During the year 1949, when the Constitution of India was being formulated by the Drafting Assembly under the able-leadership of Babasaheb Ambedkar, an editorial appeared in RSS mouthpiece Organiser which expressed dismay over the Constitution containing nothing “Bhartiya” and that it had hardly borrowed anything from the staggering work of Manu ie “Manusmriti”. On 25th January 1950, a day before India was declared a republic, a retired high court judge by the name of Sankar Subbha Aiyar wrote an article in the Organizer titled “Manu Rules Our Hearts” in which he demanded on behalf of the RSS the enactment of the Manumsriti as the law of the land.

Manusmriti is an ancient text which glorifies caste oppression like no other book. For thousands of years, the book was used as a law code to systematically oppress and suppress the lower castes. When Babasaheb Ambedkar initiated the Dalit uprising, thousands of Dalits burned several copies of the Manusmiriti as a depiction of their empowerment and freedom from the clutches of religious orthodoxy.

Even the pioneers of the Hindutva movement i.e. Savarkar and Golwalkar were not left far behind in their praise of the Manusmriti. Savarkar, the man responsible for coining the term Hindutva, saw the Manusmriti“ as the scripture that is most worshippable after the Vedas” and “basis of the spiritual and divine march of the nation”. MS Golwalkar disparaged democracy as alien to Hindu ethos and glorified Manu by calling him “the first, greatest and the wisest lawgiver of mankind.” Today same lobby is ruling India which is a serious threat to the constitution and constitutional bodies which are losing its credibility.

Author – Bikram Singh

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