India, May 17 -- Had it not been for BR Ambedkar, India's social-political contract would be very different, and far worse. Even before his crucial role in drafting the Constitution, Ambedkar's standing compelled those at the frontlines of the anti-colonial struggle, and their leader, Mahatma Gandhi, to recognise and accommodate his criticism of India's brutal social inequality. His struggle for this equality was economic as much as it was philosophical. He was clear in his mind that true equality in the realm of the former would not come until the country had addressed the latter. If the new democracy made more room for this, it was in large part because he remained strident and unrelenting in this push for change. As his pathbreaking trea...