Here is your short paragraph on BR Ambedkar !

Bhim Rao Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891 into the untouchable’ Mahar caste, in Mhow in western Madhya Pradesh.

His father Ramji was in the British Army. The government of the day required all army personnel and their families to be educated, and ran schools for this purpose.

Thus, the Ramji family was fortunate to see its children receive good education, which otherwise would have been denied to them. When Bhim was six years old, his mother died.

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His father was a strict vegetarian, pious man, and avoided meat and liquor. When he retired from the army as a Subedar-Major of the Second Grenadiers after 14 years of service, the family moved to Dapoli in Konkan and then to Satara. Bhim and his elder brother Anand were enrolled in the cantonment school and government high school thereafter.

Despite the opportunity that education permitted, Bhim began to taste the bitter reality of his birth. He had to sit on the floor in one corner in the classroom. Teachers would not touch his notebooks. If Bhim felt thirsty, he could only drink water if someone else poured water into his mouth. Once provoked by an uncontrollable fit of thirst, Bhim drank water from the public reservoir.

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He was beaten by the higher caste Hindus. Such experiences were permanently etched onto his mind. He realized that it was the plight of any ‘untouchable’ and thus, he decided to be successful in his studies. Bhim enrolled in the Elphinstone High School in Bombay.

Even there, one of his teachers constantly mocked him, saying that of what use an educated Mahar was. Bhim swallowed these insults and controlled his anger. He passed his matriculation examination in 1907. The Mahars felicitated him on his achievement. Bhim joined the Elphinstone College for intermediate education.

Thereafter, Bhim received a scholarship from the Maharaja of Baroda, Sayaji Rao, and attained a Degree in Arts in 1912. Bhimrao had lost his father in the February the next year. Sayaji Rao selected Bhim to be sent to America on a scholarship for higher studies. In return, Bhim Rao was to serve the State of Baroda for 10 years. Bhim Rao reached New York in July 1913.

Being in a foreign country, Bhim Rao was not demeaned for belonging to a Mahar community for the first time in his life. He put his heart into his studies and received a degree in Master of Arts and a Doctorate in Philosophy from Columbia University in 1916 for his thesis ‘National Dividend for India: A Historical and Analytical Study’. From America, Dr Ambedkar proceeded to London to study economics and political science. The Government of Baroda terminated his scholarship and recalled him to Baroda.

The Maharaja appointed him as a military secretary but no one would take orders from an ‘untouchable’ Mahar. He could not even get lodging and not even the prime minister appointed by the Maharaja could help him find a place to live. Ambedkar had to return to Bombay in November 1917. Thereafter, Ambedkar went to London to complete his Doctorate in Science and he became a barrister.

On 27 January 1919, B. R. Ambedkar submitted his written evidence before Lord Southborough, Chairman of the Franchise Committee. He argued that the distinction between ‘untouchables’ and ‘touchable’ is more pronounced than those between Hindus and Muslims, Hindus and Parsees and so on. ‘Untouchables are a separate element in India’s social life, and hence (should) be treated so, and accorded as a minority, with all the rights and privileges being offered to the religious minorities’, was his line of argument.

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