Untouchables

"Yes, Untouchables . This is really an amazing book. Amazing. Jadhav is an economist, he has an American PhD, and his family are from an untouchable caste. His widowed mother got on a train, with no ticket, and travelled illegally to Bombay because being untouchable was not as bad in a city and nobody knows you’re untouchable after a while. She got a job as a maidservant and so her children had access to urban India. Her son picks up reading and learns English. He ends up in Bombay broadcasting and gets a government flat so all his children go to the local schools and both the boys and girls have all travelled abroad – they have all reached the top. It is an amazing story of mobility, an optimistic real life story of people with no legal help taking opportunities and, with education, education, education, raising their status like iconic ballad heroes. Yes, Ambedkar, you know, was an untouchable. He was born in 1891 and was one of the first Dalits or untouchables to obtain a university education in India. He was the architect of India’s constitution and his slogan “Education, Agitation and Organisation” has shaped India. I put the Jadhav book in my list because it is amazingly inspiring."