An unlikely friendship that stood test of time

Revisiting the special bond between Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and his Parsi businessman friend Naval Bhathena on Mahaparinirvan Diwas

Even great men need friends who are not overawed by their greatness, who tell them like it is and stand by them through thick and thin. In Naval Bhathena, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar had one such friend . The two men hailed from two extremes of Indian society — one, a dalit from a poor family, lived in a one-room house in a chawl in central Bombay. The other, a Parsi and the son of an industrialist, lived in a bungalow a couple of kilometres away in what was then an elite neighbourhood. The former, scarred by his bitter experience of discrimination, which engendered a deep commitment to eradicating the brutal caste system, eventually became the messiah of the dalits