Demand for removal of Manu’s statue from Rajasthan High Court revived

A section of activists have been raising objection to the statue’s presence on the High Court premises since 1989

The demand for the removal of the ancient Hindu law-giver Manu’s statue, installed in the Jaipur Bench of Rajasthan High Court, has revived here, as civil rights activists observed the day by commemorating the burning of Manusmriti during B.R. Ambedkar’s Mahad Satyagraha of 1927. A section of activists have been raising objection to the statue’s presence on the High Court premises since 1989.

Activists staged a protest under the banner of Daman Pratirodh Andolan at Shaeed Smarak here on Sunday, while affirming that Manu’s statue was a “symbol of injustice”, which should have no place in the books and the courts of law. The protesters said Hindu society’s mindset of inequality and discrimination had its origin in Manusmriti, which had “provisions against Shudras and women”.

The agitation commemorated the historic event of December 25, 1927, when thousands of people led by Ambedkar had gathered in Mahad, a small town in Maharashtra’s Konkan region, to burn the Manusmriti in order to assert the dignity of Dalits and women. The Mahad Satyagraha was launched for claiming Dalits’ right to drink water from a public tank in the town.

The agitation in Jaipur has shifted focus on a long-drawn-out controversy over the 10-foot-high stone sculpture, as the issue of shifting it from the High Court premises has been pending ever since its installation in 1989. Though it was built by the Rajasthan Judicial Officers’ Association and installed after securing the permission of the then Chief Justice, Dalit lawyers and activists had raised an immediate objection.

After a Full Court resolution directed that the statue be relocated, Jaipur-based Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, the late Acharya Dharmendra, challenged the decision judicially and obtained a stay order. Since then, the matter has come up in the court time and again without any final decision.

Daman Pratirodh Andolan’s member and former judge T.C. Rahul said a three-judge Bench of the High Court had in the last hearing on August 13, 2015, issued notices for impleading the Central and State governments through their Home Secretaries in the case. Both the governments were yet to file their affidavits, which could facilitate further hearing in the matter, Mr. Rahul said.

Among others, Communist Party of India (Marxist) State Secretary and former MLA Amra Ram; People’s Union for Civil Liberties president Kavita Srivastava; Samagra Seva Sangh president Sawai Singh; Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association’s general secretary Aadhavan Dheetchanya; and Ritansh Azad of the Krantikari Nirman Union addressed the protesters. The speakers said neither the Congress nor the BJP, which had been in power in the State during the last 33 years, had the intention to remove the statue to affirm their commitment to social justice.