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 one of the dominant Indian caste found largely in the state of Maharashtra and neighbouring areas. Most of the Mahar community followed B. R. Ambedkar in converting to Buddhism in the middle of the 20th century. As of 2017 the Mahar caste was designated as a Scheduled Caste in 16 Indian states.
Ramdas Bandu Athawale is an Indian politician, social activist and trade unionist from Maharashtra. He is the president of the Republican Party of India (A), a splinter group of the Republican Party of India and has its roots in the Scheduled Castes Federation led by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar since 1999. Currently, he is the Minister of State in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India since 2016 and represents Maharashtra in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's Parliament since 2014. Previously, he was Lok Sabha MP from Pandharpur from 1999 to 2009 and from Mumbai North Central Lok Sabha constituency from 1998 to 1999. He was also Cabinet minister of Maharashtra from 1990 to 1995 and a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council from 1990 to 1996.
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.
Bhaurao Krishnaji Gaikwad, also known as Dadasaheb Gaikwad, was an Indian politician and social worker from Maharashtra. He was founder member of the Republican Party of India and was a member of parliament in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. He was a close colleague and follower of human rights leader B. R. Ambedkar. The people of Maharashtra honoured him with the sobriquet Karmaveer and the Government of India awarded him with Padma Shri in 1968 for his dedicated service to society.
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.
Keshav Tanaji Meshram was a Marathi poet, critic, novelist, and short-story writer from Maharashtra, India. He wrote about 40 books.
Kamble is a Marathi Indian surname commonly used by communities residing in Maharashtra. The word "kamble" is literally translated as "cotton blankets" likely adopted by those who were cotton farmers and weavers in the region of Vidarbha.; 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.
Gaekwad is a surname native to the Indian state of Maharashtra. The surname is found among the Marathas, Kolis, Mali 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.
Baby Kamble, commonly known as Babytai Kamble, was an Indian activist and writer. She was born into an untouchable caste, Mahar, the largest untouchable community in Maharashtra. She was a well-known Dalit activist and writer who was inspired by B. R. Ambedkar, prominent dalit leader. Kamble and her family converted to Buddhism and remained lifelong practicing Buddhists. In her community, she came to be admired as a writer and was fondly called as Tai. She is widely remembered and loved by the Dalit community for her contributions of powerful literary and activist work. She is one of the earliest women writers from the untouchable communities whose distinctive reflexive style of feminist writing setting her apart from other Dalit writers and upper caste women writers who gaze was limited and reflexivity incarcerated in caste and masculinity.
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.
Damodar Tatyaba Rupwate, commonly known as Dadasaheb Rupwate was an Indian politician, Ambedkarite social activist and newspaper editor from Maharashtra. Initially he was a member of the Scheduled Caste Federation and the Republican Party of India, and later the Indian National Congress. Dadasaheb Rupwate was a colleague and follower of B. R. Ambedkar, human rights leader.