The country has celebrated 119^th birth anniversary of Dr. Babasahed Bhimrao Ambedkar on 14 April 2010. Babasaheb is remembered as chief architect of the Indian constitution, a social revolutionary and a Dalit thinker. While the country feels indebted for his immense contributions in the nation building process, many other aspects of his multifaceted personality remains yet to be explored. In the process it may not be completely denied that his image is stereotyped around certain issues mainly looking at him as a Dalit icon and relegating his other contributions to background. Babasaheb was a mass leader, political and social thinker, academician, scholar and above all a nationalist rooted in the cultural ethos of Indian civilization. Apart from earning a number of doctorates from prestigious Columbia University and the London School of Economics for his study and research in law, economics and political science he wrote fearlessly on various issues as an academician and as a political activist. He was also spiritually motivated as he sought refuge in Buddhism in his last days and he was also regarded as a Bodhisattva by his followers.

Babasaheb was born on 14 April 1891, in a Mahar family then staying at Mhow, now in Madhya Pradesh. His family originally hailed from the town of Ambavade in the Ratnagiri district of modern-day Maharashtra. As a school going child he had to face various kinds of discrimination owing to low status of Mahars in the caste hierarchy but he remained undeterred in his resolve to pursue higher education. As a student from Elphinston College he was granted a scholarship of twenty five rupees a month from the Gaikwad ruler of Baroda, Sahyaji Rao III for higher studies in the USA. He went to USA for his doctoral studies and obtained degrees in economics and political science. On his return he joined service of Baroda state government and also started as a social activist fighting against caste discrimination and untouchability then widely prevalent in Indian society. His activism and scholarly espousal of the cause of the deprived and oppressed sections soon saw him emerging as a political leader of national stature.

So far Babasaheb writings in India have been selectively read within a particular framework showing him a champion of deprived and oppressed sections of Indian society. He is seen as a chief architect of Indian constitution who laid the foundation of liberal democracy in the country expecting the state to take welfare measures in the interest of weaker sections of the society. But other side of his personality remains unexplored. The academician and thinker in him, his advocacy for exchange of population at the time of partition, his concerns for preserving cultural contours of Indian civilization, his decision to embrace Buddhism not only as a political act but as a result of a honest spiritual quest, his rejection of Islam, Christianity and Marxism and his reading of India's past - and many more such other dimensions of Babasaheb's personality still awaits to be studied, researched and explored.

On receiving the news of the severe persecution of scheduled caste people in Pakistan and by the Nizam of Hyderabad he felt extremely agitated and helpless. He was aware of the fact that to rescue them from persecution and forcible conversion to Islam was a remote possibility given the nature of Muslim League and Islam. As a Law Minister in Nehru's cabinet Babasaheb issued a statement on 27 November 1947 urging all scheduled caste people in Pakistan to come over to India and not to embrace Islam under any circumstances. He issued an appeal to all the scheduled caste people in Pakistan writing, "As regards conversion to Islam, I ask all the scheduled castes not to succumb to it as an easy way to escape. I cannot say that they should die rather than be converted. What I say is that they must look upon it as a last resort forced upon them by violence. I say that they must not regard themselves as lost to the fold forever. Fortunately, for us we are not hampered by the rules of the Hindu Shastras. To all those who was forcibly converted I pledge my word that if they wish to come back I shall see that they are received back into the fold and treated as brethren in the same manner in which they were treated before the conversion."[1] It may be noted that Babasaheb had warned Jogendra Nath Mandal, a prominent scheduled caste leader from Bengal against supporting Muslim League in their demand for Pakistan. Lured by the offer of ministership in Pakistan he did not heed Babasaheb's advice only to repent later for his folly of having relied on Muslim League leadership.