Manu Smriti critique valid, not ban call 

Is the Manu Smriti relevant today? Over the past week in Tamil Nadu, two divergent answers dominated the political discourse. The impetus for the conversation was an attack on VCK Chief Thol Thirumavalavan by the BJP over comments the state’s most prominent Dalit leader had made a month ago while quoting from the Manu Smriti.

Circulating a clip in which the Chidambaram MP quoted from the text to argue about its poor view of women, the BJP accused him of denigrating Hindu women. Its newest recruit, actor-politician Khushbu Sundar, was deployed to accuse him of disrespecting women. The VCK responded by staging protests against the text, calling for its ban. The BJP, which also filed police complaints against the leader, decided it would launch a counter protest against him for “denigrating” women. 

While it is clear to anyone who has seen the clip that Thirumavalavan was citing the text rather than attacking Hindu women, the issue sparked off a debate on the relevance of the Smriti itself. One side argues that it hardly impinges on daily life and therefore politics should not be made over it.

The other is of the view that the ongoing subjugation of women and caste oppression draw legitimacy from the text. The latter view had been held by Dr B R Ambedkar and Periyar E V Ramaswamy, aside from other progressive minds, and bears a closer relationship to reality. The VCK, which has an anti-caste agenda, used the opportunity provided by the BJP’s outrage to emulate Ambedkar and Periyar in protesting against the text. 

However, calling for its ban is not right. The text contains several antiquated notions with which many Hindus might find fault. Indian society is steeped in some of these customs and ways of thought to the point that they transcend religion and region. The way to counter Manu, then, is not to ban but to challenge and attack; to question and to contextualise. Oppression on the basis of caste or gender must be systematically dismantled by unravelling the ideological underpinnings of the oppression. A ban would serve only to silence, not to destroy.