On Saturday, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK, Panther Liberation Party) held demonstrations across Tamil Nadu to demand the banning of the Manusmriti as a text that degrades and enslaves women.
Orchestrating a mass popular protest, VCK President Thol. Thirumavalavan joins the ranks of revolutionary anti-caste feminists like Mahatma Phule, Revolutionary Dr. Ambedkar, and Thanthai Periyar who have attacked the Manusmriti.
While the VCK’s commitment against the Sanathan ideology, the Hindu caste ideology, has a history of three decades, the decision to stage today’s #BanManu protest comes in light of a smear campaign by BJP forces. who blatantly accuse Thirumavalavan of having made disparaging remarks about Hindu. woman.
On September 27, 2020, Thirumavalavan spoke about Periyar and feminism in an online webinar hosted by the European Periyar Union and the Federation of Ambedkar Comrades. As someone who sat down and listened to every word of that contested speech, I found nothing offensive. Thirumavalavan was citing Periyar and the reasons why Periyar attacked the scriptures, particularly the Manusmriti.
To quote word for word in translation:
According to the Hindu Dharma, all women are created by God as prostitutes. They are prostitutes according to the Hindu Dharma … Manu Dharma. The status of all women is lower than that of a man. “
The only offensive parts of the speech were actually written by Manu, but being what a right-wing offense is, the BJP is taking advantage of this to target the VCK. Yesterday, the cybercrime police wing filed a case against Thirumavalavan based on a complaint from a BJP official.
It almost seems like a rite of passage for anti-caste leaders to attack the Manusmriti, which forms the basis of the caste system and the basis of the deplorable treatment of women within Indian society. It is an obvious truth that caste annihilation cannot occur without empowered independent women, and that women cannot become empowered and independent under the clutches of Brahminical patriarchy. Therefore, Jotirao Phule dissected the Manusmriti and other mythological stories in Gulamgiri. Dr. Ambedkar burned the Manusmriti in December 1927 at the Mahad Satyagraha in the presence of thousands of women and men, when he was only 36 years old. Periyar thundered in 1922 that he would burn the Manusmriti, and it became a symbolic protest carried out by the Self-Respect Movement and the Dravidar Kazhagam that followed. Almost a century after Dr. Ambedkar and Periyar’s radical art of setting the Manusmriti on fire, Thirumavalavan follows in their footsteps and calls for their ban.
Addressing the World Social Forum held in Mumbai in 2004, Thirumavalavan said:
“The position of women in Hinduism is extremely deplorable, which is why Dr. Ambedkar said that the annihilation of the castes was more of a problem for women than for men. Second, while the religious fundamentalism of any religion would be harmful only to other religions, the religious fundamentalism of Hindutva would not only be harmful to other religions but will also include the perpetuation of the caste system and Brahminical patriarchy. In short, inequality is the life and soul of Hindutva. “
Sixteen years later, his call to reject Manu is one more step in the VCK ideology of annihilating the caste by challenging and uprooting the Sanathan ideology.
For those unfamiliar with the toxic inequality proposed by the Manusmriti, a compilation of their caste quotes can be accessed here. This includes the infamous edict: “A Shudra is unfit for education. Higher varnas should not impart education or advise a Shudra. It is not necessary for Shudra to know the laws and codes and therefore it is not necessary for them to be taught “(Manu IV-78 to 81) Not only was Shudras denied education, verse 18, Chapter IX of the Manusmriti declares: “Women have nothing to do with the text of the Vedas.” Some of the most scandalous statements of the Manusmriti about women are the following (you can read more here):
one. “Swabhav ev narinam… .. “ – 2/213. The nature of women is to seduce men in this world; for that reason, wise men are never unprotected in the company of women.
2. “Avidvam samlam ……… ..” – 2/214. Women, true to their class character, are capable of misleading men in this world, not only a fool but even a learned and wise man. They both become slaves of desire.
3. “Matra swastra ……… ..” – 2/215. Wise people should avoid sitting alone with their mother, daughter, or sister. Since carnal desire is always strong, it can lead to temptation.
Apologists for the Sangh Parivar, and those who are clueless and ignorant of the cruelty of the caste system, often ask: I’ve never seen a Manu book, I’ve never seen it in a Hindu home, so how does it have any relevance? ? today? This is where it becomes relevant to invoke Dr. Ambedkar, who argued that custom was more powerful than law, that it was violence without police and domination without interference. “People enforce custom much more effectively than state law. This is because the convincing force of organized people is much greater than the convincing force of the state. “
Today the VCK is challenging the Manusmriti because it is the unwritten constitution that guides the caste fanatics. It is the unwritten, unread but completely steeped text that is central to the violence that Dalits and women face, and which has reduced Dalit women to the most vulnerable part of violence.
It is a text that advocates the gravest of punishments for each transgression of the caste order, and a text that is reflected in practice when women and men are murdered for marrying across caste lines, for daring to enter institutes of higher education, for daring to contest elections. It is the Manusmriti that is on his mind when Yogi Adityanath says that women are not capable of being free or independent. It is the Manusmriti in his mind when a BJP leader, Ranjeet Bahadur Srivastava, tarnishes the character of Hathras’s victim and says, such wayward women are found dead in millet fields. It is the Manus in our homes, our own parents, who reproduce the paranoia of an oppressive social order.
When we talk about rejecting Manu, or using hashtags like #ManuMustFall, indelibly etched in our minds are photos of Kantabai Ahire and Sheela Pawar, two brave Dalit women who climbed and blackened the statue of Manu that stands in the High Court of Rajasthan. Speaking to The Wire in June 2020, Ahire had said:
“Hindu mythology believes that Manu was the author of Manusmriti and had legally sanctioned the degradation of humanity on the basis of caste and gender. He had established regressive laws for shudras, ati-shudras and women. That fictitious figure still gains legitimacy in contemporary India. And the most shocking is [his statue] it is installed in the premises of the superior court. “
Ahire and Pawar are examples that we can all emulate.
Writing as a Tamil woman, I am inspired to see the widespread support that has come from political parties, Dravidian movements and Tamil nationalist groups for Thirumavalavan’s call to ban Manu. What would decisively transform this fight against Sanathan is when women put their strength in support of this. If we publicly stand up against the Manusmriti and the shackles of caste patriarchy based on the customs that regime and regulate all aspects of our lives, we, as Indian women, will begin to dismantle the structure of oppression on multiple levels.
Why women should assert themselves
First of all, by acting in such a defiant way, we will be embodying our wild, uncontrollable and unruly individuality. And by becoming the transgression that Manu (and his followers like Yogi Adityanath) have been warning everyone of, we create a world where such a text must cease to exist. By becoming their nightmare, we do not let them sleep. If all women are anti-caste, if all women break these militarily protected caste consolidations in their wombs, and if all women militantly decide not to socially reproduce the caste, Manu and his progeny Sangh Parivar would have already lost half of the constituency they would like to control.
Second, by denouncing the Manu and Sanathan philosophy that forms the basis of our oppression, we also actively reclaim a role that has been denied us as women (and Dalits and Shudras) for millennia: the right to exist as thinkers and intellectuals. . beings. To put it broadly, this is the right to take the place of a Brahmin in society, which in a knowledge economy is the place of experts, politics and the public sphere.
Third, we must frame feminism in our context, and in India, feminism is caste annihilation. We live in a reality in which communism itself can have relevance in India only if it recognizes the bitter truth that the annihilation of castes is a prerequisite for the liberation of the proletariat.
Finally, it will also allow us to recover the place that corresponds to women, a place in the front line of the protest. The caste annihilation project under the leadership of the Ambedkarite Dalits and with the overwhelming support of the Bahujan society will become a reality when women of all origins participate in the fight against the caste patriarchy. The fight against Sanathan and Manu Dharma will consolidate all of us who have been oppressed under their reign of terror: Dalits, Shudras, Adivasi, women.
Reviewing and recovering history, Dalit feminist organizations declared that December 25, 1927, the day that Dr. Ambedkar burned the Manusmriti, should be observed as the Indian Women’s Liberation Day. Today, as Thol. Thirumavalavan and VCK seek the prohibition of this text, we, as feminists, must join his fierce battle cry to reject Manu and unite in this revolt that brings us closer to the annihilation of the castes and towards the liberation of women.
Meena Kandasamy is a poet, fiction writer, translator, and activist.
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