It’s without a doubt that BR Ambedkar was one of the most remarkable Indians to ever live. So why wasn’t he given a Bharat Ratna till 1990?
After all, Nehru got it in 1955 (which makes it a tad suspicious since he was the PM), Indira Gandhi got in 1971 (while she was PM). BR Ambedkar got his in 1990, under the VP Singh government. This was 44 years after he passed away in in 1956.
Consider this, that the Rajiv – two generations younger than BR Ambedkar – got the award in the 1991, along with Sardar Patel, who also got it posthumously.
That would’ve something to do with his politics, his unflinching ideals and the fact that he cared about people more than plaudits.
Born on 14th April, 1891 BR Ambedkar, Ambedkar only got the Bharat Ratna in 1990, under a VP Singh government, that too posthumously.
In 2018, PM Modi had noted, albeit a tad misinformed: “There is no place for Dalits in the heart of the Congress. This has been continuing for last many decades. Even the Congress has no respect for Ambedkar. They did everything to defeat him in the 1952 general elections and the bypoll to Bhandara parliamentary constituency in 1953. He said the Congress humiliated Ambedkar till they were in power. "They did not even confer the Bharat Ratna on him. It was only when Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ji formed the government that Babasaheb was conferred the title", he said.
Ambedkar was a guy, in the language of millennials, who had no chill and was savage AF.
When the Bombay Legislative Council debated more powers for panchayats, he had famously said: “A population which is hidebound by caste; a population which is infected by ancient prejudices; a population which flouts equality of status and is dominated by notions of gradations in life; a population which thinks that some are high and some are low — can it be expected to have the right notions even to discharge bare justice? Sir, I deny that proposition, and I submit that it is not proper to expect us to submit our life, and our liberty, and our property to the hands of these panchayats.”
He didn’t shy away from calling a spade a spade and perhaps that had something to do with his unpopularity with the powers-that-be.
In fact, he resigned from the Cabinet in 1951 when the Parliament stalled the Hindu Code Bill, which sought to enshrine gender inequality in laws of inheritance and marriage. He also wanted a uniform civil code.
The Congress would subsequently humiliate him in the 1952 election. Ambedkar stood from Bombay Central where he lost to the Congress candidate Narayan Kajrolkar who rode on a Nehru wave to beat Ambedkar by over 15,000 votes!
He later became a member of Rajya Sabha but would continue to face electoral reversals, coming third in Bhadara bypoll in 1954, coming third. Ambedkar’s loss was a reminder that the populist choice wasn’t always the best.
Ambedkar famously made three prophetic warnings that would hurt Indian democracy
1) personality or bhakti cult
2) continuing to use unconstitutional means during freedom struggle against British rule
3) increasing social and economic inequality amid political equality.
All three are conspicuously present in Indian democracy today. In fact, most people who shout Jai Bhim would've baulked at his actual political views. He was a true visionary and paid the price of not tempering his views to keep in line with the realpolitik of his time.
