On Reading Against the Madness of Manu: B.R.

Ambedkar’s Writings on
Brahmanical Patriarchy, Selected and Introduced by Sharmila Rege,
Delhi, Navayana, 2013.

Against the Madness of Manu, as we are aware, was Sharmila Rege’s

last major work. Some of us had heard her speak on the theme
earlier, in 2010. It was evident from that presentation that she was
engaged in a project that consumed her energies completely, as she
attempted to translate, interpret, and communicate across worlds
whose differences were insurmountable.
How insurmountable these remain was brought home to me last
month, when I attempted to introduce the book to a group of history
teachers from colleges across the country. Not one amongst them,
even the four young men from Maharashtra with an avowed interest
in dalit histories, had heard of Sharmila and her work. Her invisibility
in the unmarked middle class upper caste teachers’ worlds, including
that of feminist teachers, was as striking. Clearly, interdisciplinarity,
inclusiveness, intersectionalities, and other catch words have gained
currency, and seem to be impressively all pervasive but have as yet
made little or no dent beyond being invoked periodically. The
challenge of making them meaningful is daunting, almost as daunting
as ensuring that caste, class and gender are not reduced to slogans.
The experience serves as a reminder, if any was needed, of the
urgency to continue to insert the dialogues and debates to which
Sharmila alerted us, with all their complexities and disturbing
qualities, into our everyday praxis. The critical importance of the
everyday, again, was something that Sharmila never forgot.
Sharmila locates her project within three intersecting and fraught
contexts—that of defining and redefining brahmanical identities, the
sharp conflicts in Maharashtra between Dalit and non-Dalit feminists
in the last decade over the Khairlanji massacre and issues of sex
work, and the ugly compensation for rape dispute between Mayawati
and Rita Bahuguna that the media served up with typical zeal. Her
retrieval of Ambedkar is located within these complex contexts:
This calls for confronting confusing, diverse, and
heterogeneous sources of knowledge across different
locations—social, institutional and epistemic. (p.22).

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She also draws attention to the ways in which Ambedkar has been
remembered and forgotten and then proceeds to select and annotate
his writings, which, she felt, were particularly significant for
feminists.
Throughout, Sharmila provides two possible contexts within which
to locate Ambedkar’s interventions. The first of these is in terms of
his times. Here Sharmila offers glimpses of both contemporary
scholarship as well as political developments. These serve as useful
pointers, especially for the non-specialist reader. The second strand
that runs through Sharmila’s work is a constant reminder of the
collective amnesia within academia, which has been the fate of most
of Ambedkar’s writings for decades. While the last two decades have
witnessed some changes in this respect, we still have a long way to
go.
I will focus on the first two parts of the book—Caste as Endogamy
and The Madness of Manu—which raise issues that students of
ancient Indian history have assumed are their monopoly, claiming a
certain degree of familiarity with them. The third section, dealing
with the Hindu Code Bill, is also rich and thought provoking—but the
discussion on it is perhaps best left to those who specialize in
modern history.
In the introduction to the first section, Sharmila draws attention to
the way in which Ambedkar highlighted the intrinsic link between
caste and endogamy as early as 1916. What is significant is the
subtitle Sharmila attaches to her essay: “The Inextricable Links
Between Caste and Violence Against Women”, reiterating the need to
contextualize and theorize this violence. The recognition of the
centrality of endogamy to caste, Sharmila argues, potentially opened
up space for a gendered understanding of the institution. In focusing
on sati and enforced and degraded widowhood, to quote her:
Ambedkar saw caste’s exclusionary violence and subjugation of
women inherent in the very processes that lead to caste
formation (p.62).
However, as Sharmila points out, these insights did not inform the
debates around sati that marked academic discourse in the late 80s
and early 90s of the last century. Nor, one suspects, have excerpts
from Ambedkar found their way into the anthologies on sati that are
periodically generated within Indological scholarship.

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In this early intervention, Ambedkar, as Sharmila observes, moved
beyond regarding caste as an imposition, or as a divine dispensation.
In her editorial framing, Sharmila positions Ambedkar’s essay
carefully—in terms of its contemporary context, written as it was
nearly a century ago, and the ideas about race that often shaped
understandings of caste—as well as the ways in which Ambedkar’s
ideas were received, or rather not received, and remained
unacknowledged for decades, till the 1990s. These silences cut across
disciplines and perspectives—Sharmila underscores silences within
sociology and feminist formulations, some of which sometimes
ironically unknowingly approximated the insights Ambedkar had
arrived at.
The second segment of Sharmila’s introduction draws on a set of
Ambedkar’s writings, from the 1940s and 50s, which focused on the
rise and fall of the Hindu woman, and on the categories of the shudra
and the untouchable. Here, Sharmila highlights the alternative
periodization of early Indian history that Ambedkar worked out—in
terms of a period dominated by Brahmanism, followed by one when
Buddhism was predominant, and succeeded by Hindu India.
Untouchability then becomes contextualized in terms of resistance to
Brahmanism.
Let us consider briefly, the periodization proposed by Ambedkar, as
summarized by Sharmila:
The first, Ambedkar characterizes as a barbarian phase of
Aryan society of the Vedic period. The second, as a phase of rise
of civilization and the Buddhist revolution of the Maurya
empires of Magadha. The third phase, marked by the rise of
Pushyamitra Sunga to power and the writing of the Manusmrti,
Ambedkar designates as a period of counter-revolution, for this
was marked by the triumph of caste and the subordination of
women and Shudras. [p.68]
What were the alternatives proposed by historians? We can work
with a somewhat simplistic sketch of complex and complicated
positions. Most of us are familiar with the division into Hindu,
Muslim and British periods, proposed by James Mill, and regarded as
typical of the ways in which Indian history was framed in the colonial
period. By the mid-twentieth century, nationalist historians had
worked out divisions in terms of dynastic histories, valorizing
periods of centralization such as the Maurya empire, the Gupta
empire and the Mughal empire, in different ways.

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Other alternatives that were being worked out included Marxist
classifications, where scholars like Kosambi were grappling, during
those decades, with the ways in which Marxist categories could or
could not be applied to the early Indian context in particular. What
was crucial was that they jettisoned the notion of a stagnant past,
typified in the Marxist formulation of the Asiatic Mode of Production,
even as they considered whether categories such as slave mode of
production or feudalism were viable or not. In most instances, they
moved beyond a simple imposition of Marxist categories, developing
a more complex understanding that could capture the specificities of
the Indian situation.
And yet, caste figured rather uneasily in these formulations,
occasionally (but not always) being reduced to class. And, with some
exceptions, the discussions were virtually gender blind. Whether
transformations in gender relations could be significant enough to be
reckoned as turning points in history, which is what periodization is
all about, was not even considered as a hypothetical question.
Ambedkar’s periodization, as we can see, rested on conceptual
categories derived from Mill, even as these were reworked and
redefined. There was also a focus on the binary between the
barbarian and civilization, a binary that was a feature of
contemporary academic discourse and is by no means extinct today.
However, what is significant is that Ambedkar stood the
contemporary urban upper caste/ middle class commonsense of the
Vedic age on its head (p.75)—suggesting that it was not so golden
after all. What is also noteworthy is the way in which caste and
gender were built in as criteria for marking historical change. While
Sharmila pauses briefly (pp.72-73) to explore these possibilities and
their implications, by drawing attention to these arguments, she
opens up challenging areas of investigation for historians and others.
The two essays that Sharmila anthologizes in the first section, “Castes
in India” and “The Rise and Fall of the Hindu Woman” were originally
published in 1917 and 1951 respectively.
In “Castes in India”, Ambedkar highlights the inextricable links
between exogamy and endogamy that are intrinsic to the institution,
as well as the need to envisage castes as interrelated rather than
discrete. He also introduces the idea of the surplus woman and the
surplus man—those whose partners have predeceased them—and
then goes on to suggest that in a situation of gender asymmetry, the

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woman was disposed of in a variety of ways. These included sati and
enforced widowhood.
Ambedkar goes on to provide a scathing critique of theories of
origins of caste—including the ‘great man’ theory that attributes it to
Manu, as well as contemporary western scholarship on the theme.
Throughout this essay, Sharmila’s annotations return us to the
scholarship Ambedkar addressed and more often than not
interrogated relentlessly. Her interventions are detailed, and yet, at
the same time, quietly understated—she virtually never allows her
own voice to intrude in these notes.
This explanatory device is followed in other essays as well. One is
struck, for instance, by the patient annotation, part of Sharmila’s
strategy of communication, gently discussing the contents of the
Buddhist texts that Ambedkar used, and assumed that his readership
would be familiar with. Initially published in the Mahabodhi,
Ambedkar’s article on the rise and fall of the Hindu woman would
have been meant for a more specialized audience. He was perhaps
justified in assuming that they would be able to contextualize his
references and allusions. Sharmila, without being condescending,
makes no such assumptions about her readership, but chooses to lay
out, without any flourish, details that would make the text accessible
to a lay reader.
At the same time, there are occasions when one is left with the sense
of an ongoing dialogue, and wishes we could have learnt more from
the author as well as the editor. For instance, Ambedkar makes the
point that western scholars have tended to explain caste in terms of
“(1) occupation; (2) survivals of tribal organizations etc.; (3) the rise
of new belief; (4) cross-breeding and (5) migration.” (p.97). Sharmila
annotates “new beliefs” as follows:
Ambedkar is probably referring to the practices related to
purity and pollution as ‘new beliefs’ that were being given
undue importance in the explanation of origins of the caste
system.
Unfortunately, we no longer have the opportunity of finding out why
she thought so. Could ‘new beliefs’ be a cryptic allusion to non-
Brahmanical traditions? How would our reading change if this was
the case?

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There are other points where one wishes Sharmila had allowed us
the benefits of her thoughtful interventions. Ambedkar’s attitude
towards Manu in the article on the origin of caste (1916/1917) was
sharply different from that in the rise and fall of the Hindu woman,
where Manu instead of the Buddha was held to be responsible for the
downfall that Ambedkar was tracing. This was written in 1951. In
the first instance, as we have seen, Ambedkar argued against viewing
caste as a creation of Manu. In the second instance, he was projected
as being responsible for the subordination of women. Given that
caste and gender were intertwined in Ambedkar’s understanding,
how do we grapple with this change?
The second essay in this section, “The Rise and Fall of the Hindu
Woman: Who was Responsible for it?” was originally published in
1951, in Maha Bodhi, as a rejoinder to an article that has appeared in
the Eve’s Weekly in 1950, which apparently stated that the Buddha
was primarily responsible for the downfall of women in India. It
provides insights into Ambedkar’s strategies of textual analysis.
These include the inevitable questions that surround the complex
processes whereby oral traditions are written down. Ambedkar drew
attention to the mediation by monks in this process. At another level,
he provided interesting insights derived from the logic whereby
historical figures were represented within the tradition. For instance,
he pointed out that Ananda, one of the Buddha’s dearest disciples,
was also known for his compassion towards women. As such,
representing him as a participant in a misogynist dialogue appeared
somewhat incongruous and anomalous. Ambedkar also discussed
how a range of women characters such as Visakha, the symbol of
feminine domesticity and Amrapali, the courtesan figured and were
depicted with respect within the tradition. And while characterizing
the entry of women into the sangha as revolutionary, he established
the point by contrasting it with the attitude towards women
renouncers within the Brahmanical tradition, where they were
treated as social outcastes.
It may be worth pausing for a moment on Ambedkar’s recuperation
of Amrapali. Elsewhere Sharmila cites Ambedkar’s speech made in
1936 to sex workers, arguing that we need to recognize the caste
dimension of such work, where women of relatively low status were
structurally forced to offer sexual services to upper caste men. She
urges us to place the issue within a larger context of Ambedkar’s
move away from Hinduism, and in the context of the nationalist
politics of the 1930s. And yet, the 1951 essay suggests that

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Ambedkar was willing to acknowledge that sex workers could be
treated with respect. Perhaps exploring and contextualizing such
positions can create space for engaging with the complexities of sex
work in less polarized ways than has been the case in the debate that
Sharmila alludes to.
Sharmila draws attention to Ambedkar’s intense engagement with
textual traditions, as also with his attempts to understand, if not
justify, the subordination of women within the Buddhist sangha. One
of the interesting arguments of Ambedkar that Sharmila underscores
is that the sangha did not place a premium on virginity (p.71),
opening its doors to women who may have had diverse sexual
histories. Whether institutionalized religious traditions, Buddhist or
Brahmanical can sustain autonomous spaces for women is a question
that may not always elicit an optimistic response, but, in reminding
us of these alternatives, Sharmila opens up scope for dialogue and
debate.
The second section of the anthology, titled “The Madness of Manu:
Unpacking the Riddle of Graded Violence Against Women, includes
three texts, from an anthology of Ambedkar’s writings, that he
designated as riddles, to draw attention to what he regarded as the
absurdities or inconsistencies of Hinduism. These were published for
the first time in 1987, and instantly provoked controversies, often
violent. Typically, Sharmila acknowledges the immediate polemics
and politics that surrounded their publication, but also alerts us to
the academic indifference that marked their reception. As she points
out, most of the debates around caste in recent decades have
revolved around Louis Dumont’s Homo Hierarchicus. That alternative
formulations were available within Ambedkar’s work did not attract
scholarly interest or attention.
The strategies adopted by Ambedkar in the riddles was to subject
texts and narratives to an intensive, often literal scrutiny, to highlight
their absurdities on a variety of levels. In some cases, this is the
absurdity of the implications of Manu’s explanations and definitions.
For instance, in the discussion on mixed castes, Sharmila draws
attention to the many ways in which Ambedkar questioned Manu’s
labels, classifications and derivations. For example, the candala,
according to the Manusmrti, was born out of the union between
brahmana women and sudra men. Given the large numbers of those
designated as candalas, Ambedkar argued, the number of such
unions, which were condemned as pratiloma, against the grain,

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would have been extraordinarily large, if this was indeed the origin of
the candalas. He also pointed out (p.160) that the Manusmrti did not
deal with all possible permutations and combinations, but selectively
enumerated and named social categories. Besides, he underscored
the inconsistencies within the Brahmanical tradition, where
occasionally the same categories were assigned different parentage,
or the same parents were supposed to produce offspring belonging
to different social categories. For instance, the Ambastha is supposed
to originate from a ksatriya father and a vaisya mother in one text,
and from a brahmana father and a vaisya mother in another.
Ambedkar felt that the naming of the mixed castes, and attributing
origins to them was an acknowledgement of the breakdown of the
fourfold order. What baffled him, and constituted the riddle, was the
recourse to the myth of wholesale violation of the sexual norms on
which the varna order rested, which was offered as a justification for
the existence of these categories.
The second riddle focuses centrally on situations in which the
mother’s varna is taken into account in assigning social status. As
Ambedkar suggests, doing this was somewhat paradoxical, as it
acknowledged that the mother’s status was significant, which ran
counter to the general tendency to deny any independent social
standing to women. Sharmila argues (p.143) that we need to read
Ambedkar’s essay on the Rise and Fall of the Hindu Woman,
mentioned earlier, as containing what he perceived as the resolution
of the riddle of women. In other words, the concessions made to
maternal origins need to be viewed as a response to what was
perceived to be a threat to the caste/gender order. In posing the
question and implicitly positing a response, Ambedkar highlighted,
once more, the intersections between gender and caste categories.
The riddle that provoked an immediate reaction was that about
Rama and Krishna. This included a scathing critique of Rama’s
attitude towards Sita. Sharmila provides an excerpt that begins from
the moment of Rama’s victory over Ravana, with Rama asserting that
he had no need for Sita—the victory was simply meant to proclaim
his prowess. Ambedkar touches on the ordeal by fire and its
incongruity. He then draws attention to the injustice involved in
abandoning the pregnant Sita.
An excerpt from the riddle reads as follows:
He yielded to the public gossip and there are not wanting
Hindus who use this as ground to prove that Rama was a

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 democratic king when others could equally well say that he
was a weak and cowardly monarch. Be that as it may, that
diabolical plan of saving his name and fame he discloses to his
brothers but not to Sita—the only person who was affected by
it and the only person who was entitled to have notice of it.
(p.182).
One catches a glimpse of an incisive mind that was preoccupied with
the rights and wrongs of women, and of a writer who was unsparing
in the demands that he made of himself as well as his readers.
One of the last footnotes, acknowledging the Supreme Court
websites, was accessed by Sharmila just a year ago, on 22nd October
2012. In leaving us with the anthology, Sharmila reminds us of
unfinished tasks, abruptly ended conversations. Would Sharmila
have written somewhat differently if she had engaged with Olivelle’s
introduction to the critical edition of the Manusmrti? We no longer
have the luxury of an email exchange, a chat or of listening to her
patient responses to our many questions. That sense of irreparable
loss will remain, even as we can conjecture what she may have said.

Kumkum Roy
21st October 2013