Worshipping False Gods: Ambedkar, and the facts which have been erased

Over the last couple of decades, B.R. Ambedkar has come to be idolized as no other political leader. His statue is one of the largest in the Parliament complex. Political parties have reaped rich electoral dividends riding on his name. A decades-old cartoon of him in a textbook rocked Parliament for days recently, causing parties across the political spectrum to run for cover and call for the withdrawal of the 'offending' cartoon.

In Worshipping False Gods, Arun Shourie employs his scholarly rigour to cast a critical look at the legend of Ambedkar and bring out facts that have been erased from public memory. With his distinctive eye for detail, Shourie delves into archival records to ask pertinent questions: did Ambedkar coordinate his opposition to the freedom struggle with the British? How does his approach to social change contrast with that of Mahatma Gandhi, of Sri Narayana Guru? Did the Constitution spring from him or did it grow as a dynamic living organism?

Passionately argued, based on a mountain of facts it presents. Worshipping False Gods compels us to go behind the myths on which discourse is built in India today.