). How egalitarian is the Indian sociology. Economic and Political Weekly, 51 (25), 33–39.

Khairmode, C. B. (2002). Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (Vol. 1, 5th edn., pp 72–92), (Marathi), Sugawa Prakashan.

Kulandaiswamy, V. C. (2005). Reconstruction of higher education in Indian Universities (Vol. 43, No. 27, pp. 6–11 & 15). University New.

Moon, V. (Ed.). (1993). Waiting for the visa. In Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches (Vol. 12, pp. 661–691, Part I), Bombay: Education Department, Government of Maharashtra.

Moon, V. (2014a). Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and speeches (Edit), Reprinted and Published by Government of India (Vol. 2).

Moon, V. (2014b). Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and speeches (Edit), Reprinted and Published Government of India (Vol. 10, pp. 181–187).

Nanda, B. R. (1974). Gokhale, Gandhi and the Nehrus: Studies in Indian nationalism . George Allen and Unwin Limited.

Uberoi, P., Sundar, N., & Deshpande, S. (2007). Anthropology in the East.  Ranikhet: Permanent Black .

Oommen, T. K., & Mukherji, P. N. (Eds.). (1986).  Indian sociology: Reflections and introspections . Popular Prakashan.

Tomer, R. S. (2015). Dr. Ambedkar as an educator: A study ; M.Phil Dissertation (pp. 47). Submitted to the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Veermani, K. (2015). Torchbearer of reform, The Hindu, Thursday, November 19, 2015, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/the-justice-party-torchbearer-of-reform/article7892747.ece

Wankhade, G. (2016, February 6). Higher education and scheduled castes in Maharashtra. Economic & Political Weekly, 51 (6), 12–15.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

(superannuated) School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India

Raosaheb K. Kale

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raosaheb K. Kale .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

School of Life Sciences (superannuated), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India

Raosaheb K Kale

Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Delhi, India

Sanghmitra S Acharya

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Kale, R.K. (2022). Ambedkar’s Passion for Education—Overcoming Historical Deprivation and Ensuring Provision for the Deprived. In: Kale, R.K., Acharya, S.S. (eds) Mapping Identity-Induced Marginalisation in India . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3128-4_8

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3128-4_8

Published : 18 August 2022

Publisher Name : Springer, Singapore

Print ISBN : 978-981-19-3127-7

Online ISBN : 978-981-19-3128-4

eBook Packages : Social Sciences Social Sciences (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

• India Today
• Business Today
• Reader’s Digest
• Harper's Bazaar
• Brides Today
• Cosmopolitan
• Aaj Tak Campus
• India Today Hindi

Get 72% off on an annual Print +Digital subscription of India Today Magazine

Why publication of b.r. ambedkar’s thesis a century later will be significant, a contemporary relevance of the thesis, written as part of ambedkar’s msc degree at the london school of economics, is that it argues for massive expenditure on heads like defence to be diverted to the social sector.

Listen to Story

Now, over a century after it was written, Ambedkar’s hitherto unpublished thesis on the provincial decentralisation of imperial finance in colonial times will finally see the light of the day. The Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Source Material Publication Committee of the Maharashtra government plans to publish the thesis that was written by Ambedkar as part of his MSc degree from the London School of Economics (LSE). The thesis, ‘Provincial Decentralisation of Imperial Finance in British India’, will be part of the 23rd volume of Ambedkar’s works to be published by the committee and will give a glimpse into the works of Ambedkar, the economist. Notably, the dissertation argues for expenditure on heads like defence to be diverted for social goods like education and public health.

The source material committee, which was set up in 1978, has published 22 volumes on Ambedkar’s writings since April 1979. “This volume will have two parts. One will contain the MSc thesis and the other will have communication and documents related to his MA, MSc, PhD and bar-at-law degrees,” confirmed Pradeep Aglave, member secretary of the committee. He added that the MSc thesis had been submitted to the LSE in 1921. Veteran Ambedkarite and founder of the Dalit Panthers, J.V. Pawar, who is a member of the committee, said it was significant that the thesis was being published over a century after it was written. Pawar played a pivotal role in ensuring that the committee was set up.

“This work deals with taxation and expenditure. The contemporary relevance of this thesis is that it seeks a progressive taxation based on income levels. Ambedkar argued that expenditure on heads like defence was huge and this needed to be diverted to social needs like education, public health, and water supply,” said Sukhadeo Thorat, economist and former chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC). Thorat was among those instrumental in the source material committee getting a copy of the thesis from London.

“The sixth volume (1989), published by the source material committee, contains Ambedkar’s writings on economics. This includes his works like ‘Administration and Finance of the East India Company’ (1915) and the ‘Problem of the Rupee: Its Origin and Its Solution’ (1923). However, this MSc thesis on provincial finance could not be included in it because it was not available then,” said Thorat.

J. Krishnamurty, a Geneva-based labour economist located the MSc thesis in the Senate House Library in London and approached Thorat who, in turn, communicated with Gautam Chakravarti of the Ambedkar International Mission in London. Santosh Das, another Ambedkarite from London, paid the fees for permission to reproduce the work in copyright. The soft copy of the thesis was sent to the source material committee on November 18, 2021.

In addition to the MSc thesis, the communication and letters related to his academics, such as the MA, PhD, MSc and DSc and bar-at-law including LLD (an honorary degree that was awarded to Ambedkar by the Columbia University in 1952after he finished drafting the Constitution of India, which remains one of his most significant contributions to modern India), were also arranged and compiled by Krishnamurty, Thorat and Aglave. This also includes the courses done by Ambedkar for his MA and pre-PHD at the Columbia University. These details are being published for the first time.

Ambedkar’s biographer Changdev Bhavanrao Khairmode, writes how Ambedkar worked untiringly in London for his MSc. Ambedkar secured admission for his MSc in the LSE on September 30, 1920 by paying a fee of 11 pounds and 11 shillings. He was given a student pass with the number 11038.

Ambedkar had prepared for his MSc in Mumbai, yet he began studying books and reports from four libraries in London, namely the London University’s general library, Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature and the libraries in the British Museum and India Office. In London, Ambedkar would wake up at 6 am, have the breakfast served by his landlady and rush to the library for his studies. Around 1 pm, he would take a short break for a meagre lunch or have just a cup of tea and then return to the library to study till it closed for the day.

“He would sleep for a few hours. He would stand at the doors of the library before it opened and before others came there,” says Khairmode in the first volume of his magisterial work on Ambedkar (Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, Volume I) that was first published in 1952. The library staff in the British Museum would tell Ambedkar that they had not seen a student like him who was immersed in his books and they also doubted if they would get to see one like him in the future!

The volume also contains a letter written by Ambedkar in German on February 25, 1921 to the University of Bonn seeking admission. Ambedkar wanted to study Sanskrit language and German philosophy in the varsity’s department of Indology. In school, Ambedkar was discriminated against on grounds of caste and not allowed to learn Sanskrit. He had to learn Persian instead. Ambedkar secured admission to Bonn University but had to return to London three months later to revise and complete his DSc thesis.

Ambedkar completed his DSc in 1923 under the guidance of Professor Edwin Cannan of the LSE on the problem of the rupee, which is described as a “remarkable piece of research on Indian currency, and probably the first detailed empirical account of the currency and monetary policy during the period”.

Ambedkar was among the first from India to pursue doctoral studies in economics abroad. He specialised in finance and currency. His ‘The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India: A Study in the Provincial Decentralisation of Imperial Finance (1925)’, carried a foreword by Edwin R.A. Seligman, Professor of Economics, Columbia University, New York. Ambedkar also played a pivotal role in the conceptualisation and establishment of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in 1935.

Subscribe to India Today Magazine

• Latest Posts
• LSE Authors
• Choose a Book for Review
• Submit a Book for Review
• Bookshop Guides

Dr Scott R. Stroud

February 27th, 2023, book review: ambedkar in london by william gould, santosh dass and christophe jaffrelot.

0 comments | 16 shares

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

In Ambedkar in London , William Gould , Santosh Dass and Christophe Jaffrelot offer a new collection exploring Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s education and political formation in the city. This is a valuable and unique contribution that expands our understanding of Ambedkar’s activities and experiences in London and their continuing legacies, writes Scott Stroud .

You can find out more about Ambedkar’s time at LSE in the online LSE Library exhibition, ‘‘‘Educate. Agitate. Organise”:Ambedkar and LSE’ .

Ambedkar in London . William Gould, Santosh Dass and Christophe Jaffrelot. Hurst. 2022.

Dr Bhimrao R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) is one of the most influential and intriguing figures in the 20th century. Many know this thinker and activist as one of the most prominent advocates for the rights of India’s millions of ‘untouchables’ (now called Dalits, a self-chosen label), or as a chief architect of the Indian constitution. And most know about his education in the West, including degrees at Columbia University in America and at institutions such as the London School of Economics and Political Science in Britain . But what details can we discern should we want to dive into the specific contexts of his educational experiences, or his time in London during his youth?

Ambedkar in London focuses on Ambedkar’s education and political formation in Britain. It is unique in filling significant historical gaps and conceptually rich in what it leads us to think in terms of Ambedkar’s international contacts. It is a unique and valuable contribution to understanding Ambedkar.

The book’s focus is far from myopic, since the limiting of its attention to London covers an important series of visits and returns to the centre of British colonial power. The book divides into two parts, focusing on Ambedkar’s educational and political experiences in London (from 1917 to the early 1930s) and his continuing relevance in London in the form of contemporary struggles over his legacy and anti-caste mission. Both sections demonstrate the vital importance of London as a source and scene of importance for understanding Ambedkar’s development.

Image credit: ‘Presentation of portrait of Dr B.R. Ambedkar by the Dr Ambedkar Memorial Committee, Great Britain, 25th September 1973’ licensed by LSE Library . No known copyright restrictions.

The first half of this book explores Ambedkar’s time in London. It starts with three excellent chapters on his wide-ranging education in the city. William Gould gives a thorough account of Ambedkar’s transition from New York to London in the summer of 1916, and the context and figures involved in his education at LSE. Ambedkar’s housing in London and his educational practices — including a mix of focus on Indian economics and the inherent internationalisation of discourses within London circles — come into focus in this well-researched chapter.

The exploration of Ambedkar’s education in London is deepened in the chapter by Sue Donnelly and Daniel Payne on Ambedkar as a student at LSE. Leveraging newly discovered archival records, Donnelly and Payne provide one of the most useful chapters in this volume. They dig as deeply as the records allow into the courses and instructors that likely influenced Ambedkar during his time at LSE. More than this, they paint an interesting picture of students from India who were influenced by LSE education around Ambedkar’s time there.

Of course, not everything in the air in London or in the current books was attended to by Ambedkar or lectured upon by his specific instructors; I found myself continually asking the further question — what did Ambedkar specifically hear in his courses from these professors? For instance, we do know with some precision what Ambedkar heard in his courses with John Dewey at Columbia . I am always interested to see how much detail we can get on what Ambedkar actually heard and learned from his time with other scholars and teachers in London. These two historical chapters, however, do an admirable job in adding new context to the claims about the importance of Ambedkar’s education.

The third chapter, by Steven Gasztowicz, explicates Ambedkar’s legal education in London. Most know that Ambedkar learned law at Gray’s Inn, but few offer many details about this education. This chapter is unique as it explains the context and content of legal education during Ambedkar’s time. Of particular interest to me was Gasztowicz’s explanation of the lecture topics that students had to choose from, and the communal dining in small groups that was required of students and members of the Inn to maintain an honourable standing. This meant that Ambedkar likely had intense social contact at regular intervals with other students and practitioners of the law through his connection with Gray’s Inn. If only we had a record of that dinner table talk!

Chapters by Jesús F. Cháirez-Garza and Christophe Jaffrelot round out the first half of this volume with their chapters on Ambedkar’s participation in the Round Table Conferences and his evolving activist framework in the 1920s. These chapters serve the valuable purpose of reframing what we think of Ambedkar’s thought. Cháirez-Garza uses the context of the First Round Table Conference to demonstrate the fact that space mattered for Ambedkar’s advocacy. Put simply, Ambedkar was able to successfully make certain points about the removal of untouchability in forceful ways because he was making them in the internationalised — and largely caste-free — environment of London. Cháirez-Garza highlights the tensions Ambedkar felt in London, however, and their reflection in the press of the day: Ambedkar was seen as both a champion of the oppressed and as a divider of the Hindu community resisting the British, a point that Gandhi would exploit at the Second Round Table Conference and beyond.

Complementing this emphasis on Ambedkar’s internationalisation of the Dalit cause in London is Jaffrelot’s chapter. Jaffrelot argues a point that we all should realise, but that too many forgot: Ambedkar was a complex thinker and accounts that talk of ‘Ambedkar’s thought’ as a unified whole miss the richness, complexity and even contradiction within important parts of his texts, movements and speeches. Charting the evolution of Ambedkar’s advocacy and activism in the 1920s, including his returns to London, Jaffrelot shows how Ambedkar moved away from a position that sought reform within the Hindu fold and Sanskrit tradition to one that anticipates his explosive texts and speeches on leaving Hinduism in the 1930s.

The second half of the book moves beyond this history to consider the echoes of Ambedkar in contemporary London. This section focuses on the groups and activists his work has inspired or affected. Foremost are Ambedkarite and Buddhist associations that have made sure caste discrimination is foregrounded in discussions of social justice in London. A chapter by Santosh Dass, a leading thinker and activist among these movements, charts the history of Ambedkar-allied movements in Britain; in a separate chapter, she also chronicles the campaign to legally prohibit caste discrimination in Britain. Such movements, given their victories and setbacks, are an encouraging sign that Western institutions and academics are taking Ambedkar’s thought and the concerns of caste seriously.

Of particular interest to the story of Ambedkar in London is the chapter by Dass and Jamie Sullivan detailing the fight to get Ambedkar’s residence from 1920-22 at 10 King Henry’s Road designated a museum. The house, largely through the dedicated initiatives of Ambedkar groups in London, was purchased by the Government of Maharashtra in 2015. Further battles were necessitated to guarantee the status of the house as an official public museum dedicated to Ambedkar’s legacy and time in London. Dass and Sullivan offer a first-hand account of the process — and challenges — of convincing planning councils to sacrifice housing for history. Ultimately, Ambedkar’s cause won out in 2019 and the house has attained the status of a museum site.

The thematics of Ambedkar in London are pulled between two poles: Ambedkar’s efforts to internationalise the Dalit cause and his specific history in London. This is a productive, and interrelated, tension in this work. We see the confluence of these two strands in the final chapter by Kevin Brown. Many know about the correspondence between Ambedkar and the African-American thinker and activist, W.E.B. Du Bois . Ambedkar seemed to be interested in linking the Dalit cause with international movements against racism. Brown does an admirable job showing how Du Bois’s engagement with Ambedkar extended beyond and before this interaction.

Brown’s chapter also charts the reasons why the African-American community did not fully see the Dalit problematic — as Brown documents, many African-American reports on the Round Table Conferences and other events related to India’s struggle for independence subsumed the known caste problem under the quest for national freedom from colonialism and racist oppression. This was the interlinked ‘dual victory’, one that placed freedom from caste oppression as an entailment of India’s political freedom. As Ambedkar sensed in his own time, such a linkage did not guarantee freedom from caste oppression. This chapter nicely concludes a book that does an admirable job filling in what we know about Ambedkar’s activities in London — and their continuing legacies.

Note: This review gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.

About the author

Scott R. Stroud is an associate professor of communication studies and affiliated faculty of the South Asia Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. He serves as the Program Director of Media Ethics at the Center for Media Engagement. He is the co-founder of the first ‘Center for John Dewey Studies’ in India at Savitribai Phule Pune University and author of the recent book The Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction (Chicago UP, 2023).

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Related posts.

B.R. Ambedkar: The Quest for Justice

February 15th, 2021.

Book Review: Dalit Studies edited by Ramnarayan S. Rawat and K. Satyanarayana

October 28th, 2016.

Q and A with Dr Mukulika Banerjee on Cultivating Democracy: Politics and Citizenship in Agrarian India

March 7th, 2022.

Book Review: The Sociology of W.E.B. Du Bois: Racialized Modernity and the Global Color Line by José Itzigsohn and Karida L. Brown

October 3rd, 2022, subscribe via email.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address

Subscribe Now! Get features like

• Latest News
• Entertainment
• Real Estate
• GT vs KKR Live Score
• Lok Sabha Election 2024 Live
• CBSE 10th Result 2024 Live
• CBSE 12th Result Live
• Maharashtra Board Result 2024 Live
• Lok Sabha Election 2024
• Election Schedule 2024
• My First Vote
• IPL 2024 Schedule
• IPL Points Table
• IPL Purple Cap
• IPL Orange Cap
• The Interview
• Web Stories
• Virat Kohli
• Mumbai News
• Bengaluru News
• Daily Digest

Chronicling BR Ambedkar’s life in London

The time he spent in london earning his law and second doctorate degrees was among the most important part of the polymath’s life. the interrupted stint shaped his worldview and philosophy, introduced him to new and exacting teachers, and sharpened his legal skills.

When BR Ambedkar stepped off the boat in London in the summer of 1916, he was already an accomplished man. The 25-year-old had a PhD degree in economics from Columbia University and his dissertation Castes in India: Their mechanism, genesis and development was making waves for its theoretical underpinnings of endogamy.

But he was worried. He was dependent on an endowment from the Gaekwads of Baroda and was likely to be called back soon; World War I had thrown the western world into uncertainty — a ship carrying Ambedkar’s luggage was sunk by Axis torpedoes in the Mediterranean a few months on; his finances were dwindling and friends were back in New York.

Despite the challenges, the time he spent in London earning his law and second doctorate degrees was among the most important part of the polymath’s life. The interrupted stint – he was in London between 1916 and 1917, and again between 1920 and 1923 – shaped his worldview and philosophy, introduced him to new and exacting teachers, and sharpened his legal skills.

Most pivotally, it threw in sharp relief the young Ambedkar’s caste-blighted life in India with his student years abroad. “My five years of staying in Europe and America had completely wiped out of my mind any consciousness that I was an untouchable, and that an untouchable wherever he went in India was a problem to himself and to others,” he later wrote in Waiting for a Visa, narrating how no one would rent him a hotel room when he returned because he was considered untouchable.

A new online exhibition at the London School of Economics (LSE) aims to explore these formative years for Ambedkar through physical papers and records available at the institution.

“Our archives consist of the personal papers of individuals or of organisations. We don’t have the archives of Ambedkar …However, we do have a collection of student files, which record the interactions students have with the LSE during their period of study here. And there is a student file of Ambedkar, which is composed of thing such as his application forms and letters to the secretary. This is what the exhibition is based on,” said Daniel Payne, Curator for Politics and International Relations at the LSE library.

The bulk of the exhibition is an annotated history of Ambedkar’s life and works, with additions on prominent LSE teachers at the time and Indian alumni. The exhibition doesn’t have much on his time at LSE except somewhat charming pieces of university bureaucracy – a misfiled form, handfilled applications for degrees and a partially filled attendance sheet. All of these can be downloaded by the user and hold importance, given that Ambedkar filled most of them himself.

“The principal motivation behind curating this online exhibition is that the several radical (in his time and ours) thoughts and ideas Dr B R Ambedkar — who is by any measure the most famous Indian alumnus of LSE — have remained remarkably unknown to the international academic community,” said Nilanjan Sarkar, deputy director of the LSE South Asia Centre. “Through our limited archival collection in LSE Library, we have tried to highlight this potential for the international community — in short, to globalise the energy and force of Dr Ambedkar’s thought, and to underline its continuing relevance for our times.”

Ambedkar, the economist

Ambedkar’s evolution as an economist occupies a central place in the exhibition.

During his time at LSE, Ambedkar submitted two thesis – one called The evolution of provincial finance in British India : A study in the provincial decentralization of imperial finance for his master’s degree in 1921 and the other, more famous, The Problem of the Rupee, that later influenced the setting up of the Reserve Bank of India, in 1922.

LSE records say that his thesis was not accepted at first, and later notes add that the colonial examiners found his work too “revolutionary”. Ambedkar later revised the work, and successfully obtained a doctorate.

Another important piece of work by him was the 1918 paper Small Holdings In India And Their Remedies where he explored India’s fragmented holdings and called for industrialisation of agriculture to absorb the surplus labour.

Niranjan Rajadhyaksha noted in a 2015 Mint column that Ambedkar’s thesis came at a time when there was a clash between the colonial administration and Indian business interests on the value of the rupee. In his work, Ambedkar argued in favour of a gold standard as opposed to the suggestion by John Maynard Keynes that India should embrace a gold exchange standard.

From the late 1920s, Ambedkar largely moved away from economics as he devoted his energies to social and legal reform, but his later stint as the labour minister in the Viceroy’s executive council between 1942-46 was deeply impactful.

“He worked on a diverse set of topics - water policy, electric power planning, labor laws, maternity rights for female factory workers…Babasaheb set up the first employees’ state insurance, a social security and health insurance scheme for workers, in South Asia,” said Aditi Priya, a research associate at Krea University and founder of Bahujan Economics.

In a 1998 publication, Ambedkar’s Role In Economic Planning, Water And Power Policy, Sukhadeo Thorat traces the impact of Ambedkar’s ideas around state planning on post-independence concepts like the adoption of river valley authorities and hydropower development.

“The importance of maternity entitlements has been discussed in both econ and policy circles in improving the welfare of pregnant and lactating women and improving the labor force participation. Babasaheb was the first advocate of the maternity bill. He passed a range of laws protecting female workers including the Women and Child Labour Protection Act, the Maternity Benefits Act, the Mines Maternity Benefits Act, and created the Women Labour Welfare Fund, which was used to safeguard health and safety of working women,” Priya added.

Ambedkar scholars agree that his primary thrust in later life was on social welfare and benefits to marginalised groups – without being an outright socialist.

“For him the idea was that the welfare of the people should primarily be the job of the government. He was a strong advocate of the role of the state in inclusive economic growth and development and at the same time he was also in the favor of industrialization and urbanization. But he was also aware of the ills of capitalism,” said Priya.

Ambedkar, the student

There are two things the exhibition does very well.

One is underlining Ambedkar’s relations with his teachers and the impression he had on them. Plenty has been written on the influence of Edwin Seligman at Columbia University and the writings of John Stuart Mill.

The LSE exhibition shows Ambedkar enrolled in Geography with Halford Mackinder, Political Ideas with G Lowes Dickinson, and Social Evolution and Social Theory with LT Hobhouse. At the time, the fees were £10 10s which increased to £11 11s when he returned in 1920. His attendance records indicate he was not too interested in the political ideas class, which he skipped on all but two occasions during a term.

The exhibition also spotlights Ambedkar’s relationship with Edwin Cannan, the liberal economist whose lectures are said to have laid the foundation of the LSE Economics course and Herbert Foxwell, who taught at LSE since it started in 1895, and famously said about Ambedkar in London, “There are no more worlds for him to conquer.”

Cannaan guided Ambedkar through the tense submission and re-submission of his doctoral thesis and the young scholar dedicated the work to his professor. The papers have little on their interaction but it appears that the two kept in touch, especially when Ambedkar came back to London for the Round Table Conferences in the early 1930s.

Ambedkar’s student file also contains a letter from Cannan to William Beveridge (then director of the LSE) to encourage him to entertain Ambedkar. “I always said he was by far the ablest Indian we ever had in my time,” Cannan says of Ambedkar.

The letter also references the bitter tussle between Ambedkar and Gandhi over the issue of separate electorates – Gandhi wanted to keep Dalits within the Hindu fold and refused to allow them separate franchise, while Ambedkar believed that caste Hindus would thwart Dalit representatives in a joint electorate.

“When I read in the papers that the Brahmins were hoping to persuade, or that Gandhi was…Dr Ambedkar to modify his demands, I chuckled, remembering the obstinacy with which he used to hold out even when quite wrong,” Cannan noted.

Ambedkar, the political thinker

The second is highlighting the evolution of political thought in Ambedkar – from his days at LSE to when he returned to London for the Round Table Conferences.

To my mind, the most important documents in the entire exhibition are two sets of papers that have nothing to do with LSE.

One is a missive by Ambedkar to George Lansbury, the then leader of the Labour Party, in 1935. At the time, a British joint parliamentary select committee, chaired by Lord Linlithgow, had tabled its recommendations – which would eventually lead to the Government of India Act, 1935.

Ambedkar expressed dissatisfaction in his letter to Lansbury, especially objecting to the proposal for setting up upper houses in provincial assemblies over fears that upper-castes will dominate these chambers and wield influence in governance.

The second is the submission by Ambedkar and Tamil politician Rettamalai Srinivasan – the two depressed class delegates – to the First Round Table Conference, laying out a political and electoral roadmap for Dalit representation in power-sharing.

A Scheme of Political Safeguards for the Protection of the Depressed Classes in the Future Constitution of a self-governing India puts forth a series of conditions for Dalits to agree to majority rule in India – each of which acts as a precursor for rights and provisions that eventually found their way into the Constitution.

Ambedkar and Srinivasan said Dalits needed equal citizenship, fundamental rights, free enjoyment of equal rights, protection from social boycott and other discrimination, adequate representation in services, departments and the Cabinet. The kernel of the landmark abolition of untouchability, affirmative action and fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution are evident in this short 13-page submission. Also evident is the tension between historical inequality and the democratic project – key to understanding the country celebrating 75 years of freedom.

In the words of Ambedkar, “The depressed classes cannot consent to subject themselves to majority rule in their present state of hereditary bondsmen. Before majority rule is established, their emancipation from the system of untouchability must be an accomplished fact. It must not be left to the will of the majority.”

And what we don’t know

Yet, there is so much that’s missing from the exhibition on Ambedkar’s life at London or LSE. We don’t know what sort of a student he was, how his time at London was spent or how a young Dalit scholar enjoyed the first years of freedom from the sub-continental shackles of caste.

Other than the passing references in Ambedkar’s biography by Dhananjay Keer, we don’t know anything about his roommate Asnodkar, his friend Naval who’d send him money or his stern landlady who’d make him subsist on toast.

We don’t know how he navigated the metropolis, who his British friends were and the stories of the Indian acquaintances who supplied him with papad to eat at night.

Did Asnodkar and Ambedkar talk during the latter’s frequent all-nighters? Did Ambedkar make any friends during his hours-long visits to the British Library? Who took care of him when he fell ill in 1922? We don’t know.

Coming in the 75th year of India’s independence, this is both unfortunate and predictable.

The domination of upper-castes in history, historical research and archiving meant that even otherwise commonplace tasks like publishing Ambedkar’s complete works happened decades after his death, after struggle by anti-caste groups. Dalit writers and intellectuals continue to be marginalised and typecast.

Even in the UK, Ambedkarites have worked for years to establish Ambedkar as a leading figure. “When we started working in 1985, not many knew of Ambedkar; during his birth centenary celebrations (in 1991), we organised events across Europe to highlight his contribution to democracy and human rights,” said Arun Kumar, general secretary of the Federation of Ambedkarite & Buddhist Organisations. Busts donated by the body stand today at LSE and Columbia University.

The exhibition’s organisers are aware of the challenges.

“Even though there is quite a bit in the student file, not much is revealed about Ambedkar’s experiences at LSE,” said Payne.

Sarkar said that the principal motivation behind the exhibition was that the several radical thoughts and ideas of Ambedkar remained remarkably unknown to the international academic community.

“Even though Dr. Ambedkar is one of the most significant alumnus of LSE, and Dr Ambedkar’s scholarship and campaigns are of paramount importance to understand India and beyond, despite the presence of large number of Indian students as well as some faculty research on India, it is almost invisible in this institution,” said Jayaraj Sunderasan, one of the organisers of the event.

Following Babasaheb’s footsteps

A marked void in the exhibition is the absence of any other Dalit names – students, leaders, LSE alumni – or anti-caste work emerging from the institution. I suspect this is the reflection of a broader pattern that excludes marginalised students from pursuing education abroad, struggling for finances, recommendations and survival outside traditional caste networks.

Satish Athawale is one of them. The 24-year-old student is hoping to go the UK this year to secure a master’s degree in engineering after surviving three harrowing years. His parents, Ashok and Rama Athawale, were among the victims of the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence. Rioters torched their shop and home and beat Ashok to an inch of his life – jolting the young Athawale to the realities of caste-based hatred.

The family escaped to Pune where they have been trying to make ends meet since. Athawale hopes to pull the family out of poverty and secure a job after his education, if only he can secure the resources to make good on his admission offers. “Despite the hardships of our family, I want to go abroad and study to secure a better future for us. I hope to follow in the path of Ambedkar.”

Continue reading with HT Premium Subscription

Dhrubo works as an edit resource and writes at the intersection of caste, gender, sexuality and politics. Formerly trained in Physics, abandoned a study of the stars for the glitter of journalism. Fish out of digital water. ...view detail

IPL 2024 Coverage

Join Hindustan Times

Create free account and unlock exciting features like.

• Terms of use
• Privacy policy
• Weather Today
• HT Newsletters
• Subscription
• Print Ad Rates
• Code of Ethics

• AP Election 2024 Live
• IPL Live Score
• T20 World Cup Schedule
• IPL 2024 Auctions
• T20 World Cup 2024
• Cricket Teams
• Cricket Players
• ICC Rankings
• Cricket Schedule
• T20 World Cup Points Table
• Other Cities
• Income Tax Calculator
• Budget 2024
• Petrol Prices
• Diesel Prices
• Silver Rate
• Relationships
• Art and Culture
• Taylor Swift: A Primer
• Telugu Cinema
• Tamil Cinema
• Board Exams
• Exam Results
• Competitive Exams
• BBA Colleges
• Engineering Colleges
• Medical Colleges
• BCA Colleges
• Medical Exams
• Engineering Exams
• Horoscope 2024
• Festive Calendar 2024
• Compatibility Calculator
• The Economist Articles
• Lok Sabha States
• Lok Sabha Parties
• Lok Sabha Candidates
• Explainer Video
• On The Record
• Vikram Chandra Daily Wrap
• EPL 2023-24
• ISL 2023-24
• Asian Games 2023
• Public Health
• Economic Policy
• International Affairs
• Climate Change
• Gender Equality
• future tech
• Daily Sudoku
• Daily Crossword
• Daily Word Jumble
• HT Friday Finance
• Explore Hindustan Times
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use
• Subscription - Terms of Use