Ambedkar's London house to be an international memorial

The Maharashtra Cabinet on Tuesday approved the proposal to purchase the three-storey bungalow of Dr. Bababsaheb Ambedkar in London.

 

The house -- situated on 10, King Henry Road, NW3 -- where the architect of the Indian Constitution lived while he was pursuing higher studies at the London School of Economics during 1921-22, will be converted in to an international memorial and will be maintained by the State Government.

 

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has also formed a committee under the chairmanship of Minister of Social Justice, which will speed up the process to purchase the house. The estimated cost of the house is Rs. 40 crores.

 

The BJP-Sena Government's decision comes on the heels of the Maharashtra unit of the BJP's request to the Centre to intervene in the sale of the bungalow.

The present landlord of the house had, a few months ago, put out an advertisement for its sale/auction after the Indian government's repeated attempts to purchase it failed.

In a letter to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, senior BJP MLA and its Mumbai president, Ashish Shelar had requested his “intervention” and “assistance” in taking up the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for the acquisition and preservation of the building.

The state government had dispatched the Letter of Intent to the to the Indian High Commission in UK, formally setting in motion the process to purchase the house. State's Cultural Affairs minister Vinod Tawde, who was in London had handed over the letter. 

The previous NCP-Congress government led by Prithviraj Chavan towards its end had requested the Centre for its nod to the purchase of the house and also initiated the matter with the British deputy high commission in Mumbai. However, there was no follow up on that.

Republican Party of India (RPI) leader Ramdas Athwale welcomed the government move. “Just the way government has taken this decision, we expect that the issue of Dr. Ambdekar’s memorial at the Indu mill should be resolved at the earliest,” he said.