This is a list of notable persons of the Marathi Buddhist community worldwide. Marathi Buddhists are mainly Ambedkarite Buddhists, who are followers of B. R. Ambedkar. Marathi Buddhists constitute more than 77% of the total Buddhist population in India. [1]
Pawar is an Indian surname found among the Maratha, Mahar or Koli people in Maharashtra.
Marathi literature is the body of literature of Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in the Indian state of Maharashtra and written in the Devanagari and Modi script.
Mahar is a caste found largely in the state of Maharashtra and neighbouring areas. Previously they along with many other Hindu castes were treated as untouchables. The injustice of this practice was the primary reason for most of the Mahar community to follow B. R. Ambedkar in embracing Buddhism in the middle of the 20th century. There are still some Mahars who practice Hinduism.
The Republican Party of India was a political party in India. It had its roots in the Scheduled Castes Federation led by B. R. Ambedkar. The 'Training School for Entrance to Politics' was established by Ambedkar in 1956 which was to serve as an entry point to the Republican Party of India (RPI). The first batch of the school consisted of 15 students. Its first batch turned out to be last batch as the school was closed after Ambedkar's death in 1956.
Arun Krushnaji Kamble was an Indian Marathi language writer, professor, Politician, and Dalit activist. Arun Kamble, President and one of the founding members of Dalit Panthers of India, worked as a Head of Marathi department at University of Mumbai. He was the National General Secretary of Janata Dal. He took many major decisions in favour of Dalit, Backward Class and Minorities.
Bapu Chandrasen Kamble was an Indian politician, writer, editor, jurist, and social activist. He is also an Ambedkarite thinker, translator and biographer. Kamble was the leader of Republican Party of India (Kamble). He is from Maharashtra. He has written a Marathi biography of B. R. Ambedkar called "Samagra Ambedkar Charitra".
Mukul Balkrishna Wasnik is an Indian Politician and a member of the Parliament. He was the Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment in Government of India. He represented the Ramtek constituency of Maharashtra from 2009 to 2014. He is a member of the Indian National Congress (INC) political party. He is also a General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee. In 2022, Wasnik was elected member of the Rajya Sabha.
Kamble is a Marathi Indian surname commonly used by communities residing in Maharashtra. The word "kamble" is literally translated as "cotton blankets" and could very well be derived from it; though there also existed clan, namely Sonkamble, and this could be its derivation, too.
The Dalit Panthers is a social organisation that seeks to combat caste discrimination. It was led by a group of Mahar writers and poets, including Raja Dhale, Namdeo Dhasal, and J. V. Pawar in some time between the second and the third semester of 1972. It was founded as a response to the growing discontent among the Dalit youth during the 25th Independence Day celebrations. Inspired by the Black Panther movement in the United States, poet-writers J V Pawar and Namdeo Dhasal founded the Dalit Panthers, urging a boycott of the Independence Day revelry, terming it a 'Black Independence Day'. The movement's heyday lasted from the 1970s through the 1980s, and it was later joined by many Dalit-Buddhist activists.
Namantar Andolan was a Dalit and Navayana Buddhist movement to change the name of Marathwada University, in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India, to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar University. It achieved a measure of success in 1994, when the compromise name of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University was accepted. The movement was notable for the violence against Dalits and Navayana Buddhists.
Dalit literature is a genre of Indian writing that focuses on the lives, experiences, and struggles of the Dalit community, who have faced caste-based oppression and discrimination for centuries. This literature encompasses various Indian languages such as Marathi, Bangla, Hindi, Kannada, Punjabi, Sindhi, Odia and Tamil and includes diverse narratives like poems, short stories, and autobiographies. The movement originated in response to the caste-based social injustices in mid-twentieth-century independent India and has since spread across various Indian languages, critiquing caste practices and experimenting with different literary forms.
The Republican Party of India (United), or RPI(U) is a coalition of many factions of the Republican Party of India (RPI). It was formed in preparation for the 2009 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election. The party was initially led by Rajendra Gavai, Jogendra Kawade, T.M. Kamble, and others but Gavai's faction later split from the united party. The group has since suffered internal strife similar to the disputes prior to the coalition's creation. Several parties still claim to be RPI.
Gaekwad is a surname native to the Indian state of Maharashtra. The surname is found among the Marathas, Kolis and in Scheduled castes. It is also a common surname among Bharadis, Dhor, and Mahar communities of Maharashtra.
The Namantar Shahid Smarak is a large memorial sculpture dedicated to those who died in the Namantar Andolan. In 2013, 19 years after the movement's success, the city government of Nagpur erected the monument in memory of the valour and the sacrifice of the Dalit martyrs. The memorial was built by contractor Sunil Sharma on 2,225 m2 of land at a cost of ₹1.58 crore.
Eleanor Zelliot was an American writer, professor of Carleton College and specialist on the India, Southeast Asia, Vietnam, women of Asia, Untouchables, and social movements.
Navayana is an independent anti-caste Indian publishing house based in New Delhi, strongly influenced by Ambedkarite ideas. It was founded by S. Anand and D. Ravikumar in 2003. The first book it published was Ambedkar: Autobiographical Notes priced at Rs 40. Since then it has published acclaimed fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels and poetry anthologies. From 2009 onwards, Navayana broadened its publishing outlook to include social issues other than caste because ‘the struggle against caste cannot happen in isolation from other struggles for justice and equality’ as a statement on the website reads.
Dr Savita Bhimrao Ambedkar, was an Indian social activist, doctor and the second wife of B.R. Ambedkar. Ambedkarites and Buddhists refer to her as Mai or Maisaheb, which means 'Mother' or ‘Respected Mother’ in the Marathi language.
Yashwant Bhimrao Ambedkar, also known as Bhaiyasaheb Ambedkar, was an Indian socio-religious activist, newspaper editor, politician, and activist of Ambedkarite Buddhist movement. He was the first and only surviving child of Ramabai Ambedkar and B. R. Ambedkar, Indian polymath, human rights activist, and the first law minister of India. Yashwant devoted his life to Buddhism after the demise of his father and kept pace his father's struggle for social equality. He tried to keep the Ambedkarite community united and also took an active part in the Dalit Buddhist movement.