{"id":34598,"date":"2026-08-25T08:46:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T03:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/rahul-gandhi-manusmriti-remark-pune-controversy-bjp-political-debate\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T08:46:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T03:16:53","slug":"rahul-gandhi-manusmriti-remark-pune-controversy-bjp-political-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/rahul-gandhi-manusmriti-remark-pune-controversy-bjp-political-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Rahul Gandhi Manusmriti Remark | Pune Controversy & BJP Political Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

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3 hours ago<\/span>Author: Swadhin Patel<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rahul Gandhi has triggered a political debate over the Manusmriti after quoting a verse on women during the \u2018Chhatron Ki Goonj\u2019 programme in Pune.<\/p>\n

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Gandhi said the text states that in childhood a woman belongs to her father, in youth to her husband and after her husband\u2019s death to her sons, adding that \u201ca woman must never be independent\u201d.<\/p>\n

Calling the words \u201ca shame\u201d, the former Congress president said such ideas should never have been spoken. His remarks were made in the context of his broader criticism of patriarchy and his call to \u2018smash patriarchy ‘.<\/p>\n

So let us understand what the Manusmriti 9.3 says and whether Gandhi\u2019s attack could help Congress politically or give the BJP an opportunity to frame it as an attack on Hindu tradition.<\/p>\n

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What does Manusmriti 9.3 say?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Manusmriti 9.3 states that a woman is protected by her father in childhood, by her husband in youth and by her sons in old age, and describes her as not being fit for independence.<\/p>\n

The verse is therefore broadly consistent with the point Gandhi was making about women\u2019s dependence on male family members.<\/p>\n

The wider historical question is whether one verse from the Manusmriti can be treated as representative of ancient Indian society as a whole.<\/p>\n

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Dr Heeraman Tiwari, Professor of Indian Culture and History at JNU, said the Manusmriti contains different prescriptions about society, which people may agree or disagree with, but argued that it was neither a mandatory text nor the sole guide to ancient Hindu society.<\/p>\n

He said that picking one instance from the text and making broad pronouncements without considering its context does little for an intellectual debate.<\/p>\n

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He said there was no single text that governed Hindu society and that the authority of such recommendations depended on interpretation and their relevance to social cohesion and contemporary requirements.<\/p>\n

Tiwari also pointed to another well-known passage in the Manusmriti, 3.56, which says that the gods rejoice where women are honoured and respected.<\/p>\n

The verse reads:<\/p>\n

\u201cYatra n\u0101ryastu p\u016bjyante ramante tatra devat\u0101\u1e25, Yatrait\u0101stu na p\u016bjyante sarv\u0101statr\u0101phal\u0101\u1e25 kriy\u0101\u1e25.\u201d<\/p>\n

The passage is commonly translated as saying that where women are respected, the gods are pleased, while actions in places where women are not respected are fruitless.<\/p>\n

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Now, let\u2019s understand what Rahul Gandhi\u2019s remarks mean politically, and how analysts view their possible impact on Congress and its voter base.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rahul Gandhi\u2019s Manusmriti attack may help him connect with young women, Dalits<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Political commentator Neerja Chawdhary said Rahul Gandhi\u2019s attack on Manusmriti and his call to \u201csmash patriarchy\u201d could help him resonate with younger women and Dalits.<\/p>\n

Chawdhary said Gandhi has taken up a \u201cvery tough\u201d issue and did not mince his words while talking about patriarchy and quoting Manusmriti.<\/p>\n

According to her, the issue is not only about a political narrative but also about social change.<\/p>\n

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\u2018India of 2026 is not the India of 20 years ago\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Chawdhary said India has moved on and \u201cIndia of 2026 is not the India of 20 years ago\u201d. Women, she said, have certainly moved on.<\/p>\n

On the possible political impact, Chawdhary said the reaction could differ among younger people and upper-caste voters, as well as between the Hindi heartland in the north and the south. She called it a \u201cvery interesting trial balloon\u201d that Gandhi had set up.<\/p>\n

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Rahul Gandhi\u2019s Manusmriti remarks could consolidate support among liberal voters<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Political analyst Nikhil Jain said Rahul Gandhi\u2019s remarks on Manusmriti have opened up a broader conversation about the way women are viewed in Indian society.<\/p>\n

He said Gandhi\u2019s comments were not specifically directed against any particular political party or Manusmriti itself, but focused more broadly on the condition of women.<\/p>\n

Jain said Gandhi did not suggest that discrimination or patriarchal attitudes affect only Hindu women or women from families that follow Manusmriti. \u201cMuslim women, Sikh women, women from all castes, creeds and religions\u201d also face such issues, he said.<\/p>\n

He said many educated, left-leaning or liberal women have a tendency to vote against the BJP but they may not have necessarily had a tendency to vote for the Congress. Gandhi\u2019s outreach, he said, could help consolidate their support for the party.<\/p>\n

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Attack may not hurt Congress among young voters<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Jain said Manusmriti has entered public discourse largely through debates involving the BJP and RSS, with Left and communist parties responding to discussions around \u201cManuvaad\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jain added that attacking Manusmriti could irritate voters who strongly support \u201cManuvaad\u201d, but argued that such voters were unlikely to vote for the Congress in the first place.<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3 hours agoAuthor: Swadhin Patel Rahul Gandhi has triggered a political debate over the Manusmriti after quoting a verse on women during the \u2018Chhatron Ki Goonj\u2019 programme in Pune. Gandhi said the text states that in childhood a woman belongs to her father, in youth to her husband and after her husband\u2019s death to her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[94,26276,22605,22607,26759,23231,22107,31018],"class_list":["post-34598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","tag-bjp","tag-chhatron-ki-goonj","tag-manusmriti","tag-political-controversy","tag-political-debate","tag-pune","tag-rahul-gandhi","tag-women-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}