Shashi Tharoor: Dr. Ambedkar was India’s first male feminist ahead of his time
Updated On: 21 January, 2023 06:53 PM IST | Jaipur | Nascimento Pinto
Speaking during a session at the Jaipur Literature, the Indian politician delved into what inspired him to write ‘Ambedkar: A Life’ and how he sees him as an icon today
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Shashi Tharoor and Sumit Samos during the session ‘Dr Ambedkar: Life and Times’ at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2023. Photo Courtesy: Jaipur Literature Festival 2023
The Jaipur Literature Festival 2023 got underway in the Pink City at Hotel Clarks Amer for its 16th edition earlier on Thursday. The day started on a powerful note with a keynote address from Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah on ‘writing as a form of resistance’ and carried on to many interesting topics including one session that had Shashi Tharoor and Sumit Samos discuss ‘Dr Ambedkar: Life and Times’ with Pragya Tiwari. It comes months after both Tharoor and Samos have written books about Ambedkar, with ‘Ambedkar: A Life’ and ‘Affairs of Caste’ respectively in 2022. Both the authors shared their extremely unique understanding of the Indian social reformer and jurist, who inspired the Dalit Buddhist movement.
Talking about the inspiration behind his autobiography, Tharoor said there were two things particularly that struck him when he was contemplating starting to work on the project. “The Indian that had the most statues to him around the country is Dr Baba Ambedkar. There is a debate that it must have been Mahatma Gandhi, but journalists travelling around the country said that every village at least has a bust of Ambedkar.” For Tharoor, this was extraordinary at many levels because for the Indian economist and social reformer, in his own lifetime, it was unthinkable. “He was somebody who was controversial, lost more elections that he won, was frequently attacked in his own lifetime and that such a figure has become an unchallengeable icon with every party trying to lay claim to some aspect of his life,” he adds.
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