JAIPUR: Announcing the launch of a major agitation against Manuvaad and Manusmriti, civil rights activists here on Tuesday demanded immediate removal of Manu’s statue from the Jaipur Bench of Rajasthan High Court. The agitation against Manu’s ideology would be spread all over the country, said the activists.
At a convention marking the birth anniversary of social reformer and poetess Savitribai Phule, activists of Manuvaad Virodhi Abhiyan said the agitation would continue till the birth anniversary of Jyoti Rao Phule on April 11 with the demand for replacing Manuvaad with humanism in all walks of life.
A delegation of the Abhiyan will shortly meet the Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court to raise the demand for expeditious hearing of a writ petition seeking removal of Manu’s statue from the court premises.
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Abhiyan's convenor Bhanwar Meghwanshi said a public awareness programme would generate consciousness about Manu as a “symbol of injustice”, who should have no place in the books and courts of law. The agitation against “everything giving respectability to Manu and his ideology” would be taken to the tehsil level, he said.
The participants in the convention said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had expressed his government's commitment to the social justice principles of B.R. Ambedkar several times, should take an initiative to remove Manu’s statue from the High Court and install Ambedkar's statue in its place.
While lawyer Prem Krishna Sharma said the Hindu society’s mindset of inequality and discrimination had its origin in Manusmriti which abounds with the shlokas against shudras and women, advocate Ajay Kumar Jain, representing Dalits in the Manu statue case, said the matter had not yet been decided because of “judicial apathy”.
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