On Bashing Manu Smriti, Or Flogging A Dead Horse Riding A Blind Ass

None knows when Manu Smriti had its last sway, if at all, over the Indian polity but still the Hindu castes that it slighted lazily hold it against the Brahmins that it once exalted, and ominously, the evangelists cynically bash Hinduism with it to lure the former into their Semitic fold. However, this essay is not an exercise to endorse the extinct Smriti per se but an attempt to expose the perceptive vacuity and the intellectual dishonesty, as the case may be, of its debunkers.

No denying that Manu unambiguously upheld the Brahmanical supremacy albeit with an austere life-style that is self-denying to say the least, and even otherwise which society in history has been egalitarian in its concept and construct. But then, to cite but two examples, what about the Islamic bigotry that negates the kafirs and the White racism that rendered blacks into slavery. Why the Muslims have not been able to shed their ill-founded kafir antipathy even in the multi-cultural settings they happen to live. When was it that the racial segregation in the U.S. trains and buses in the Land of Liberty did end but in 1956! So, on the discriminatory note, the Manuwad decry, a euphemism for ant-Brahminism, is a far cry from the 'Black Lives Matter' cry.

Besides, Manu's detractors tend to smear him by amplifying his restrain-female tunes and muting his woman-exalted notes. But then, what was his Smriti's woman-denial compared to Sharia's savagery of the fair sex; for that matter, when it was that woman's vote began to count in the first full-fledged democracy in the modern world but in 1920! And for the starters, democracy took birth in India that is Bharat of yore.

Be that as it may, there's no historical evidence that the law of Arya Varta was ever based on the Manu Smriti for it was not mandatory,

8.309. Know that a king who heeds not the rules (of the law), who is an atheist, and rapacious, who does not protect (his subjects, but) devours them, will sink low (after death).

This and the excerpts that follow are derived from 'The Laws of Manu' by G. Buhler, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1886, available at the Internet Archive.

Whatever, a tangible expostulation of Manu Smriti would be in order, and to start with, it's the King, not the Brahmin, above all,

7.5. Because a king has been formed of particles of those lords of the gods, he therefore surpasses all created beings in lustre;

7.8. Even an infant king must not be despised, (from an idea) that he is a (mere) mortal; for he is a great deity in human form.

Besides, belying the perceived oppression of the so-called lower castes, apparently there were rulers among them, never mind Manu is said to have disregarded them -

4.61. Let him not dwell in a country where the rulers are Sudras, nor in one which is surrounded by unrighteous men, nor in one which has become subject to heretics, nor in one swarming with men of the lowest castes.

Just the same, no denying that the Brahmins, nay the pious among them, were invariably posited on the social pedestal -

3.212. But if no (sacred) fire (is available), he shall place (the offerings) into the hand of a Brahmana; for Brahmanas who know the sacred texts declare, 'What fire is, even such is a Brahmana'.

But that entailed quite a spiritual rigour,

2.162. A Brahmana should always fear homage as if it were poison; and constantly desire (to suffer) scorn as (he would long for) nectar.

Besides a curtailed material means,

3.109. A Brahmana shall not name his family and (Vedic) gotra in order to obtain a meal; for he who boasts of them for the sake of a meal, is called by the wise a foul feeder (vantasin).