Ambedkar And Nehru: Looking For The Nation (ePub)

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (November 14,1889-May 27, 1964) was a major political leader of the Congress Party, a pivotal figure in the Indian independence movement and the first Prime Minister of independent India. Nehru's greatest contribution to India in the importance that he had given to science, technology and industrialisation without which progress was impossible. He was fighting alongside the main currents of socio-cultural life in the country. He was opposed to traditions and superstitions. India had controversially opposed the partition of Palestine and the 1956 invasion of the Sinai by Israel, Britain and France, but did not oppose the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the suppression of a pro-democracy movement in Hungary by the Soviet Union. Although Nehru disavowed nuclear ambitions for India, Canada and France aided India in the development of nuclear power stations for electricity. India also negotiated an agreement in 1960 with Pakistan on the just use of the waters of seven rivers shared by the countries. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (14 April 1891 - 6 December 1956), also known as Ba-basaheb, was an Indian jurist, political leader, Buddhist activist, philosopher, thinker, anthropologist, historian, orator, prolific writer, economist, scholar, editor, revolutionary and a revivalist for Buddhism in India. He was also the chief architect of the Indian Constitution. Born into a poor Mahar, then Untouchable, family, Ambedkar spent his whole life fighting against social discrimination, the system of Chaturvarna - the categorization of Hindu society into four varnas - and the Hindu caste system. He is also credited with providing a spark for the conversion of hundreds of thousands of Dalits with his Ambedkar (ite) Buddhism. Ambedkar has been honoured with the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award.