Most people who love books recognise this pattern. You’re walking past a bookstore. Not even planning to stop. Just passing through, maybe checking your phone, maybe thinking about something else entirely. And then, almost annoyingly, something tugs, a nudge. Go in for a minute.
You tell yourself it’s harmless. You won’t buy anything. Just a quick look.
Five minutes later, you’re holding a book. Then another. You flip a few pages, read a line or two, feel that strange spark, like this might matter. You don’t know why yet. Doesn’t matter. You carry it to the counter anyway.
Later, at home, you glance at your shelf. It’s… crowded. Uneven stacks, books leaning into each other like they’re tired. Some you’ve read. Some halfway through, bookmarks frozen in time. Others still crisp, untouched. Waiting.
What begins as an almost irrational habit, collecting books you may not immediately read, finds its most powerful justification in Ambedkar’s story. Photograph: (shop.museumsofindia.org/)
And you think, almost ceremonially, this year I’ll do it properly. Twelve books. One a month. Reasonable. Clean. Disciplined.
Life, of course, has other plans.
Weeks blur. Work stretches. Evenings shrink. The books stay where they are. But somehow, that doesn’t stop you from buying more. It’s not exactly logical. It’s not even entirely about reading.
It’s something else.
Because buying a book isn’t always about finishing it. Sometimes it’s about who you were when you picked it up. What you were trying to figure out. What felt just out of reach. Each book becomes a kind of timestamp, a record of a question you once had, or a version of yourself you haven’t fully understood yet.
The urgency fades. It always does. But the book stays.
Stacked. Waiting. Patient in a way people aren’t.
And if you’re honest, you’ve probably had that moment, standing in a store, holding a book, thinking, Do I need this? Will I actually read it? Is this just going to sit on my shelf?
…and still buying it.
There’s a Japanese word for it. Tsundoku. The habit of acquiring books and letting them pile up, unread.
But it doesn’t really feel like neglect. Not quite.
After all, some of the most formidable readers in history weren’t minimalists about books. B R Ambedkar, for instance, built a personal library of over 50,000 books. Fifty thousand. It wasn’t about finishing every single one in some orderly sequence. It was about surrounding himself with ideas, arguments, histories, possibilities. A living, breathing archive of curiosity.
Seen that way, an overcrowded shelf doesn’t feel like failure. Not everything is read, but very little feels unnecessary. A personal library, however modest, becomes something else entirely. Not a checklist. Not a measure of how much you’ve read.
Dr Ambedkar in his library.
Photograph: (wikimedia.org)
But more like a map. Of who you’ve been. Of what you’ve reached for. And of the thoughts you’re still, resolutely, finding your way toward.
A home with an entire floor dedicated to books
In the early 1930s, in Mumbai’s Dadar, Ambedkar built Rajgruha at a time when neighbourhoods like Hindu Colony were emerging as planned residential pockets beyond the city’s older core. The decision to build the house was driven by a practical need rather than symbolism, and his growing collection of books had already outgrown his previous residence.
Ambedkar’s reading was expansive, but not scattered. His library moved across economics, political theory, law, sociology, and religion with a clear sense of purpose. Photograph: (AI Generated)
Rajgruha was structured in a way that reflected this priority. While the ground floor served as the living space, the upper floor was largely dedicated to study and housing his expanding collection. In a city where space has always been limited, dedicating such a significant portion of a home to books was an unusual choice, underscoring the role reading played in his life.
By the time he moved in, Ambedkar had already accumulated thousands of volumes during his years of study in India, the United States, and the United Kingdom, many of which had been shipped back in trunks over time. Rajgruha did not mark the beginning of his library; it gave it permanence.
*Footnote worth knowing: By the time Rajgruha was built, Ambedkar had already been shipping books across continents for over a decade, long before he had a permanent place to store them.
Selling property to pay debts, but never books
Ambedkar’s reading was expansive, but not scattered. His library moved across economics, political theory, law, sociology, and religion with a clear sense of purpose. Works by Adam Smith and David Ricardo sat alongside the writings of John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx. What stands out is not just what he read, but how he built this collection.
Despite scholarships that supported his education in New York and London, Ambedkar’s finances were limited and often tightly managed. Books, however, remained a consistent expense. He purchased them steadily, often packing them into trunks and shipping them back to India, long before he had a home that could properly contain them.
At the time, academic books in the United States and Britain typically cost between $1 and $5, which was a considerable expense in the early 20th century. Scaled to the size of his collection, this suggests that over his lifetime, Ambedkar was investing what would today amount to several crores of rupees into books.
There are accounts that suggest he chose to part with other assets during periods of financial pressure, but notably, his books were never among them.
Rajgruha was structured in a way that reflected this priority. While the ground floor served as the living space, the upper floor was largely dedicated to study and housing his expanding collection. Photograph: (AI Generated)
*Footnote worth knowing: In the early 1900s, a single academic book could cost the equivalent of several days’ living expenses, yet Ambedkar continued buying them consistently across his student years.
What happened to the 50,000 books?
If you set out to find Ambedkar’s library today, you will not find it gathered in one room. By the time it was fully housed in Rajgruha, it had grown into one of the most significant private collections of its time. Yet, unlike many historic personal libraries, it was not preserved as a static, closed archive after his passing.
Following his death in 1956, a substantial portion of the collection, estimated at over 40,000 books, was transferred to institutions run by the People’s Education Society. This included Siddharth College in Fort, which he had established in 1946.
These books were absorbed into working academic libraries. For historians, this dispersal makes the library difficult to reconstruct in its entirety. But it also ensures that the collection remains in active circulation, used by students and researchers rather than simply preserved under glass.
Tracing Ambedkar’s books in Mumbai today
While the books themselves are distributed, the physical footprint of his legacy remains deeply embedded in Mumbai’s geography. Taken together, these three sites tell a connected story of his life, his library, and his impact:
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Rajgruha (Dadar East): Preserved as a heritage site, the ground floor is open to visitors and houses Ambedkar’s desk, personal belongings, and photographs, showing how he lived and worked.
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Siddharth College (Fort): Reflects where the bulk of his working library went, continuing his mission of education.
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Chaitya Bhoomi (Dadar West): Situated along the Shivaji Park seafront where Ambedkar was cremated, it remains one of the most visited public memorials in Mumbai, reflecting the sheer scale of his public legacy.
*Footnote worth knowing: Unlike many historic personal libraries, Ambedkar’s was not preserved as a single archive, but it was absorbed into institutions where it could remain in active use.
Taken together, these places tell a connected story:
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Rajgruha shows how he lived and worked
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Siddharth College reflects where his books went
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Chaitya Bhoomi reflects the scale of his public legacy
How Ambedkar’s books are still used today
What begins as an almost irrational habit, collecting books you may not immediately read, finds its most powerful justification in Ambedkar’s story. His library was not built for display or completion; it was built as a reservoir of thought. Decades later, that reservoir continues to be drawn on in both visible and invisible ways.
Law students in Mumbai still consult the same foundational texts on constitutionalism and jurisprudence that shaped their thinking at institutions like Siddharth College. Researchers studying caste and social inequality routinely retrace his intellectual influences, from John Stuart Mill to Buddhist philosophy, using both his writings and the very texts he once owned, many of which survive in institutional collections with his stamps and markings.
Across universities, his interdisciplinary method of reading is embedded in curricula spanning law, economics, sociology, and political science. Even in courtrooms and policy debates, arguments around equality, affirmative action, and rights continue to echo frameworks he built by synthesising those readings.
In that sense, Ambedkar’s personal library has powerfully scaled into a national knowledge system, not preserved in one room, but dispersed across classrooms, archives, and public thought. And that is where the idea of collecting books comes full circle.
What may begin as a shelf of unread possibilities can, over time, become something far more consequential, a storehouse of ideas that shapes not just what you know, but how a society learns to think.
*Footnote worth knowing: More than 40,000 of Ambedkar’s books are believed to have entered institutional libraries after 1956, meaning his collection continues to be read rather than simply preserved.
