Ambedkar reached the Constituent Assembly through Muslim League support after losing his seat.

Evidence

Ambedkar lost his place on the Executive Council in the Interim Ministry that was formed in August 1946. It was a serious blow, because Ambedkar desperately wanted to use his position on the Executive Council to become part of the committee that would draft the Indian Constitution. Worried that this was not going to be possible, and in order to put external pressure on the Drafting Committee, Ambedkar, in March 1947, published a document called States and Minorities—his proposed constitution for a ‘United States of India’ (an idea whose time has perhaps come). Fortunately for him, the Muslim League chose Jogendranath Mandal, a colleague of Ambedkar’s and a Scheduled Castes Federation leader from Bengal, as one of its candidates on the Executive Council. Mandal made sure that Ambedkar was elected to the Constituent Assembly from the Bengal province. But disaster struck again. After partition, East Bengal went to Pakistan and Ambedkar lost his position once more. In a gesture of goodwill, and perhaps because there was no one as equal to the task as he was, the Congress appointed Ambedkar to the Constituent Assembly. In August 1947, Ambedkar was appointed India’s first Law Minister and Chairman of the Drafting Committee for the Constitution. Across the new border, Jogendranath Mandal became Pakistan’s first Law Minister. It was extraordinary that, through all the chaos and prejudice, the first law ministers of both India and Pakistan were Dalits. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 436

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Both India’s and Pakistan’s first law ministers were Dalits (similarity 0.87)