Cover photo: Pranayraj1985 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source ↗Ambedkar Is Not a God. He Was Made One in 1990 for Votes — by Politicians Who Never Read Him, Defended by Followers Who Throw Paint at Anyone Who Does
Ambedkar died on 6 December 1956, out of office, out of Parliament, his party wiped out at the polls, his last book unpublished for want of money. For thirty years afterwards he was a regional figure, honoured in Maharashtra and largely ignored elsewhere. Then, between 1987 and 1997, he became something no Indian politician had ever been: a deity with a fixed iconography, a sacred date, a Bharat Ratna, a portrait in Parliament, and a body of followers for whom quoting his own words is blasphemy. This closing article tells how that happened, who did it and why, and then sets out — as fairly as we can — the ledger of a great and mistaken man.
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