The letters show that Ambedkar was as attuned to issues regarding gender as he was to those regarding race. One worth mentioning was addressed to a friend of his father, a retired jamadar of the Indian Army, also from the Mahar caste. In it, he implored the recipient—who was the father of a young girl gaining notoriety for having made it all the way to the fourth standard in school, unheard of for a Mahar girl—to preach the idea of education to anyone from their community who was willing to listen. Ambedkar wrote that he should continue the education of his daughter and that the entire
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