About this stamp
Dr B. R. Ambedkar
India Post issued this ₹5 stamp on 30 September 2015, in his 125th birth year, on Dr B. R. Ambedkar and the Constitution of India. Born on 14 April 1891 into a Mahar family held “untouchable” by the caste system, he graduated from Elphinstone College, Bombay in 1912, took a PhD at Columbia University and a DSc in economics at the London School of Economics, and was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn. In 1927 he led the Mahad march to the Chavdar tank to claim the right of the untouchables to draw water from a public tank, and in 1930 the temple-entry movement at the Kalaram temple, Nashik. He reached the Poona Pact with Gandhi on 24 September 1932, attended all three Round Table Conferences, and founded the Independent Labour Party.
The Constitution
Elected to the Constituent Assembly from Bengal, he became the first Law Minister of independent India and, on 29 August 1947, chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution. The draft he completed in 1948 was adopted in November 1949 with few amendments and came into force on 26 January 1950. It guaranteed fundamental rights, freedom of religion and the abolition of untouchability, and outlawed discrimination. “I feel the Constitution is workable,” he said, “it is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country together both in peace time and in war time.” He embraced Buddhism on 14 October 1956 and died on 6 December 1956; he was given the Bharat Ratna in 1990.
The stamp was designed by Brahm Prakash; Security Printing Press, Hyderabad printed 0.5 million.
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