Thread by @suchitrav

Manusmriti, no matter which translation you chose to rely on, is an insidious weapon of oppression that violently robs people of their dignity. You don’t have to read it or debate its relevance. It lives & breathes in our homes. This is what Ambedkar choose to symbolically burn.

I spent the past few days reading everything I could, and the conclusion I am left with is this -Manu’s text is an act of political exclusion that strengthen and supports the edifice is social exclusion. Social inequality is not only cultivated. It is violently upheld.

But Mhd has to be read in confrontation with Ambedkar’s Constitution today. A book that states that we are all equal — that we need a social and political revolution to achieve that equality is being quietly and quickly being remade.

David Buxbaum quotes Henry Maine in his book that Manusmriti does not, as a whole, represent a set of rules ever actually administered in Hindustan. Here is the line that striking: “It is in great part an ideal picture of that which, in the view of a Brahmin, ought to be law".

The verses seem to be written as an act of looking down to purvey, to establish and recast a world made of hierarchies. The poems don’t seem ancient, it’s is pregnant with the prejudices we have carefully carried forward as a society.

Another interpretation that comes up is comparing the Manusmriti to the vulgate. You don’t have to have read the Mhd to know what it espouses. We know it intimately because we practice it. This brings us to the works of Ambedkar and an entire cannon on Anti caste literature.

New debates, reproduce the old ones. How long should we have these debates that go no where and only exhaust those who fight for a better world? Why should those historically denied of their humanity petition for it in Manu’s court when you should do everything to burn it down.

But for those who dont have time, here is a quick rundown of what Mhd does: ( my understanding)
1. It starts by constructing what a certain utopia in the eyes of the Brahmin looks like.
How these social worlds were created? Who constitutes it.

2. Then goes on to lay down the rules or dharma ( which by now I think the most abused word in Hindu understanding of the world) that will “govern” this world.

3. What are the rules, you ask? It’s the law that describes and governs four social classes or castes.

4. A set of ideas/mental gymnastics that claims it is the “karma” that decided your place in society+how “rebirth” can liberate you from being trapped by caste.
It also says if you try, you can become a Brahmin too.
What we have is a perfect manual of subjugation.

What do this mean: what India came close to was an incomplete political revolution, with an ongoing demand for social justice that has failed to bring it's vast masses justice or dignity. A genuinely egalitarian future will not arrive without a political and social revolution.

For that to happen -- the Manu who sits in our living rooms must also be burnt down. Burn every edifice of injustice. What is degrading is not the articulation of injustice but the indignity that Manu visits on people.

In solidarity with @thirumaofficial .