Last message of Babasaheb to his people

The message traditionally cited as Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s last message to his people was given to his assistant and friend Nanak Chand Rattu on 31 July 1956, at his residence in New Delhi, less than five months before his death. It is often called the “caravan” message.

The most commonly quoted version is:

“...I have brought the caravan where it is seen today. Let the caravan march on and further on, despite the hurdles, pitfalls and difficulties that may come in its way... If my people, my lieutenants are not able to take the caravan ahead, they should leave it where it is seen today, but, must not under any circumstances, allow it to go back. This is my probably the last message in all my seriousness... Go and tell them; go and tell them; go and tell them.”

(Nanak Chand Rattu, Reminiscences and Remembrances of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, pp. 190–193)

In the fuller account, Ambedkar also expressed anguish that some of those who had benefited from his struggle were becoming selfish and forgetting the wider community, and he worried about the fate of the illiterate and oppressed. But the core of the message was: the movement for liberation must continue forward, and it must never be allowed to go backward.