Question

Collect information about any two famous personalities who faced prejudice and discrimination.

Answer 1

• Dr. B.R. Ambedkar:

1. Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891 in the town and military cantonment of Mhow in the Central Provinces (now in Madhya Pradesh).

2. He was the 14th and last child of Ramji Maloji Sakpal, an army officer who held the rank of Subedar, and Bhimabai Sakpal, daughter of Laxman Murbadkar.

3. His family was of Marathi background from the town of Ambadawe (Mandangad taluka) in Ratnagiri district of modem-day Maharashtra.

4. Ambedkar was born into a poor low Mahar (Dalit) caste, who were treated as untouchables and subjected to socio-economic discrimination.

5. Ambedkar’s ancestors had long worked for the army of the British East India Company, and his father served in the British Indian Army at the Mhow cantonment.

6. Although they attended school, Ambedkar and other untouchable children were segregated and given little attention or help by teachers. They were not allowed to sit inside the class. When they needed to drink water, someone from a higher caste had to pour that water from a height as they were not allowed to touch either the water or the vessel that contained it.

7. This task was usually performed for the young Ambedkar by the school peon, and if the peon was not available then he had to go without water; he described the situation later in his writings as “No peon, No Water”. He was required to sit on a gunny sack which he had to take home with him.

• Dr. Nelson Mandela:

1. Mandela was born on 18 July 1918 in the village of Mvezo in Umtata, then part of South Africa’s Cape Province.

2. He spent the first 18 of his 27 years in jail at the brutal Robben Island Prison, a former leper colony off the coast of Cape Town.

3. He was confined to a small cell without a bed or plumbing and compelled to do hard labor in a lime quarry.

4. As a black political prisoner, he received scantier rations and fewer privileges than other inmates. He was only allowed to see his wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela once every six months.

5. Mandela and his fellow prisoners were routinely subjected to inhumane punishments for the slightest of offenses; among other atrocities, there were reports of guards burying inmates in the ground up to their necks and urinating on them.

6. Despite his forced retreat from the spotlight, Mandela remained the symbolic leader of the anti-apartheid movement.

7. In 1980 Oliver Tambo introduced a “Free Nelson Mandela” campaign that made the jailed leader a household name and fueled the growing international outcry against South Africa’s racist regime.

8. As pressure mounted, the government offered Mandela his freedom in exchange for various political compromises, including the renouncement of violence and recognition of the “independent” Transkei Bantustan, but he categorically rejected these deals.

9. In 1982 Mandela was moved to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland, and in 1988 he was placed under house arrest on the grounds of a minimum-security correctional facility.

10. The following year, newly elected president F. W. de Klerk lifted the ban and called for a nonracist South Africa, breaking with the conservatives in his party. On February 11, 1990, he ordered Mandela’s release.

11. Mandela helped bring an end to apartheid and has been a global advocate for human rights.

12. He was a leader of both peaceful protests and armed resistance against the white minority’s oppressive regime in a racially divided South Africa.

13. His actions landed him in prison for nearly three decades and made him the face of the antiapartheid movement both within his country and internationally.

14. Released in 1990, he participated in the eradication of apartheid and in 1994 became the first black president of South Africa, forming a multiethnic government to oversee the country’s transition.