1943, SHIMLA. Bhagwan Das, sixteen, waits seven hours to meet the man his father calls ‘Ummeedkar’, the Harbinger of Hope—Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. The meeting defines the trajectory of Das’s life. After serving in the Royal Indian Air Force as a radar operator during World War II, Das works with Ambedkar as a research assistant in his last years. Four decades of dedicated activism lead him to testify on untouchability in 1983 before the UN Subcommission on Human Rights in Geneva. For Das, 1947, the ‘moment of Independence’, marked the onset of ‘Hindu Raj’; his critique of Gandhi is unambiguous; he unmasks the ‘valmikisation’ of the sweeper community. Das died in 2010 in Delhi. This is his story.
Dalits have never been Hindus
Review
‘Das is a storehouse of insights’—S.R. Darapuri
‘His words and works are eternally with us’—The Wire
‘Das was a self-made man’—Ramesh Chander, IFS
About the Author
Bhagwan Das (1927–2010) was an Ambedkarite and a historian of the dalit movement. He compiled four volumes of Ambedkar’s speeches, with the title, Thus Spoke Ambedkar.
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