A surprising number of scholars and activists have turned the Manusmriti inside out, mining it for sparks of egalitarian thought or simply exposing its biases to spark reform.

• Historicist Deconstruction
Instead of treating Manusmriti as a timeless code, historicist readings place it in a fourth-century CE Brahmanical context. That shift peels away any sense of divine authority and shows it as one among many legal-social experiments. By pointing out centuries-old interpolations, this approach undercuts “because-it-says-so” claims and makes room to reclaim older Vedic ideas of shared ritual access.

• Feminist Reappraisals
Starting in the 1980s, scholars like Nivedita Menon and Gauri Viswanathan have highlighted passages that permitted women’s study of the Vedas—later overridden by harsher injunctions. Drawing on archival work, they argue early Manusmriti versions allowed rituals for women, hinting at lost traditions of gender parity. More recently, the 2018 Sabarimala verdict’s emphasis on equal temple access echoed that reclaiming impulse.

• Dalit Critique and Activism
The burning of Manusmriti in 1927 by B.R. Ambedkar inaugurated Manusmriti Dahan Divas, a potent symbol for Dalit assertion. Scholars such as Kancha Ilaiah and Anand Teltumbde have built on Ambedkar’s scathing critique, exposing caste hierarchies as social constructs rather than cosmic mandates. Modern anti-caste movements often invoke these readings to demand legal and educational reforms.

• Reinterpretation of Varna as Function
A growing trend redefines varna categories in purely occupational terms—warrior, producer, caretaker—rather than birth. This won’t erase inherited privilege overnight, but it reframes caste as anachronistic job titles, opening debates around merit and social mobility.

Global discussions on decolonizing knowledge and India’s own evolving constitutional jurisprudence make these reformist readings more than academic exercises. They’re living conversations—part of a broader push to sift tradition for tools of liberation rather than chains of oppression.