Congress leader Rahul Gandhi recently said two things symbolizing the ideological struggle going on in the country at an event organized in honor of the Constitution in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand. First, ‘Manusmriti is anti-constitutional’. This is absolutely absurd because two ideas can be said to be opposed to each other only when they are contemporary and in practice simultaneously.
Second, ‘there has been a conflict between Manusmriti and the Constitution for decades’. The question is whether any such ideological conflict is really going on on the ground? An even bigger question is that when the country has been running on the basis of the Constitution for 75 years, out of which Congress has been in power for about 55 years and in that too, Rahul Gandhi’s great grandfather, grandmother and father were the Prime Ministers for 38 years, then now Manasmriti Where did the idea of leaving the country come from?
In this century, Congress ruled for 10 years and at that time Rahul Gandhi was also an MP. Was there a conflict between Manusmriti and the Constitution even then? If it was going on then why did Rahul Gandhi or any Congress leader not mention it even once in 10 years and now why has Rahul Gandhi suddenly become so vocal about it? Obviously Rahul Gandhi has nothing to do with Manusmriti nor the Constitution. He is concerned with power politics. It should be because he is not a saint, a saint or a philosopher. He is a leader and works like a leader.
But in their desperation to gain power, the things they are saying are not doing any good to the country and society. In a country governed by the Constitution and the rule of law, they are making a dangerous attempt to increase social divisions by forcefully talking about Manusmriti. The reality is that no one reads Manusmriti in this country. Even Rahul Gandhi himself would not have read even a single page of it. They may not even know how many versions of Manusmriti exist and that none of them is genuine.
They might not even know that most of the things that go viral in the name of Manusmriti on social media are not written in that book. The real purpose of the things about Manusmriti that are propagated on social media is to increase social hatred and gain political mileage. That is the toolkit to set a new narrative in the country, behind which there can be a big game. It is not necessary that there should be any backward, Dalit or any progressive face behind the handle or account through which it is promoted. But that is a matter of separate debate and concern.
Now there is a need to consider the question whether there is really any conflict going on in this country regarding Manusmriti and Constitution? No such conflict is seen on the ground. To investigate this, 10 people anywhere can be asked about Manusmriti. Most of the people would not have heard the name of this book and even if they had heard, they would not have any information about it. Yes, it is true that a large part of the rules for governing the society in India are based on the words of Manu Smriti.
But this work did not happen 10 or 20 years ago or a hundred or two hundred years ago, but happened thousands of years ago and it kept changing with time. It is also true that the British made some laws based on this as part of their policy of ‘divide and rule’. But after independence and implementation of the Constitution, everything changed. Now, if some points of Vedas or Manusmriti are followed in private, family or religious programs, it is a different matter, but nothing of Manusmriti is used in public life or in the functioning of the government.
Manusmriti only means that this text showed a path to our ancestors of ancient India. It was said that a code is needed for the functioning of the society. This was similar to how the Code of Hammurabi was created in the Middle East. This was the time when there were no rules or laws to govern or control the society. Keeping in view the social system that existed at that time, a code was created, about which there is a dispute whether it was written by Swayambhu Manu or Bhrigu Rishi, whether it was written by one person or many persons and once written. Some things kept being added to it over the centuries.
But whoever made it, made it according to the realities and needs of his time, the aim of which was to restore order in the society. Once the code was made, it was the responsibility of the coming generations to improve it according to the needs of the time or to reject it completely and create a new code. Many reforms and changes took place in India also. Despite this, if some things are present in the society, the seeds of which were in Manu Smriti, then it is not the fault of the writer but of the society.
Think, there have been more than a hundred changes in the Constitution made just 75 years ago. The Constitution is changed according to the needs of changing times. But whenever any provision of the Constitution is changed, are the people who made the Constitution abused? Even if something he wrote does not pass the test of time, he is still respectable because he wrote it according to the needs of his time.
By this same logic, why should the writer or writers of Manu Smriti not be respected? He showed the way that a code is needed to govern and control the society, doesn’t he deserve respect for this? Many things in this book are not compatible with or contradictory to the concepts of human rights, women’s rights, child rights etc. But these concepts are not even a century old. How can a book written nearly two millennia ago be assessed using these criteria?
There are hundreds of such things in the Code of Hammurabi, which are very bad according to modern concepts. But on this basis the person who wrote the Code of Hammurabi is not abused. Then what is the point of abusing the writer or those who wrote Manu Smriti? Their writers have shown the way to the world. Both these texts have the same place in the history of human civilization as the invention of fire and the wheel. Think, how our ancestors made the first wheel by cutting stones crosswise and today we are making Michelin tyres, so do we abuse our ancestors for what kind of wheel they made?
There are dozens of fancy ways to light a fire today, but do we abuse our ancestors who created fire by rubbing stones? Today, if phones have been made that operate on the instructions of the eyes, should we abuse Alexander Graham Bell for what kind of phone he had made? But India is a country of such ungrateful people, who do not hesitate in insulting their great ancestors for small political gains.
There is a pure political motive behind the misconception regarding Manusmriti and the way it is expressed. In fact, Congress has never been out of power for 10 years before. So, his restlessness is increasing. That’s why its leaders, in their greed for power, are increasing social divisions by taking an ancient scripture as their basis. Those who have not read even a single letter of Manasmriti are abusing it and placing it against the Constitution. In this way they are insulting both the scriptures.
Rahul Gandhi keeps talking about Mahatma Gandhi all the time but he has not even read Gandhi’s thoughts about Manusmriti. Gandhi repeatedly said that there was no need to abuse or burn it. He used to say that adopt the good things about it and leave the bad things. But this work can only be done by someone who is not blinded by the greed for power.