Poona Pact

 In 1932, the British colonial government announced the formation of a separate electorate for "Depressed Classes" in the Communal Award. Mahatma Gandhi fiercely opposed a separate electorate for untouchables, saying he feared that such an arrangement would divide the Hindu community.^[52][53][54] Gandhi protested by fasting while imprisoned in the Yerwada Central Jail of Poona. Following the fast, congressional politicians and activists such as Madan Mohan Malaviya and Palwankar Baloo organised joint meetings with Ambedkar and his supporters at Yerwada.^[55] On 25 September 1932, the agreement, known as the Poona Pact was signed between Ambedkar (on behalf of the depressed classes among Hindus) and Madan Mohan Malaviya (on behalf of the other Hindus). The agreement gave reserved seats for the depressed classes in the Provisional legislatures within the general electorate. Due to the pact the depressed class received 148 seats in the legislature instead of the 71, as allocated in the Communal Award proposed earlier by the colonial government under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. The text used the term "Depressed Classes" to denote Untouchables among Hindus who were later called Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under the India Act 1935, and the later Indian Constitution of 1950.^[56] In the Poona Pact, a unified electorate was in principle formed, but primary and secondary elections allowed Untouchables in practice to choose their own candidates.^[57]

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 "Babasaheb" and "Ambedkar" redirect here. For other uses, see Babasaheb (title) and Ambedkar (disambiguation).

B. R. Ambedkar
Ambedkar in the 1950s
Member of Parliament of Rajya Sabha for Bombay State[1]
In office 3 April 1952 – 6 December 1956
President	Rajendra Prasad
Prime Minister	Jawaharlal Nehru
1st Minister of Law and Justice
In office 15 August 1947 – 6 October 1951
President	Rajendra Prasad
Governors General	Louis Mountbatten C. Rajagopalachari
Prime Minister	Jawaharlal Nehru
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Charu Chandra Biswas
Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee
In office 29 August 1947 – 24 January 1950
Member of the Constituent Assembly of India[2][3]
In office 9 December 1946 – 24 January 1950
Constituency	• Bengal Province (1946–47)  • Bombay Province (1947–50)
Minister of Labour in Viceroy's Executive Council[4][5]
In office 22 July 1942 – 20 October 1946
Governors General	The Marquess of Linlithgow The Viscount Wavell
Preceded by	Feroz Khan Noon
Leader of the Opposition in the Bombay Legislative Assembly[6][7]
In office 1937–1942
Member of the Bombay Legislative Assembly[6][7]
In office 1937–1942
Constituency	Bombay City (Byculla and Parel) General Urban
Member of the Bombay Legislative Council[8][9][10]
In office 1926–1937
Personal details
Pronunciation	Bhīmrāo Rāmjī Āmbēḍkar
Born	Bhiva Ramji Sakpal 14 April 1891 Mhow, Central India Agency, British India (now Madhya Pradesh, India)
Died	6 December 1956 (aged 65) New Delhi, India[11][12]
Resting place	Chaitya Bhoomi, Mumbai, India 19°01′30″N 72°50′02″E
Political party	• Independent Labour Party  • Scheduled Castes Federation
Other political affiliations	• Republican Party of India
Spouses	Ramabai Ambedkar ​ ​ (m. 1906; died 1935)​ Savita Ambedkar   ​ (m. 1948)​
Children	Yashwant Ambedkar
Relatives	See Ambedkar family
Residence(s)	• Rajgruha, Mumbai, Maharashtra  • 26 Alipur Road, New Delhi
Alma mater	University of Mumbai (B.A., M.A.) Columbia University (M.A., PhD) London School of Economics (M.Sc., D.Sc.) Gray's Inn (Barrister-at-Law)
Profession	Jurist economist politician social reformer writer
Known for	Dalit rights movement Heading committee drafting Constitution of India Dalit Buddhist movement
Awards	Bharat Ratna (posthumously in 1990)
Signature
Nickname	Babasaheb

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (14 April 1891 – 6 December 1956) was an Indian jurist, economist, social reformer and political leader who headed the committee drafting the Constitution of India from the Constituent Assembly debates, served as Law and Justice minister in the first cabinet of Jawaharlal Nehru, and inspired the Dalit Buddhist movement after renouncing Hinduism.

After graduating from Elphinstone College, University of Bombay, Ambedkar studied economics at Columbia University and the London School of Economics, receiving doctorates in 1927 and 1923, respectively, and was among a handful of Indian students to have done so at either institution in the 1920s.^[13] He also trained in the law at Gray's Inn, London. In his early career, he was an economist, professor, and lawyer. His later life was marked by his political activities; he became involved in campaigning and negotiations for partition, publishing journals, advocating political rights and social freedom for Dalits, and contributing to the establishment of the state of India. In 1956, he converted to Buddhism, initiating mass conversions of Dalits.^[14]

In 1990, the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, was posthumously conferred on Ambedkar. The salutation Jai Bhim (lit. "Hail Bhim") used by followers honours him. He is also referred to by the nickname Babasaheb (BAH-bə SAH-hayb), meaning "Respected Father".

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar

 Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday night (GMT) and alleged that the BJP and RSS are “incapable of looking at the future” and can only talk about the past.

Addressing a gathering of the Indian diaspora in the Javits Centre in New York, Gandhi said, “He (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) is trying to drive the car…the Indian car and he looks in the rear-view mirror. Then he does not understand why this car is crashing, not moving forward. And it’s the same idea with the BJP, with the RSS. All of them. You listen to the ministers, you listen to the Prime Minister. You will never find them talking about the future. They only talk about the past”.

Gandhi asserted that the BJP and RSS speak only about the past and always “blame somebody else for the past”. In India, there is a fight going on back between two ideologies — one represented by the Congress and the other by the BJP and the RSS, the former MP said.“The simplest way to describe this fight is

that on one side you have Mahatma Gandhi and on the other side, Nathuram Godse,” he said.

On the Odisha train accident, which claimed 275 lives and left over 1,000 injured, Gandhi said that during the Congress tenure, if train mishaps happened, ministers used to take responsibilities for their actions and “we accepted our mistakes”.

“I remember a train accident when the Congress was in power. The Congress did not get up and say ‘now it is the fault of the British that the train has crashed’. The Congress minister said ‘it’s my responsibility and I’m resigning’. So this is the problem we have back home, we make excuses and we are not accepting the reality we are faced with,” Gandhi said