Why the Manusmriti Has Bewildered Scholars |
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Rahul Gandhi’s recent exhortation to women in Pune to smash patriarchy and reject all ancient discriminatory Hindu laws encoded in the Manusmriti, has expectedly drawn blood from supporters of traditional Hindutva. Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, a long time Rahul critic and a latter day convert to hard core Hinduism, reacted sharply: “Rahul Gandhi is NO (sic) champion of women’s rights. He is simply a Hindu baiter, using the cause of women’s empowerment as a convenient smokescreen…”
Yogi Adityanath, the hotheaded defender of Hindus and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, asked Rahul to read the ancient scriptures like Matsya Purana and Shatpatha Brahmin to avoid simplistic criticism of the great book of Hindu Laws by Manu.
“A virtuous wife”, mandates Manu, “must serve her husband constantly like a God. Even if he misbehaves, freely indulges his lust and lacks any good quality.”(Manu 5.144)
Manu firmly holds women responsible for men’s desire. As highly sexed creatures the females, he holds, should never be independent of male supervision, even in their own house. (4.147-9) .
Interestingly, Indian debates about ancient myths leave scholars bewildered frequently. Manu himself does not use the word Hindu. He only points out that in his opinion, the Brahmins should ideally choose to settle in the northern space between two mountains (Himalaya and Vindhyas) and two seas, one in the East and another in the West. So how come Hindus came to hold Dharm Shastra as a code of law for Hindus? It remains among many of our unresolved mysteries. English author E.M. Forster, while referring to such cases, once said that each Indian hole comes with at least two exits.
The multiplicity of exit holes here is about Manu........