Calling the Constitution of India present-day Manusmriti is an unconscionable vulgarisation
Published on: 5 February 2023, 01:05 pm
The Constitution is a radical and transformative document. At its heart lie the values of liberty, justice, equality and fraternity. The same cannot be said of the Manusmriti.
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"THE bonfire of Manusmriti was quite intentional. We made a bonfire of it because we view it as a symbol of injustice under which we have been crushed across centuries."
– Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, 17th volume of Writings and Speeches of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
A recent piece by author, environmentalist and educationist Dr. Nanditha Krishna for the Open Magazine titled 'The Constitution of India is Today's Manusmriti' took the internet by storm when it was tweeted by Parliamentarian, writer and public intellectual Dr. Shashi Tharoor.
Apart from the obvious fact that the piece is riddled with fiddle-faddle, it becomes important to deal with the issues in the piece and juxtapose them against the tall and unsubstantiated claims around 'Indic jurisprudence', 'Indianising the judicial system' and other like terms. The fact is, as Dr. Ambedkar himself said, "Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set out in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them." To conflate the two would be gravely erroneous.