Ambedkar: India’s Crusader for Human Rights (Campfire Graphic Novels)

It is one of the best books to know about Babasaheb Ambedkar. I loved this book from the first to the last page. It is so colorful and enjoyable. I will recommend it to my friends.

I found this graphic novel easy to read, and very informative. I did not know much about India's civil rights struggles beyond what I learned about Gandhi in school. This book provided a lot of information in an easy to understand format. It also has a section in the back that goes more in depth into India's constitution and also provides some more details on Ambedkar as well as some photos and quotes about him from other prominent political figures in his day. The illustrations were well done and expressive. The writing style tells the story more through narration than dialogue, which is unusual for a graphic novel and doesn't make the best use of the format, but I think it was the only way they could fit as much history and biography as they did into such a short book. It was more a vast overview of the many many things that happened in Ambedkar's life than an in depth look at any of them. My daughter has been studying discrimination and civil rights in school, and they focus on the civil rights movement in the US, I am having her read this book along with a biography of Gandhi to give her a more global perspective on the issues of discrimination. There is quite a lot of violence and death in the story, so it may not be suitable for younger children, but I do recommend it for older middle schoolers and high schoolers as well as adults looking to broaden their cultural and historical knowledge.

This is a comic book / graphic novel biography of Babasaheb Ambedkar, who was an Indian politician active from the 1920s to 1950s. He was untouchable, which is the lowest caste in the Indian caste system. Through an unusual sponsorship, he was able to get a scholarship to complete college in India, and completed graduate degrees at Columbia University in the U.S. and a law degree in England. He had a lifelong goal to get equality for untouchables in India, and held various offices in India. Because untouchables were so restricted in opportunities, and he had the advanced education and could practice law, he was often the leading or only figure in representing untouchables in Indian government. Also, during this time, India got independence from Britain, and he was involved in that.This is pretty dense on facts. It's told from the first person perspective of Ambedkar, with some scenes of important historical events that are third person. The entire content of the book is Indian politics from around 1900 to the 1950s. There's lots of detail, and the book does good at filling in background information (I do not know a lot about the topic, and enough background info was included that I could follow the book).Intended audience is adults. This would be good for anyone interested in learning about Indian politics and history in a highly readable format, or anyone who remembers better with visuals. This would also be good for high school libraries to stock, since it is a biography in graphic novel format, so if students have an assignment related to biographies, this can be a good format to have.Illustrations are realistic, and have a good level of detail. I looked up the political figures who appear as characters in this book, and could recognize photographs of the characters based on having seen the illustrations in the book. I could also tell characters from page to page, and this was done by keeping detail for each character, rather than by exaggerating an identifying feature (ie. good realistic illustrations, rather than giving someone a big nose or something). That's really hard to do. Illustrations are not like the cover illustration. (Each chapter has a cover illustration and the cover illustrations are more graphic with the crazy colors and silhouettes, and that's what the book cover is.) Style of illustrations is like a Classic Comics style, like line drawings with good detail, and realistic color but color is a bit blocky and not photorealistic. Production quality is good with excellent color saturation and good weight to the pages.Overall, this is a really good way to get some background information on Indian politics in a format that is quick to read and has good visuals. For me as a visual learner, this is a great way to get history.

A graphic novel may not be first to come to mind as an educational resource but this book does a stunning job of covering the role Babasaheb Ambedkar played in India's fight for Independence and his crucial role in the fight for equality. The man known as the architect of India's constitution fought long and hard for the rights of the untouchables in India and, somehow, State mandated History textbooks, documentaries and movies talk only about Gandhi and the Congress Party as the ones who stood up for the Untouchables. Congress was the ruling party in India for a long time after independence and perhaps the textbooks today are different but a lot of what I read in this graphic novel (and verified with other sources) was skimmed over in school texts of the 80's and 90's.Gandhi's fast to stop the division of the electorate to guarantee political representation to the untouchables was taught in high school as a protest fast against British injustice! Jinnah who insisted on Pakistan being a separate country for Muslims was always painted as a trouble maker and someone who wanted to tear Indians apart. This book is not going to be a comfortable read for everyone since Ambedkar ripped away the pleasant facade of Hinduism to expose the severe ill treatment of the Untouchables and women. He spoke bluntly and eloquently and fought hard to ensure equal rights made it into the constitution and into the electoral process. His work was hampered repeatedly by the old guard Hindus and the Congress party - not the least of which was Gandhi himself.I found this an absolutely fascinating read since I had learned about the London conferences, the writing of the constitution and the important figures only through one lens and this text explored those events with glaring accuracy.Ambedkar's fight for protecting Dalit's (as they are called now) did not go as far as he wanted to take it and the consequences are in the newspapers daily in India where a rising Hindutva movement and Hindu extremism is trying to enforce the same caste system that, according to our textbooks 30 years ago, was abolished.A timely book and a must for anyone who claims to be knowledgeable about the Indian battle for Independence.

As you flip through the pages, entire life of Dr.Ambedkar plays through your mind like a movie reel. 5 stars to author and illustrator.The book thoroughly captures various emotions like pain, suffering and sometimes even the sense of helplessness faced Babasaheb. Especially on page 142, when Ambedkar puts his signature on the constitution, the words on those panels makes you think perhaps this is what would have gone through his mind while signing.Being a graphic novel I thought it would have eliminated all the controversial bits like his disagreements with Gandhi, hindu code bill, poona pact etc but NO, it has all those incidents but ofcourse in brief.After reading the entire book, made me realize that this man has spent his entire life fighting for the oppressed. Wish we had such sincere leaders today like Ambedkar and Pandit Nehru.The book also capture Ambedkars flaws like his impatience and neglecting his health, neglecting his family etc.Only regret is, I wish the team had been more explicit in naming the politicians who opposed Ambedkars modern views. It's somewhat easy to figure out from the illustration but naming them would certainly show things black and white to today's generation.After completing the book, it made me realize if only Babasaheb hadn't met wonderful people who helped him along the way like Maharaja of Baroda, Keluskar, etc or if Gandhiji hadn't recommended his name to chair the drafting committee or if Nehru hadn't been supportive of his modern views of liberty, equality and fraternity wonder what would have happened to this country.Looking forward to more such works from the team on leaders like Nehru and Patel.

Artwork and storytelling is done quite good best for those people who struggle to read books without pictures none the less anyone can read this its a collection of stories and quite amazing artwork

Six stars to the book. Ambedkar life in new fold ways easy exhaustive and real.

Best 👍 everyone should know this biography