Not just a target, Manusmriti can be a weapon

Patriarchy is not the invention of Manusmriti. Religious scripture, by nature, follows this principle. The Vinaya Pitaka of the Buddhist canon places eight garudhammas on nuns, placing the most senior bhikkhunis beneath the most junior bhikkhus, who were ordained on the same day. Paul of Tarsus writes that wives should be subordinate to their husbands, just as the Church is to Christ. The Islamic legal system, on inheritance and testimony, dictates that women receive a lesser share compared to men. The hijab on young girls is “consent” only to left-liberal feminists.

The presence of women is deemed to be such a threat to male discipline that all monastic traditions of the Subcontinent — Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist — have framed legislation against it. All scriptures swim within this principle of patriarchy. Expressing outrage toward Manusmriti is not deserving of admiration, it is picking on a prey that has already been slaughtered.

A more sophisticated politician would exploit the gap between Manu’s teachings and what the Sanatan lobby believes they have the right to enforce in his name.

Let’s start with homosexuality. Where Manusmriti does consider gay sex to be an infraction, the punishment, if there is one, is no more serious than bathing while still dressed. The book is much more concerned about the violation of caste than about sex. In comparison, religious books have prescribed death for the same act. Everyone speaks of Sharia law’s homophobia but few point to the homophobia in Buddhist monastic manuals. Compared to many religious traditions, Manu is almost indifferent to who has sex with whom, and as long as they do not cross caste boundaries, he remains unconcerned. The disdain and contempt of the Sanatan lobby for all things queer is hardly Manu-compliant.

Now let’s take meat. Chapter 3 of Manusmriti describes a system of how different meats offered to the ancestors as oblations satisfy them for different periods of time; fish for two, goat for six, rhino for 12 years, and so on. This is a ritual economy built on the slaughter of animals. Every temple trust and every Durga Puja committee that is uprooting meat and replacing it with vegetarian offerings in the name of Sanatan Dharma is actually distorting the tradition.

In Manu’s view, sattvik has nothing to do with food. It has everything to do with psychology and rebirth. Sattvik means austerity, knowledge and wisdom, purity, control of the senses, and performance of duties, among other things. Rajas means restlessness, loss of stability, and greed for ill-gotten gains, while tamas derives from greed, sleep, lack of persistence and cruelty, and is coupled with atheism, inconsistency, negligence and begging. Manu is not interested in what we eat but in what we pursue. The smug fame-seeking fund-diverting double-speaking Sanatan missionary is far from sattvik.

Finally, let’s take trees. Manusmriti 1.49 declares that plants are conscious and feel pain and pleasure. Chapter 11 demands penance that is real for the unjustified destruction of plants. Each forest reserved for private enterprise, each tranquil sanctuary sacrificed to a private resort or zoo by a government that believes in protecting Sanatan Dharma contravenes the philosophy of Manu, and is not its modern interpretation.

There is so much in Manusmriti that could be used to challenge the so-called defenders of Hindu dharma on their own terms. It calls for reading beyond Chapter 9. But it is clear that neither Rahul Gandhi nor the RSS have actually read this book.

Devdutt is an author and mythologist