free India, in the most impressive cabinet ever assembled in New Delhi. Ultimately he achieved a set of set of distinctions few have matched: he successfully challenged millennia-old discrimination against Dalits ('untouchables'); instituted the world's oldest and farthest-reaching affirmative action programme for them and entrenched it in the constitution; promoted liberal constitutionalism in a traditionally illiberal society; and articulated the most cogent and enduring case for the principles and practices of democracy in a country emerging from imperial rule. Shashi Tharoor's biography stresses Ambedkar's role as a constitutionalist and a builder of democracy as well as a social iconoclast. This book will be a starting point to encourage readers, writers and scholars to engage with Ambedkar's ideas and fight for the principles he stood for.