Why I am building this
I am Sidhant Sardar — an Ambedkarite and a web developer.
Babasaheb's life and work belong to everyone. Yet his writings, speeches, records and photographs are spread across government PDFs, university archives, museums and memorials. India's Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment itself describes them as "spread across libraries, memorials, archives, and fragmented digital sources" SIH 2026 brief SIH26096.
So I am building this website to bring them together: his whole life told simply, everything he wrote catalogued and searchable, the Constitution explained, and the events, news and articles that carry his work forward today — all in one place, publicly available and free for everyone.
Going forward, we need a more Ambedkarite approach to how this history is told and shared. That starts with the resources being gathered, sourced and open. That is why I am doing this work.
How this website works
- Every fact has a source. Numbered notes in each chapter lead to the exact document, archive or book. Where the source is his own Writings and Speeches, the note opens that page on this website.
- Primary sources first: his own words, the Constituent Assembly Debates and university archives — then respected biographies and journalism.
- Honest about disagreements. When sources disagree about a date or detail, we say so and show each one.
- No invented quotes. A quote appears only if it was found in a primary source.
- Open and correctable. The research notes are public on GitHub, and anyone can suggest a correction.
The Marathi translation
Most of Babasaheb's writing is in English. We are bringing it into Marathi so that every Marathi reader can read what he actually wrote. One rule comes before everything else: the meaning and intent of his original sentences must never change.
- First drafts are made with the help of AI (Claude), following a public translation guide: nothing left out, nothing added, nothing softened, and his own words (such as "Untouchables") kept as he used them.
- Every translated page shows the original English one click away, and links to the same page of the official PDF, so any reader can check the translation.
- "In simple words" summaries are shown separately and are never part of his text.
- If you find a mistake in a translation, please tell us. Pages checked by Marathi scholars will be marked as reviewed.
News on this website
The news section gathers reports on caste, justice, the Constitution and the Ambedkarite movement from many outlets every six hours. Reports about the same event are grouped together, so you can see who reported it — local, national or international — and every report is listed as a source. Short summaries may be written with the help of AI, using only those reports, and are always labelled.
The look of this website
The line patterns on this website are inspired by Godna painting — an art form created by Dalit (Dusadh) women of Mithila, Bihar, from the tattoo traditions of their community, drawn in fine black lines on handmade paper Behanbox Sarmaya. In 2024 the Godna artist Shanti Devi Paswan received the Padma Shri Wikipedia. The patterns here are our own simple drawings in that spirit, not copies of any artist's work. We would love to feature real Godna artworks with the artists' permission and credit.
Copyright and reuse
- Dr. Ambedkar died in 1956. Under Indian copyright law, the works he published in his lifetime entered the public domain in India in 2017. Writings first published after his death (many papers in the Writings and Speeches volumes) are protected for 60 years from their first publication; the volumes are published by the Government of Maharashtra and made freely available online by the Government of India. This site reproduces and translates them for free, non-commercial education, always linking to the official files.
- Photographs and documents keep their own licences, shown with each one. We only use images that are public domain or freely licensed.
- Original text written for this website is shared under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0.
- If you hold rights to something used here and want it changed or removed, please get in touch.
What's next
- Marathi translations of all 17 volumes of Writings and Speeches, volume by volume.
- His original Marathi writings and speeches (Mooknayak, Bahishkrit Bharat, Janata) in their original form.
- A searchable Hindi library of the 40-volume सम्पूर्ण वाङ्मय.
- An events calendar for Ambedkarite events across India and the world.