Babasaheb Ambedkar
An Inspirational Life
Mukunda Rao
Reviewed by Sujata Noronha & Beena Choksi
An essential book that reveals many aspects of Babasaheb Ambedkar to remind us of his truly humane spirit and remarkable intellect.
| Pub Date: 2025ISBN: 10987654321
Page Count: 118 Publisher: Red Panda, an imprint of Westland Books Review Posted Online: February, 2026 QBR Reviews Issue: Q1 2026 Categories:BIOGRAPHY | HISTORY |
 |
Library readers are usually neatly divided on the topic of B.R Ambedkar. One group enquire, reference and occasionally check-out a B R Ambedkar book when needed for a school based assignment. Another group acknowledges the few titles on the shelf, sometimes browsing, but rarely borrowing because they know more than what the slim offerings publish and library shelves curate. Against this backdrop, to find Babasaheb Ambedkar An Inspirational Life by Mukunda Rao, published by Red Panda( an imprint of Westland books) in 2025 was wonderful.
Wonderful because this slim text of 112 pages, with a preface, an epilogue and a neat reference list for further reading is bound to excite and inform insiders and those new to Babasaheb Ambedkar.
Mukunda Rao wrote a book Babasaheb Ambedkar; Trials with Truth published by Dr Ambedkar Memorial Education Trust in 2000 that he intended as a text to ‘introduce his under graduate students to the remarkable “life and work of a scholar of extraordinary calibre, a brilliant journalist, a social reformed who worked tirelessly for not only the emancipation of the downtrodden but also championed the cause of women’s right, an educationist who founded the People’s Education Society, the chief architect of the Indian Constitution and a reviver of Buddhism in India”. This text was then reformed into a new edition by Ajith G.S , in 2025 together with Mukunda Rao specially for young readers.
The book is neatly divided into seven chapters, covering the rich and intense lifespan of B R Ambedkar. The layout of each chapter includes a single line drawing capturing the ‘essence’ of the chapter. The drawings are in a very contemporary style and on sharing these with younger readers, there was an immediate fascination to try and understand how they were done, imitate the process and also interpret what the image is trying to denote. As an entry point into the text, we felt that the chapter illustrations are a powerful trigger for engagement and an interesting design element.
For many readers who assume they know all there is to know about B R Ambedkar, this book makes choices to include nuggets of information that are not very commonly accessed in other middle school literature on Babasaheb. On the library shelves, we know of texts that illustrate and expose the early instances of discrimination Bhimrao faced in school, but within the first 10 pages of Chapter 1, we also learn about other powerful radicalising moments in Bhimrao’s life that possibly triggered the fierce will power and tenacity he exuded throughout his life. The episode of the stolen half anna, was quietly received by a young reader and will likely never be forgotten. This is but one of many more personal anecdotes, reflective moments that allow us to glimpse the interior mind of B R Ambedkar that readers can access quite easily in this book.
The text is both a micro and a macro read, an aspect that we initially felt may challenge a younger reader, but middle school children already have the capacity to extend their minds to larger contexts and retract into thinking about smaller aspects of argument. While we are often told about his early life or his life as the Father of the Indian Constitution, a number of chapters, explain to young readers how Babasaheb entered, encountered and expressed his political will , the many dilemmas and challenges he encountered in his political career and the sheer tenacity of his intellectual capacity that he harnessed for social good. The language of the text shaped by ‘factual’ explanatory segments enables even the reluctant reader to engage with the content, trusting that children have active and expansive minds.
The inside of each chapter page includes a list titled ‘Ambedkar Reflects’ -quotes in B R Ambedkar’s writing voice. We realised that these reflections allow the reader to summarise the chapter content as well as review what they just read and sometimes return to these quotations with more meaning. We wondered if these could have been placed at the end of each Chapter. But on sharing this with a young reader, we learnt that there is also the act of going back and forth between pages and placement did not matter – making sense of it all did !
What was missing were citations and sources from which these extracts emerged. In the library, we see texts as pathways towards harnessing the ways of ‘knowledge reproduction’. We believe very strongly that all children deserve these tools of understanding so that they may deconstruct them if they must and citations, closer references and an index help young readers acquire these tools automatically through the act of reading.
The narration style like so much of this text trusts the reader to rise to the content and given the subject matter there is no section of this book that will fail to impress upon the reader the inspiration that is B R Ambedkar. What would have provided more reading ease could have been a more careful attention to some of the phrases / vocabulary in the narration that was intended for a younger reader in 2025. Merely to illustrate this point from the reader point of view, we share …
The 1920’s was a decade of great political ferment, as socio-political trends with far-reading consequences began to develop. ( Pp26)
He made the removal of untouchability and the amelioration of the Depressed Classes an integral part of the Congress movement. (Pp27)
How word choice and its flow in writing support comprehension may be an aspect worthy of consideration because reading fluency in English is patchy at the intended audience age ( 12 – 15 years) and some parts of the book appear to be written for a more mature reader in the English language.
Of great importance to our times was the clarity with which Mukunda Rao states B R Ambedkar’s positions on national identity, alignment with the causes of the Depressed Classes, the troubling nature of a religion that divides, warnings to Dalits, dangers of deification, clear position on non-violence, role of saints in social change and the unrelenting passion to change the prevailing social order.
In a library session, a young reader asked who Rattu was to Babasaheb as the name Rattu is merely mentioned without any prior information in the segment titled Mahaparinirvana. This enquiry allowed us to evoke the more human and social aspects of Babasaheb and his deep and abiding relationships – which a young reader called friendships quite beautifully. We learn not only about Nanak Chand Rattu ( Pp 110) but also about Babasaheb writing regularly to his friend Shivtarkar (Pp 21). We learn about his deep respect for wife Ramabai’s ritualistic life and his friend Sambhoo More (Pp 63) performing her last rites when she passed. We briefly read about Babasaheb’s relationships with his son ( Pp 97) and his need for care and companionship as his health deteriorated but throughout this writing, B R Ambedkar’s will and vision remain strong.
On reviewing all the 24 quotes under Ambedkar Reflects, a young reader highlighted this line that seems poignant to place here as both a caution and a way forward
“… If my lieutenants are not able to take the caravan ahead they should leave it there, but in no circumstances should they allow the caravan to go back. “
As one emerges from this slim text, one is confronted with a much deeper desire to understand more, read more and hopefully do more because B R Ambedkar inspires in distinct ways for future action.
From the library, we urge you to add the following books to your shelf to sit alongside this one for middle school readers.
Other books:
- Bhimayana by Srividya Nataraajan, S.Anand, Durgabai, Subhash Vyam, published by Nayanava in 2011.
- B.R.Ambedkar: A Life in Books by Yogesh Maitreya and Nidhin Shobhana, published by Pratham Books in 2021.
- The Boy Who Asked Why? by Sowmya Rajendran and Satwik Gade, published by Tulika Publishers in 2013.
- The Adventures of Young Ambedkar by Devyani Khobragade, published by Juggernaut Books in 2020
- Babasaheb Ambedkar: He Dared to Fight by Anant Pai, S.S. Rege, Dilip Kadam, published by Amar Chitra Khata in 1979.
- The Hero: Babasaheb by Priyanka Patil, Self Published in 2025.
- Babasaheb Ambedkar: An Inspirational Life by Mukunda Rao, published by Red Panda: an imprint of Westland Books in 2025.