Worshipping False Gods

The book exposes Ambedker based on his essays,letters (about 9000 pages !!!) and diligently collected information from the 1930s era. Another great book by Arun Shourie.

This book has been an eye opener for me.I have always been told that the Constitution of India was written by Dr. Ambedkar and hence he was the Father of the Indian Constitution. Only after reading this book I realized that the constitution of India was a collaborative effort, the result of over three years of effort by the Constituent Assembly, which was chaired by Jawaharlal Nehru. Dr. Ambedkar was an important contributor (he was the Chairman of the Drafting Committee) but by no means the sole contributor.Arun Shouri describes in great detail the structure of the Constituent Assembly into Committees and Sub-Committees and brings to life the proceeding of some of the debates to give the reader a clear understanding of the painstaking process of discussion and debate by means of which the Constitution was framed. His descriptions of the debates also give an indication of the high intellectual caliber of the people who were part of the constituent assembly such as TT Krishnamachary, Alladi Krishnaswamy Iyer, C Rajagopalachari, S Radhakrishnan, KM Munshi, Vallabhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Maulana Azad, et al.Of particular interest to me was the fact that a number existing constitutions (including that of the USA) were examined and liberally borrowed from (and debated and modified) with no shame attached since it was simply foolish to reinvent the wheel and smarter to reuse available material. The caliber of the debates and discussions also seem to have been way higher than what the modern wallkout-filled Indian Parliament of today can achieve.It was also news to me that Dr. Ambedkar allied himself with the British (and so did the Muslim League) because of his deep suspicion of the INC which he believed to be Hindu dominated. While the reasoning was understandable (Hindus had oppressed the Dalits for centuries) it was still a shock that the Father of the Indian Constitution would have rather preferred the British to continue to rule India!A great and well researched (though it makes for heavy reading) book which is guaranteed to increase your respect for the Indian Constitution. While the Americans have a habit of continually referring back to their constitution and their Founding Fathers, we in Indian do not have that habit. This book will make us respect our founding fathers (i.e. the Constituent Assembly) a lot more.

I have written many short articles when this book was released. I was one of the intellectual collective in Jawaharlal Nehru University to burn this fanatic book. Arun Shourie proved that he has a mental disorder as a caste-hindu fanatic exhibiting psychotic episode in this book. He is jealous of the great leader Dr. B.R. Ambedkar who authored the Constitution of India. To know about the history of writing the Constitution of India, the interested readers can directly read Dr. Ambedkar's Writings and Speeches vol. 13 and it is available online. When all Indian members in the Drafting Committee were sleeping in ignorance, the Chairman of Drafting Committee Dr. Ambedkar authored the Constitution. Even his critiques didn't know how he enshrined the Buddhist principles in the constitution because the members were not able to understand the constitutional arrangements. WHen all members including Nehru, Patel, Rajaji and others were desperately moving to get higher positions in the new nation-state, Dr. Ambedkar was worried about the constitution acceptable for all sections of the new nation. The whole book of Arun is about how to derogate the eminent personality Dr. Ambedkar who is one of the three or four important modern architects of India. Dr. Ambedkar got highest degrees in Columbia University, London School of Economics, Grays Inn, and other famous universities and achieved social freedom for those who were refused their fundamental rights as humans for centuries. This is what Arun's hatred on Dr. Ambedkar. India is full of diversities still it is growing without any breakage like many countries just because the powerful constitution which he authored with great ideas applicable to all. Arun has written this book with his caste-ridden hindu psyche. This is worst fanatic blasphemy I have ever known in my life.

This book could have been better. Easier to read and shorter. If only it focused less on advocacy and more on the facts it laboriously gathers and shares. Much has been made of Ambedkar being the "architect" of India's Constitution. And Ambedkar is often revered as if a god. The book explains, convincingly, that Ambedkar was not the architect of India's Constitution, but an important participant in what was an elaborate exercise involving many people, chiefly Nehru, Sardar Patel, BN Rau, SN Mukherjee and many lawyers, academicians, political leaders and statesmen. It also shows that Ambedkar was not a "god" he is made out to be. Good reading for anyone interested in the making of India's Constitution. And yes, if one does not care for poor quality paper or printing, one might be tempted to give it 4 stars instead of 3 it more than deserves.