"Oh! If I tell you all of this, will you write it in my biography? It doesn't matter to me at all, but our people's moral ideas are strange (vichitra). If some person either as a child or youth should make a mistake, then he is understood to be 'fallen' throughout his life. In Europe and America it's not like that. Every woman and man can happily carry on both a public and a private life. If you want to write what I tell you about my private life in your biography I have no objection. I am also not worried whether people look at me in a bad way because of that."
—B.R. Ambedkar in Vol 2 of C.B. Khairmode's 12-volume biography, Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar: Charitra
A controversy is brewing around the potential publication of some 92 personal letters Frances 'Fanny' Fitzgerald, an Irish woman who worked as a typist in the House of Commons, wrote to B.R. Ambedkar, a man whose statues outnumber any other personality's in India today. Ambedkar himself did not shy away from acknowledging his relationship with 'F', as he referred to her. But a book to be published by Roli Books and edited by Arun Kamble, one of the founder-members of the Dalit Panthers and currently professor of Marathi at Mumbai University, has upset Ambedkar scholars and his legal heirs alike.
Click here: An artist’s rendition of Frances’ billet doux
Kamble claims to have in his possession the letters Frances addressed to Ambedkar between 1923 and 1943. He told Outlook that these letters were passed on to him 10 years ago by the late S.S. Rege, Ambedkar's associate and personal librarian. Six months ago, Kamble had approached prominent journalist Dileep Padgaonkar to find a publisher for these letters. Padgaonkar led him to Roli's Pramod Kapoor, and also advised Roli to get Gail Omvedt, historian of the Dalit movement and one of Ambedkar's biographers, to be a formal collaborator. Kamble had shown Roli photocopies of Frances' letters, which they passed on to Omvedt asking her to be the co-editor of the volume. However, Omvedt told Outlook, "Roli was not willing to work with me on these letters to establish their authenticity and take care to establish the context, including Ambedkar's responses, so I refused their initial offer. There is no evidence of the authenticity of the letters". Omvedt also argues that for a mass market publisher to publish these letters now, "without putting them in context, without any scholarly content, would be nothing but making money out of scandal. As a feminist I also felt this would be an insult to the alleged writer, Frances".
About the authenticity of these 'alleged' letters, Kapoor says "authenticity and copyright are the onus of the author, Arun Kamble". Says Renuka Chatterjee, editor with Roli, "He gave us only photocopies, but showed us a letter by Rege, handwritten in Marathi, giving him possession of these letters." Curiously, having had these letters for 10 years, Kamble hastened his quest for a publisher only after the death of his second wife, Savita (whom he married in 1948), in May this year.
Click here: Frances’ letter where she refers to his ‘single’ status
Ambedkar's grandson Prakash, on behalf of all the patriarch's legal heirs, has filed a complaint with the Delhi police against Roli, trying to stop the publication of the letters. All of Ambedkar's writings and speeches, in 17 volumes, have so far been published by the Maharashtra government's education department. "Kamble cannot claim ownership of these letters, irrespective of who he procured them from," says Prakash.
Kapoor told Outlook: "If there's a legal bar against publishing them, and if it is not in national interest, we shall withdraw. As of now, we do not have evidence to that effect." What's irked scholars like Omvedt and Eleanor Zelliott, professor emeritus of history at Carleton College, Minnesota, and doyen of Ambedkar studies, is Kamble's and Roli's haste and their not bothering to authenticate Frances' letters or trace Ambedkar's letters to Frances, which might give a better picture about their relationship. Says Padgaonkar: "The original understanding was that Kamble should travel to London and try to trace Fanny's legal heirs and do some archival work." Roli and Kamble have clearly not moved in this direction.
Says Anand Teltumbde, historian of the Dalit movement and married to Ambedkar's granddaughter: "This relationship flowered in a relatively dark period of Ambedkar's life and this correspondence, if properly contextualised, would certainly enrich our understanding of his enigmatic personality. In the absence of Ambedkar's letters to Frances, these letters can only give rise to motivated gossip and consequently public strife, considering Ambedkar's god-like status for 170 million Dalits."
Ambedkar had publicly acknowledged Frances. One of his most serious works, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables (1945), a trenchant critique of Gandhi and the Congress, is prefaced by a long dedication which ends: "To F., In Thy Presence is the Fullness of Joy." The second acknowledgement comes in Khairmode's multi-volume biography.
So, why the fuss over the Roli-Kamble effort? Says poet Dilip Chitre, who's writing a biography of Namdeo Dhasal, another Dalit Panther: "Censorship of these letters is not welcome, but their content and the manner in which Kamble and Roli want to publish them shows they've nothing more than a voyeuristic interest. The sufferings and tribulations of the Dalits in the Indian Republic have nothing do with these letters or Ambedkar's private life."
What Ambedkar biographers know already is that Frances worked at the House of Commons and the two met at the British Museum in 1920. In July 1920, he left for London with a loan from Shahu Maharaj to complete his studies. According to his biographer Dhananjay Keer, Ambedkar had to go to work with little food; "the keeper of the boarding house was a harsh and terrible lady". He moved from this to another boarding house, apparently that of Frances or her mother. After Ambedkar's return to India, Frances began corresponding with him since 1923, addressing him often as 'My darling Bhim'. She was instrumental in shipping a lot of books to Ambedkar and in sourcing material from the India Office library.
What is evident from a letter published in Khairmode's biography is that Ambedkar had suppressed his marriage to Ramabai from Frances. In 1905, Ambedkar, then 14, was married to nine-year-old Ramabai (who died in May 1935). Expressing concern over Ambedkar overworking himself, Frances wrote on March 11, 1925: "It is not as if you had a wife and family depending on you." Ambedkar chose to make this letter public in his own lifetime.
Having declared in 1936 that he was born a Hindu but shall not die one, Ambedkar had faced bitter criticism from the pro-Congress press of the time. There were even newsreports in January 1937 that Ambedkar was to return from England having "secretly married an English widow". Ambedkar, of course, never married Frances, who died in 1945.
Ambedkarites are not unduly worried about the publication of Frances' letters per se. Their concern is over how they are handled, and by whom.
