CM Thackeray says Dr Ambedkar’s Parel home to be turned into national memorial

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Friday announced that the Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT) chawl in Parel, where Dr BR Ambedkar lived for more than two decades,

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Friday announced that the Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT) chawl in Parel, where Dr BR Ambedkar lived for more than two decades, will be turned into a national memorial. Thackeray made the announcement on Ambedkar’s 63rd death anniversary, at Chaityabhoomi in Shivaji Park, Dadar.

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The state government is already in the process of constructing a memorial for the Dalit community icon at Indu Mills compound in Dadar, around 10km from Ambedkar’s former residence in Parel.

Thackeray visited room numbers 50 and 51 of the BIT chawl, where Ambedkar resided between 1912 and 1934, on Friday morning.

The chief minister later paid respects to the architect of the Indian Constitution at Chaityabhoomi.

Senior state government officials said that although the proposal is yet to take shape on paper, the idea is to turn the tenement into a memorial, in the way that Ambedkar’s house in London was turned into a memorial-cum-museum by the state in 2018. The state would acquire the 200-sqft tenement, said an official, who did not wish to be named.

The state had acquired Ambedkar’s London home, where he resided in 1921-22, while studying at the London School of Economics (LSE). The home was transformed into a memorial-cum-museum, which housed photographs and belongings of Ambedkar.

However, subsequently, the local administration objected to the use of the home as a memorial as the state did not have the requisite permissions.