Twice a year, thousands of Dalits stream into India's commercial capital from around the country to pay their respects to Dr BR Ambedkar on his birth and death anniversaries. Their pilgrimage usually begins at Rajgriha, his home in the central Mumbai neighbourhood of Dadar. They then take a short walk to the Chaityabhoomi, the spot on the seashore where the architect of the Indian Constitution was cremated. A few visitors also go off to nearby Parel to see Ambedkar's childhood home in the Bombay Improvement Trust chawl complex.
To provide a degree of comfort to the tourists, many of whom have made arduous journeys from distant corners of India, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation sets up portable toilets, drinking water and medical tents in the area. Apart from this minimal support, the government has shown little inclination to commemorate the sites associated with Ambedkar during his years in the city.
As a consequence, many people were surprised when the Maharashtra government announced last week that it was looking to purchase a house in which Ambedkar had stayed when he was a student at the London School of Economics. The state wants to convert the 2,000 sq-mt home, which is listed at a sale price of Rs 40 crore, into a memorial to Ambedkar and a hostel for students from India. The decision came just before assembly elections are due.
Yet Ambedkar’s homes in Mumbai, where Ambedkar spent many of his most productive years, remain neglected. Despite receiving a large number of visitors every year, they are left to the resources of their current residents.
Rajgriha
In September 1930, just before Ambedkar left for the first Round Table Conference in London, he laid the foundation for Rajgriha, the building that would become his home in Mumbai. Ambedkar closely supervised the details of the building, down to the style of the columns.
He lived in Rajgriha until just after 1946, when he converted it into a hostel for the mainly lower-caste students of Siddharth College who would otherwise have found it difficult to find accommodation in Mumbai. The students shifted out after the People’s Education Society built the Siddharth Vihar hostel in Wadala in 1964 and Ambedkar’s family moved back in.
Today, there is no memorial at Rajgriha to its most revered occupant, apart from two rooms filled with photographs of Ambedkar that are open to public viewing on the ground floor. On the first floor is Ambedkar’s study and bedroom, both of which still have the original furniture. All three are usually kept locked, unless visitors request otherwise.
Over the last few months, Ambedkar’s grandson, Prakash, an advocate and the president of the Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha, has been renovating the house.
“The building is nearly 70 years old so we are taking precautions to see it doesn’t deteriorate further,” he told Scroll. The renovation, he estimated, would take a year to complete. “I am doing this with my own resources," Prakash Ambedkar said. "There is no support of the state government here.”
He added, "I can manage this on my own. I did not think there was a need to involve the government.”
The last time the Maharashtra government expressed serious interest in developing Rajgriha as a public museum was in the early 1990s, when the Sudhakarrao Naik government was in power. Naik’s tenure, which began in June 1991, ended abruptly, after he was unable to contain the communal riots that swept through Mumbai in 1992 and 1993.
“The plan to redevelop this did not materialise from the government’s side,” Prakash Ambedkar said. “You will have to ask them why they did not take it further.”
Maharashtra’s minister of social justice Shivajirao Moghe, who announced the government's decision to buy the London property, did not return calls. His assistant said that he in his constituency to prepare for October's assembly election.
Prakash Ambedkar is a firm supporter of the government’s plan to purchase the house his grandfather stayed in while in London.
“This opportunity came out of the blue and we should jump at it,” he said. “We suggested to the government of Maharashtra that many Maharashtrian students go to London to study and a number find it difficult to live there.”
Dabak Chawl
Parel's Bombay Improvement Trust complex is well over 100 years old. The tenements were built in the 1890s to house factory workers, though some were also used by Indian troops. When Ambedkar’s father, a subedar in the army, moved to Mumbai at the turn of the century, he found accommodation for his family in a room on the second floor of one building here.
Ambedkar lived here for several years, while he went to school and college. On Ambedkar's return from studying at the London School of Economics, the prominent social reformer Chhattrapati Shahu of Kolhapur is said to have visited him here. Ambedkar moved out only after Rajgriha was built.
Little seems to have changed in the intervening years. Like others in the set of six buildings tucked away from the main road, the building seems to have earned its other name, Cement Chawl, for its sturdiness.
“You cannot put a nail by hand into these walls,” said Babu Khaire, the current occupant of Ambedkar’s room. “You can only do it if you have an electric drill.”
When Ambedkar moved to Rajgriha, he gave the room to his nephew, Anandrao, who was married to Khaire’s aunt. The couple passed the room on to Khaire’s father. Babu Khaire himself moved in permanently only in 1988, after he retired from his job at a two-wheeler manufacturing company in Bangalore. Khaire, who is now 68, lives there with his wife Savita, and his son.
The couple is modest about their room’s link with Ambedkar. Around December 6 and April 14 each year, hundreds of people stop by to pay their respects at the room. On those days, Babu Khaire said, they stay up until well past midnight to show visitors the place. Through the year, visitors stop by from places as far afield as New York, Australia and Germany.
“Whenever anyone comes, I always invite them in,” he said. “If they came from so far away, how can we turn them away?”
The state government has never expressed any interest in maintaining the building, but there have been other efforts to commemorate the leader. At the entrance to the building is a four-foot high painting of Ambedkar and a brief timeline of his life. Three years ago, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena installed a white marble shrine between the two rooms at the end of the corridor.
“My neighbour and I take turns to sweep and clean the shrine,” said Savita Khaire. “Now I have diabetes so I find it difficult to do it every day.”
The room itself has little to connect it with the leader, apart from one old framed photograph. This was left to them by Mukund Ambedkar, another nephew of Ambedkar.
“We first told our samaj that if they want to do anything here, we will be happy to move if they find us another place,” said Babu. “Of course we will be happy if anything is done in the name of Babasaheb.”
Last year, after an intense agitation by Dalit activists, the central government finally agreed to build a memorial to Ambedkar at Indu Mill, near the site at which the leader was cremated. But for now, Ambedkar's homes in Mumbai receive little official attention.
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To provide a degree of comfort to the tourists, many of whom have made arduous journeys from distant corners of India, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation sets up portable toilets, drinking water and medical tents in the area. Apart from this minimal support, the government has shown little inclination to commemorate the sites associated with Ambedkar during his years in the city.
As a consequence, many people were surprised when the Maharashtra government announced last week that it was looking to purchase a house in which Ambedkar had stayed when he was a student at the London School of Economics. The state wants to convert the 2,000 sq-mt home, which is listed at a sale price of Rs 40 crore, into a memorial to Ambedkar and a hostel for students from India. The decision came just before assembly elections are due.
Yet Ambedkar’s homes in Mumbai, where Ambedkar spent many of his most productive years, remain neglected. Despite receiving a large number of visitors every year, they are left to the resources of their current residents.
Rajgriha
In September 1930, just before Ambedkar left for the first Round Table Conference in London, he laid the foundation for Rajgriha, the building that would become his home in Mumbai. Ambedkar closely supervised the details of the building, down to the style of the columns.
He lived in Rajgriha until just after 1946, when he converted it into a hostel for the mainly lower-caste students of Siddharth College who would otherwise have found it difficult to find accommodation in Mumbai. The students shifted out after the People’s Education Society built the Siddharth Vihar hostel in Wadala in 1964 and Ambedkar’s family moved back in.
Today, there is no memorial at Rajgriha to its most revered occupant, apart from two rooms filled with photographs of Ambedkar that are open to public viewing on the ground floor. On the first floor is Ambedkar’s study and bedroom, both of which still have the original furniture. All three are usually kept locked, unless visitors request otherwise.
Over the last few months, Ambedkar’s grandson, Prakash, an advocate and the president of the Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha, has been renovating the house.
“The building is nearly 70 years old so we are taking precautions to see it doesn’t deteriorate further,” he told Scroll. The renovation, he estimated, would take a year to complete. “I am doing this with my own resources," Prakash Ambedkar said. "There is no support of the state government here.”
He added, "I can manage this on my own. I did not think there was a need to involve the government.”
The last time the Maharashtra government expressed serious interest in developing Rajgriha as a public museum was in the early 1990s, when the Sudhakarrao Naik government was in power. Naik’s tenure, which began in June 1991, ended abruptly, after he was unable to contain the communal riots that swept through Mumbai in 1992 and 1993.
“The plan to redevelop this did not materialise from the government’s side,” Prakash Ambedkar said. “You will have to ask them why they did not take it further.”
Maharashtra’s minister of social justice Shivajirao Moghe, who announced the government's decision to buy the London property, did not return calls. His assistant said that he in his constituency to prepare for October's assembly election.
Prakash Ambedkar is a firm supporter of the government’s plan to purchase the house his grandfather stayed in while in London.
“This opportunity came out of the blue and we should jump at it,” he said. “We suggested to the government of Maharashtra that many Maharashtrian students go to London to study and a number find it difficult to live there.”
Dabak Chawl
Parel's Bombay Improvement Trust complex is well over 100 years old. The tenements were built in the 1890s to house factory workers, though some were also used by Indian troops. When Ambedkar’s father, a subedar in the army, moved to Mumbai at the turn of the century, he found accommodation for his family in a room on the second floor of one building here.
Ambedkar lived here for several years, while he went to school and college. On Ambedkar's return from studying at the London School of Economics, the prominent social reformer Chhattrapati Shahu of Kolhapur is said to have visited him here. Ambedkar moved out only after Rajgriha was built.
Little seems to have changed in the intervening years. Like others in the set of six buildings tucked away from the main road, the building seems to have earned its other name, Cement Chawl, for its sturdiness.
“You cannot put a nail by hand into these walls,” said Babu Khaire, the current occupant of Ambedkar’s room. “You can only do it if you have an electric drill.”
When Ambedkar moved to Rajgriha, he gave the room to his nephew, Anandrao, who was married to Khaire’s aunt. The couple passed the room on to Khaire’s father. Babu Khaire himself moved in permanently only in 1988, after he retired from his job at a two-wheeler manufacturing company in Bangalore. Khaire, who is now 68, lives there with his wife Savita, and his son.
The couple is modest about their room’s link with Ambedkar. Around December 6 and April 14 each year, hundreds of people stop by to pay their respects at the room. On those days, Babu Khaire said, they stay up until well past midnight to show visitors the place. Through the year, visitors stop by from places as far afield as New York, Australia and Germany.
“Whenever anyone comes, I always invite them in,” he said. “If they came from so far away, how can we turn them away?”
The state government has never expressed any interest in maintaining the building, but there have been other efforts to commemorate the leader. At the entrance to the building is a four-foot high painting of Ambedkar and a brief timeline of his life. Three years ago, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena installed a white marble shrine between the two rooms at the end of the corridor.
“My neighbour and I take turns to sweep and clean the shrine,” said Savita Khaire. “Now I have diabetes so I find it difficult to do it every day.”
The room itself has little to connect it with the leader, apart from one old framed photograph. This was left to them by Mukund Ambedkar, another nephew of Ambedkar.
“We first told our samaj that if they want to do anything here, we will be happy to move if they find us another place,” said Babu. “Of course we will be happy if anything is done in the name of Babasaheb.”
Last year, after an intense agitation by Dalit activists, the central government finally agreed to build a memorial to Ambedkar at Indu Mill, near the site at which the leader was cremated. But for now, Ambedkar's homes in Mumbai receive little official attention.