IS MANUSMRITI BIASED ??

Sudro Brhamanatameti Brhamanascaiti Sudratam I

Ksatriyajjatamevam Tu Vidyadvaisyattathaiva Ca II X/14 II

Sudra may become Brhamana and Brhamana, Sudra. Same is true with Ksatriya and Vaisya too.

Four orders of Varna-s of Brhamana, Ksatriya, Vaisya and Sudra are meticulously defined on the basis of abundance of Guna-s alone. No other criterion exerts any role in that process. As a measure of natural corollary, if a Brhamana loses his attributes essential for being a Brhamana, he may be re-categorised Ksatriya, Vaisya or even Sudra based on abundance of Guna in a revised situation. Primacy of Guna-s and Karma-s is thus, re-established being sacrosanct.   

Vipranam Vedavidusam Grhasthanam Yasasvinam I

Susrusaiva Tu Sudrasya Dharmo Naisreyasah Parah II X/7 II

Serving Brhamana-s being knower of Veda-s and accomplished householders is the natural Dharma of Sudra-s. 

Only reason for being Sudra is aversion to learning. In absence of learning and erudition, only occupation left for a Sudra is serving those who are engaged in service of society and humanity on higher planes of rendition. It is well established that Sudra-s enjoy a respectable domain in Maharsi Manus ordered society and they are mandated to serve only the accomplished ones.   

Sucirutkrstasusrusumrduvaganahamkrtaha I

Brhamanadyasrayo Nityamutkrstam Jatimasnute II X/8 II

Sudra serving accomplished ones of Brhamana and other Varna-s, soft-spoken, devoid of ego, pure and consecrated internally, are attained to Dvija Varna.

Even conscientious pursuit of Sudra-Dharma too, opens doors to higher planes of existence as selfless pursuit of ones Sva-Dharma leads to self-consecration followed by emancipation from Maya ultimately. Serving three Varna-s by Sudra-s is as sacrosanct as learning of Veda-s by Brhamana-s, warfare by Ksatriya-s and pursuing commerce by Vaisya-s. Absence of egoism ensures, ripples of divinity emanating from the Absolute Infinite are duly received and assimilated.   

Astapadyama Tu Sudrasya Steye Bhavati Kilvisama I

Sodasaiva Tu Vaisyasya Dvatrinsatksatriyasya Ca II VIII/204 II

Brhamanasya Catuhasastiha Purnama Vaapi Satama Bhavet I

Dviguna Va Catuhasastistaddosagunaviddhi Saha II VIII/205 II

Even as a lesser accomplished Sudra be awarded punitive fines eight times, Vaisya sixteen times, Ksatriya thirty-two times and a Brhamana sixty-four or hundred or one hundred twenty-eight times of the amount of wealth purloined.

Higher the status on social ladder of advancement, greater is the retribution for an offence of say, theft or corruption as mandated by Maharsi Manu. As socially advanced ones are regarded and emulated as font of inspiration, it is all the more imperative that their personal conduct is beyond reproach. In a bid to assure that, while Sudra is ordained to be penalised by eight times,Vaisya sixteen times, Ksatriya thirty-two times and a Brhamana sixty-four or more in consonance with circumstances, of the amount of wealth purloined. Pillars of society must deport themselves beyond controversy. 

If these are words enshrined in the true and correct version of Manusmriti, who can claim and on what basis can be claimed that Manusmriti is anti-Sudra or pro-Savarna ? Historic work of Manusmriti is the saga of Varna only, not Jati-s or castes as has been alleged by so many hitherto. Even when the term Jati is invoked in Manusmriti, what Maharsi Manu referred to was Varna alone and certainly not Jati as the term is understood today. Varna order was based on very rational considerations with no ambiguity whatsoever. Not only Varna order of Manusmriti is the greatest civil code ever known to humanity, it is operational in contemporary society albeit with different contours altogether. While the Varna order successfully functioned for hundreds of years, gradually it degenerated into Jativada owing to several compelling reasons and factors.

Now the question arises, how to distinguish Varna order from present day Jativada. 

When a Brhamana, Ksatriya or Vaisya ostracizes a Sudra only because he or she is a Sudra, it is an ugly manifest of Jativada replacing Varna order in entirety. 

If member of a Varna offers a favour/denies a favour on the grounds of Varna alone, irrespective of merits/demerits, it is a blatant display of Jativada. That way, pursuit of reservations is yet another form of Jativada in contemporary Bharata. 

Sri Rama hugged Nisada Raja because He was not casteist at all !! He gladly accepted wild fruits from a tribal devotee Sabari, that too already defiled by tasting that by herself, because Sri Rama was not a casteist. Had He been a Jativadi i.e. casteist, He would not have even entered her humble mud-straw hut leave alone accepting those defiled fruits. Sri Rama was an ardent Manuvadi/Varnavadi  and that is the sole reason why he did not hesitate while embracing Nisadaraja or sharing a morsel of food from Sabari. Scriptures are replete with such instances affirming and re-affirming, Jativada is not the forte of Manusmriti and it did not exist therein at all. Indeed, Jati has several aspects of interpretation viz. Stri-Jati/Hindu-Jati/Arya-Jati etc. and these have absolutely no tinge of discrimination at all. Gautama Buddha, born a Ksatriya-Rajputa, regarded himself a Brhamana being enlightened and commanding prestige. He never rejected Manusmriti and most of his disciples were and contemporary Buddhista thinkers Brhamana-s. Buddhista tradition has already declared next Buddha of future, Maitreya to be a Brhamana. Moreover, Sakya Muni was very much a Vedic Hindu and Gautama Buddha, an incarnate of Visnu. Gautama Buddha accepted Upanisadic view, “Not by birth is one a Brhamana, not by birth is one an outcaste; by deeds is one a Brhamana, by deeds is one an outcaste.”  

British-occupiers of Bharata appointed a few pseudo-scholars of Samskrita to defile and contaminate pristine and pure Manusmriti with the sole motif of ‘Divide, Rule and Destroy’ Hindu society. It goes to the immense credit of Arya Samaja founded by Svami Dayananda Saraswati which identified all additives and contaminants, sifted that out altogether to leave behind a Manusmriti, as sacrosanct as ever. 

Then how and why did Varna order degenerate into Jativada at all in recent centuries ??

In the year 1871, British-occupiers who had forcibly grabbed power to govern Bharata, enacted a despotic, derogatory and discriminatory law, The Criminal Tribes Act to brand hundreds of occupational groups and communities, steeped in grinding poverty, as ‘Born Criminals’. The inhuman Act was first notified and enforced in northern provinces, followed by being extended to Bengal and other provinces. The Act notified 160 Hindu occupational communities as Castes, now known as ‘Dalita-s’ with criminality by inheritance on the ground that they were organized communities passing on acts of criminality viz. thievery, burglary, house-breaking, robbery, dacoity and counterfeiting of coins from one generation to another !! Total headcount of such branded tribes at that time stood at approximately six crores i.e. 60 millions constituting almost 30 percent of the Hindu population. Quite deviously, they did not include any Muslim group in this Roll of Dishonour. According to Census Report 1871, population of Bharata stood at 20,34,15,000 with Hindu-s constituting roughly 17 crores or so. Since all members of the so-called ‘Criminal Tribes’ were Hindu-s, British-occupiers reduced 30 percent Hindu population to the status of criminals by inheritance who were in reality, manual workers serving entire society. And majority of them did not even know about the malevolent havoc wrought by those British-occupiers !! There is no other instance available in annals of world history wherein such a large body of human beings were codified and branded criminals before. Before enactment of the Act, anything even remotely resembling Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe etc. did not exist at all. 

In the Criminal Tribes Bill introduced in 1871 by the British Jurist, JF Stephen (incidentally, he also authored The Indian Evidence Act), considerable emphasis was placed on the Theory of Hereditary Caste System which defined their background, upbringing and professions. The weird doctrine advanced by Stephen intended to deprive hapless poors of basic human rights and cripple their socio-economic development by restricting their mobility, “……. people from time immemorial have been pursuing the caste system defined job-positions, weaving, carpentry and such were hereditary jobs. So there must have been hereditary criminals also who pursued their forefathers’ profession.” The absurd law was thus, based on an irrational Christian assumption and not guided by any empirical research on ground at all. On another occasion he commented, “When we speak of professional criminals, we …… (mean) a tribe whose ancestors were criminals from time immemorial, who are themselves destined by the usage of caste to commit crime and whose descendants will be offenders against the law, until the whole tribe is exterminated or accounts for in the manner of thugs”. Ostensibly, these communities were forced into crime through a legal instrument of ex-communication and social boycott. It was later, intensified by Mughal-occupiers too. 

The inhuman discrimination continued for 76 long years i.e., for almost three generations. It was undone post-1947 by rescinding The Criminal Tribes Act. Throughout history of Hinduism, those occupational groups by now known as tribes and castes, were never ever condemned or branded as criminals by inheritance or otherwise. The grave human rights violation was enacted by British despots alone. While British occupiers degraded them as ‘Dalita-s’, it was so-called ‘Savarna-s’ who agitated for abolition of The Criminal Tribes Act as well as enactment of The Untouchability Offences Act 1955 and not really by Christians or Muslims. Subsequently, there have been several social reformers who relentlessly campaigned against the evil of social discrimination through untouchability. Svami Dayananda Saraswati,  Lokmanya Tilaka, Vinayaka Savarkara, Guru-s Ravidasa, Nanaka, Govinda Singh, Ramanuja then, Vir Brahmendra Swamy in AP, Mysuru Minister Basesvara, Minister Brahmananda Naidu in AP, GK Ranade, Mahatma Phule  etc. have been pioneers of social equity and justice in subsequent years. 

Ancient Bharata had several highly accomplished nationalists who were torch-bearers of Hindu faith, held in a very high esteem. Maharsi Valmiki, author of Ramayana, was a fisherman and a highway robber who attained the status of ‘Maharsi’ by excelling in scriptures. Maharsi Veda Vyasa, author of Mahabharata was son of a fisher-woman. Vidura, Chief Minister of Hastinapura was son of a maid and an ardent devotee of Sri Krisna. Another sage from ostracised groups who rose to prominence was Maharsi Matanga, Guru of Sabari, the Bhila woman whose berries were fondly relished by Sri Rama. It is believed that famous Hindu Monarch Candragupta Maurya rose from Muria tribe who were traditionally ‘Mor Pankha’ i.e. peacock-feather collectors. Acarya Canakya, a Brhamana mentored him in raising Maurya dynasty when Hindu-s were threatened by Huns and Greeks. Let us celebrate facts that Sant Ravidasa, Guru of Mira Bai belonged to the occupational community of cobblers and Sant Namdeva belonged to the community of tailors. They were all held in greatest esteem by Brhamana-s, Ksatriya-s and Vaisya-s across the nation. Large section of storm-troopers of Chhatrapati Sivaji included Kunbi-s and Mawali-s, members of castes declared as “criminal tribes” by British-occupiers of the country. Similarly, widely revered was Sant Tuka Rama, a Kunbi. There are several Gotra-s common across Brhamana-s, Ksatriya-s, Vaisya-s and so called Dalita-s implying they all hailed from same lineage, subsequently enslaved in diabolical casteism perpetrated from external sources.

Frankly, the divide between Hindu-s on the basis of high and low caste was accentuated by erstwhile colonial rulers, first by Muslims, then by British-occupiers. Both occupiers pursued the policy of ‘Divide, Rule and Destroy’. To avenge tyranny of Muslim invaders in Gujarat 1299 who had ransacked Somnatha Mandira and plundered Anhilwara, a posse of 40,000 Barwari soldiers reached Delhi, raided main Masjid at Siri and restored traditional Puja after installing Murti-s of Hindu deities. They all reverted to Hinduism thus, for a brief interregnum, Delhi was re-conquered from Muslim occupiers by warriors of Barwari community, branded by British-occupiers earlier. So said Friedrich Nietzsche "Close the Bible and open the Manu Smriti. It has an affirmation of life, a triumphing agreeable sensation in life and that to draw up a law book such as Manu means to permit oneself to get the upper hand, to become perfection, to be ambitious of the highest art of living." Manusmriti is greatly honored in Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia as an authentic document that Kings were obliged to uphold. Filipinos believe, Maharsi Manu and 6th Century Chinese philosopher Lotse contributed immensely to the formulation of their countrys code of conduct. In recognition of the sterling contribution, statues of both are installed at the entrance of their their Parliament. 

It was Svami Vivekananda who advised deprived communities in Keralam to discontinue going after discriminating Savarna-s, identify one among themselves to emulate and be more self-contained. Dr. Palpu, a Medical Officer of Bangalore Municipality located such a person in Sri Narayana Guru of Ezhva community who rose to become a highly adored figure. The Svami even went to the extent of appealing to the deprived class to refuse to accept a Brhamana who declines to impart free education to them. He strongly believed that even men of renunciation must hold the cause of downtrodden close their hearts. 

Today politicians are the most class and caste obsessed community in the country. They continue stoking fires to ensure the cauldron of society continues boiling with casteism to harvest vote banks. The day these vote-seekers eschew casteist politics, the social menace shall die a natural death. Sooner it is accomplished, the better as it has already been procrastinated by six decades.