Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar

by Anand Teltumbde

In Iconoclast, Dr Anand Teltumbde, a distinguished public intellectual and leading authority on the Dalit movement, presents a groundbreaking biography of Dr B.R. Ambedkar. Far from the embellished narratives often associated with his legacy, Teltumbde strips away the layers of myth and hyperbole to reveal the man behind the legend.

With meticulous research and intellectual honesty, Teltumbde delves into the life of Ambedkar, situating him within the dynamic context of his time. He explores the complexities of Ambedkar's persona, offering a nuanced portrait that challenges conventional perceptions. Rich with poignant photographs, this biography paints a vivid picture of Ambedkar as a visionary and as a human, and above all as an iconoclast driven by a relentless pursuit of social justice and equality. From his tireless advocacy for the Dalit community to his visionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, Ambedkar's legacy reverberates through the ages, inspiring generations to strive for a more just society.

With incisive analysis and a deep understanding of Ambedkar's philosophy, Teltumbde extends the narrative beyond the confines of history, examining Ambedkar's enduring impact on contemporary India. Iconoclast is a masterful tribute to a towering figure in modern history, offering profound insights into the epic struggle for social emancipation and the quest for a truly inclusive society.

Genres: Biography, India, Nonfiction, History, Politics

700 pages, Hardcover

Published September 1, 2024

About the author

Anand Teltumbde is a leading public intellectual and is known for his critical insights on many a contemporary issue. A civil rights activist of long standing, he is currently General Secretary of the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR). He is also associated with the All India Forum for Rights to Education (AIFRTE), which is spearheading the movement for common school system, as a member of its Presidium and many other Peoples’ movements.

A regular contributor to Economic and Political Weekly, wherein he writes a monthly column ‘Margin Speak’. He also regularly contributes to other progressive journals like Mainstream, Frontier, Seminar, etc. and most English and Marathi newspapers.

Some of his recent books are Dalits: past, Present and Future (Routledge, 2016), Mahad: Making of the First Dalit Revolt (Aakar, 2016), Persistence of Caste (Zed Books, 2010); Khairlanji: A Strange and Bitter Crop (Navayana, 2008); Anti-Imperialism and Annihilation of Castes (Ramai, 2005); and Hindutva and Dalits: Perspectives for Understanding Communal Praxis, (Ed) (Samya, 2005). He is widely translated into most Indian languages.

He has been a CEO of a holding company. After his corporate stint, he joined IIT, Kharagpur, where he teaches Business Management.

Reviews

[Sandeep · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much has been written about Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and his transition from an Iconoclast to an icon has been swiftly accelerated in the age of social media and in this deluge of information and misinformation about a great man, Anand Teltumbde's book is all the more important. Teltumbde states upfront that he isn’t interested in “the pretence of presenting any new facts.” Rather, his objective as a biographer is to filter the story of Ambedkar’s life “through a sieve of rationality” so that people are awakened from what he describes as “their state of devotional inebriation"

The book divides Dr. Ambedkar's life into six phases with a seventh phase that looks at his relevance and legacy post his death. Each section is deeply researched and peppered with the author's reflections and shows that he was a man of contradictions, a flawed individual who made errors of judgement, and did not always transcend the prejudices of his time, which actually does not take away from his greatness but only solidifies him as a all too human figure that people can relate to especially "today, the Ambedkar icon is overpowering that it renders any attempt even to view the real Ambedkar, near impossible. Even the intellectual enterprises feigning objectivity contribute skillfully to strengthen those extant icons"

This is an invaluable book that reminds us of Ambedkar's legacy as an Iconoclast, who should be remembered for courageously challenging the hegemonic social order, for taking cudgels for the most downtrodden people, for being a bold experimenter with varied meliorative ideas.

[Arka James Saha · Rating 5 out of 5]

A definitive biography of Ambedkar that is impartial in its account and provides deep insights into the life of the great yet flawed man who, with his pragmatic approach, hoped to create a world that's equal, liberal, and fraternal.

The book gives an honest account, which is reflective and critical, and doesn't put the man on a pedestal. It shares the truth while providing context to the ground reality and how Babasaheb's work truly made an impact on the lives of the Dalits.

Highly recommended!

[Sajith Kumar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Babasaheb Ambedkar is the architect of the Indian Constitution. He was also the figurehead of Dalit emancipation, rising from a low social and economic background to reach the topmost constitutional positions in the country. There have been numerous biographies of Ambedkar and precisely because of this, the author notes what is different in this book. It claims to follow Ambedkar’s approach of weighing facts on the touchstone of rationality and also to add reflections of the author to the story already told many times. The reflections are in the form of comments, questions and discussions on points deemed to be consequential to the lives of Dalits as well as others. Ambedkar defined himself as an iconoclast – a breaker of icons. It is hence ironic that he himself was elevated to the status of an idol in recent times. His writings are characterized by a direct, incisive, hard-hitting and combatant style. Anand Teltumbde is an engineering and management expert who turned to social work while employed in the highest management cadre of a central PSU. He is the husband of Ambedkar’s granddaughter. He was arrested in 2020 on the charge of instigating the Bhima-Koregaon violence and incarcerated for two years along with other urban naxals. The author is peeved at this and goes on a tirade accusing the Modi-led government of being fascist, authoritarian and totalitarian throughout the entire length of the book.

Ambedkar lived for the uplift of Dalits. His writings on Dalit causes may appear to be a one-sided narrative, declining to extend credit to others even when it is due. But his wisdom on public finance and political economy is unparalleled and out-of-the-box. His solution to the development of Indian agriculture is logical while sounding extraordinary. It was believed that the low productivity of land holdings was because of its small size. He showed that economic size of this land is not determined by the size in geographical area but by optimal provision of factors of production. A large surplus population was superficially engaged in agriculture with no capital. Ambedkar proposed India’s industrialization as a solution to its agricultural problems which would absorb surplus labour and generate savings to be ploughed back into agriculture. It is unfortunate that Jawaharlal Nehru could not see this truth even in 1951. There is no doubt that Ambedkar denounced Hindu society for casteism and the discrimination it heaped on the downtrodden people. Still, he notes in his essay ‘Castes in India’ that there is a deep cultural unity in Hindu society but this larger cultural unit is parcelled into bits by castes. However, the author challenges and negates this prudent observation. Ambedkar metaphorically compared Hindu society with a multi-storeyed tower with no stairs to connect one storey to the other. Each storey represented an individual caste. Teltumbde do modify this metaphor to a tower with five storeys, each housing innumerable castes in contention with each other.

This book covers the early work of Ambedkar in good detail, especially after completion of his education in the US and UK. A satyagraha was organized in Mahad for the use of Chowdar water tank for Dalits in 1927. This faithfully followed the Gandhian model of nonviolence and carried a portrait of Gandhi on the dais. This agitation failed. Babasaheb opposed separate electorates to Muslims in his minority report submitted to the Simon Commission in 1928. He suggested general electorates with reserved seats for Muslims and Dalits. The author narrates how the Congress mainstream ignored the wails of Dalits right from the 1920s. A committee headed by Motilal Nehru drafted a Swaraj constitution in 1928 and it did not provide representation for Dalits. Congress did not even invite any Dalit organisation to discuss on it (p.143). This was also the time that convinced Babasaheb that untouchability was practised by other religions too. During one of their journeys to Aurangabad, Ambedkar and his team visited the Daulatabad fort nearby. They washed their faces and feet on the pavement in the fort with water from a tank outside the monument. As soon as they did this, enraged Muslims confronted and abused them menacingly for daring to pollute the tank. Babasaheb noted that it could have led to a riot in the town (p.192).

The 1930s were the formative decade in Ambedkar’s career, bringing out the constitutional expert in him. He attended all three Round Table Conferences (RTC) convened to settle contentious issues before an anticipated constitution of India coming into force in 1935. He shifted his focus in the RTCs from untouchability as a socio-religious issue to a political question. He used the opportunity to internationalize the problem of untouchability. The British favoured him at that time because it justified the continued presence of their rule. Closer to the actual transfer of power, the issue ceased to be useful for their interests and they discarded the issues of caste/untouchability as well as Ambedkar himself. Gandhi attended only one RTC and Teltumbde observes that he was ill-equipped to participate in it. When grave constitutional and communal points were raised in the conference, he had only platitudes to offer, rather than views or suggestions of a constructive character. In the end, Babasaheb was victorious in getting adequate representation for Dalits in legislatures. However, he had to compromise on the issue of separate electorates while yielding to Gandhi’s fast unto death against this attempt to divide the Hindu society. In the 1937 elections, he was elected to the Bombay provincial assembly. He tried to unite Dalits and workers with communist support. He backed the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan acknowledging the validity of their claim that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations and the two cannot live peacefully together.

Ambedkar reached the pinnacle of his achievements in the 1940s. He was nominated to the Viceroy’s Executive Council in the war period. However in 1945, his party AISCF was trounced by Congress in the elections which won 123 out of 151 seats reserved for SCs while the former could win only two. This convinced the British that Congress was the true representative of depressed classes and Babasaheb’s bargaining power fell. His memoranda to the Cabinet Mission of 1946 regarding safeguards for SCs were ignored. Ambedkar did not find a place in the interim cabinet and Congress’ Jagjivan Ram was included in his place. The colonial rule transformed the rebel in Ambedkar into a statesman during the war period and then he was side-lined when the British deal with the Congress was fructified. The author alleges that Gandhian strategy then embalmed his as a ‘modern Manu’ (p.338). It was with this intention that he was co-opted as the chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitution. Author accuses Babasaheb of then endearing himself to the Constituent Assembly as an ultra-nationalist even though he had opposed Congress’ nationalist movement till then. He who had voiced for separate electorates for SCs would oppose it later and accept joint electorates (p.333). Teltumbde then argues that all crucial decisions were taken without involving Ambedkar. Out of the various subcommittees of the Constituent Assembly, Nehru presided over three panels, while Patel and Rajendra Prasad headed two each, strategically controlling all decisions of the Assembly. Babasaheb’s task was alleged to be limited to document decisions in constitutional language.

A great contribution of this book is the inferences it provides readers regarding Ambedkar’s relations with Hinduism. It is true that he renounced it and termed it as the sole reason for oppression of the Dalits. What he fought tooth and nail in this equation was the caste system. When he opted for conversion, he chose Buddhism which some scholars say was nothing more than Hindu Protestantism in the early stages. Babasaheb was emotionally as well as culturally anchored tightly to Mother India. During Partition, he called for the division of Kashmir along Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist lines and the Muslim areas were to be given to Pakistan if they wished so and proved in a plebiscite. However, he declared that the Hindus of Jammu and Buddhists of Ladakh belonged to ‘our religion and culture’ and to protect them is not communalism (p.427). The author criticises Ambedkar for Islamophobia on his warnings in the Rajya Sabha against the possibility of Pakistan teaming up with other Islamic countries against India. He even feigns to point fingers at Babasaheb for not toeing the author’s line of thinking. Ambedkar accepted the two-nation theory but did not trace its roots in the Brahminic aspirations to recreate their hegemonic control (p.325). But Teltumbde does this with a ridiculous set of arguments that has no substance. His criticism of Babasaheb is unnecessarily sharp so as to put the great man in a bad light. He corrects Ambedkar himself even on the name of his ancestral village to Ambadava and claims that Ambedkar had wrongly spelt it as Ambawade! The author further arraigns him to be of having a ‘faulty understanding of socialism and communism’. Moreover, strategic incoherence is alleged to be a trait on his person (p.425). This is in spite of Ambedkar’s own justification for the occasional inconsistency in his words and actions with the rhetoric that consistency was the virtue of the ass. This biography is not only ‘reflective’, it is actually critical. The author goes after later followers of Ambedkarism too, because they packaged him into an icon endowed with infallibility. Any view or act that does not reflect devotion to him could be blasphemy. This is contrary to Ambedkar’s opinion of the relationship of great people to ordinary ones. This leads us to doubt whether this book is an attempt to strike hard on the blind followers.

What is evident in this book is the inveterate hostility Congress under Nehru displayed towards Ambedkar. He was defeated from a Bombay constituency to reach the Constituent Assembly. He then managed to enter the Assembly from East Bengal. Gandhi then intervened to call a truce to utilize Babasaheb’s talent in drafting the Constitution. He entered Nehru’s cabinet as law minister but had to resign soon. Again, he was defeated in the elections by Congress candidates. He was then elected to the Rajya Sabha. Probably because of being fed up with all these manoeuvres and side-linings, Ambedkar exploded in the Rajya Sabha that he was merely a hack and made the Constitution against his will. He said he was quite prepared to burn it because ‘it does not suit anybody’ (p.437). What he meant was that decisions were already taken by a clique in the Congress party and then he was forced to translate them into constitutional language by the drafting committee. It is also to be remembered that Nehru awarded himself the ‘Bharat Ratna’ in a most petty act of aggrandizement while ignoring the Babasaheb, who was awarded the highest civilian honour posthumously only in 1990 by V P Singh. The author narrates the mental conflicts Ambedkar had to undergo in converting to another religion and to choose Buddhism for it. He ascribed rationalism and scientific spirit in a religion which he deemed to be Navayana Buddhism in contrast to Mahayana and Vajrayana. Teltumbde claims that transmigration of soul from one body to another is a Buddhist belief which Ambedkar denied. This claim is doubtful because it is well known that Buddhism does not recognize the soul while karma is believed to be transmigrating. The author also confirms that Buddhism did not abolish casteism and in fact, castes are present in the societies of Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nepal. Howsoever intensely Babasaheb detested Hinduism, his voice cracked and tears rolled down his cheeks when he declared that he was renouncing it before the huge crowd at Deeksha Bhumi in Nagpur.

The book is divided into seven phases of his life and a posthumous phase is added to explain how the Ambedkar icon was turned into a divine avatar in the later decades while the political organisations he spawned splintered and crumbled one after the other. Ambedkar paid little heed to organisation. His parties rallied mainly on his charisma. When he was no more, his shoes proved too big for his successors who turned to fratricidal warfare that led to the collapse of all factions. In the 1960s, Congress began to woo Dalits as a vote bank. They lured its leaders with power and the masses with the Ambedkar icon as a proxy for their identity aspirations. Some of the militant organisations like the Dalit Panthers which was modelled on the Black Civil Rights movements in the US and came into being in the 1970s, denounced the Ambedkarite vision of using only constitutional methods to resolve grievances and openly allied with the far-left rebels. It is to be kept in mind that Ambedkar was a staunch opponent of communism and its class-based theories of political action.

At 676 pages, the book is a bit too large, but the reading process is hassle-free and enjoyable, despite the occasional political outbursts of the author accusing the present Indian government under Modi to be autocratic. This political bias seems to have turned him into a cynic who is unable to find anything good even in the case of the protagonist of the book – none other than Babasaheb himself. Considering the fierce criticism levelled against him on all areas of his work – social, political, constitutional and legislative – one wonders whether this book is part of a cancel culture. Ambedkar’s remarks on the desirability of women entering politics and the relationship of several women politicians with Nehru given on page 477 are indeed shocking. If you respect Ambedkar, several parts of this book would make you uncomfortable by pointing out inconsistencies, contradictions and even personal quirks in his character and life-work. The book includes more than 200 pictures covering various phases of his life. This effectively makes it a pictorial biography. However, many photographs are group photos involving many people. After completing the book, what is obvious and standing out is the personal stamp of the author, particularly his prejudices.

The book is recommended.

[Prasad GR · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished reading this book on the 69th death anniversary of Ambedkar, whose life was full of tragedies. He confronted them head on, in pursuit of his life’s goal which was to annihilate castes. However, he has been turned into an icon that numerous groups pursuing ideologies of differing hues claim as their own. And therein lies the irony. As Anand Teltumbde sums it up, ‘Ambedkar began being packaged into statues and symbols that dotted across the country.’

Iconoclast offers a bird’s eye view of this towering and complex figure who played a key role in shaping Indian history in the 20th century. It’s a comprehensive portrait that shows Ambedkar in all his glory while at the same time calling out his frailties. And this is the most impressive aspect of this book - it’s a biography; not a hagiography.

While the narrative takes the reader along at a brisk pace, almost every page suffers from editorial misses. Something unforgivable in a scholarly work such as this. All kinds of errors abound: punctuation, grammar, dates, names, photographs with incorrect description, repetitions. Not being a historian or an Ambedkar scholar, I am not in a position to identify factual errors but I won’t be surprised if this book has them too! Penguin Viking better pull up their socks. If this is the quality of editing these days, writers might as well self publish!

[Amit Kamble · Rating 4 out of 5]

Right now, I am reading the book. My notions may change, but as of now, I think the author is unnecessarily critical of the ideas of Dr. Ambedkar. Take Annihilation of Caste. The ordinary Hindu observed caste discrimination out of faith in the religious scriptures. That was the argument of Dr. Ambedkar, among others. If Hindus get converted to other religions and they also they practice caste rules, his hypothesis doesn't get disproved. It is simply a residue effect. The author, in the quest to raise doubts on Dr. Ambedkar is overtly critical on this point. Also, in accepting Puna Pact, Dr. Ambedkar placed hopes on Gandhi. It can not be said that he was erroneous in part to oppose Gandhi. Then, there are many more unjustified criticisms. I will update this review from time to time.

[Arjun Reddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thrust of the argument solid, best biography I have read. Reveals Ambedkar the man, not a deity to be preserved or placed above critique. Writing at times repetitive, but overall deals with questions of gender, class, religion not only historically but in contemporary times.

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar” by author Anand Teltumbde is a detailed, well-researched, and honest exploration of Dr. Ambedkar’s life and ideas. In this book, you’ll not only read about Dr. Ambedkar’s greatness but also find a critical analysis that sheds light on and discusses certain contradictions in his journey.

What makes this book different is that the author, Anand Teltumbde, does not portray Dr. Ambedkar as merely an icon or hero, but as a human being. As you read, you’ll learn more about his background, his journey to becoming one of India’s most educated and influential leaders, his struggles against the caste system, his work for equality, his role in drafting the Indian Constitution, and his decision to convert to Buddhism.

The significant events from Dr. Ambedkar’s life - from his birth to after his death are discussed phase by phase, which makes the book very informative. Author Anand Teltumbde has combined both images and text to present Ambedkar’s life in a pictorial form. The rare photographs included along with the narrative are one of the strengths of this biography, helping readers understand Dr. Ambedkar’s journey in a deeper way.

While the book will be of great value to researchers and scholars, if you are someone interested in learning more about Dr. Ambedkar’s life, philosophy, and legacy, you should definitely read it.

This book helps readers understand Dr. Ambedkar beyond politics and beyond what we generally hear about him.