Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Saturday sought to corner the BJP in the Lok Sabha by asking “Constitution or the Manusmriti” and flagging how Hindutva icon V.D. Savarkar had said there was “nothing Indian about the Constitution”.

Rahul, speaking during the two-day discussion of the Constitution, projected INDIA as a united grouping at a time when back-to-back poll defeats for the Congress have opened up fresh faultlines.

He asserted that the alliance would not abandon its twin planks of a caste census and the lifting of the 50 per cent ceiling on caste-based reservations.

Armed with a pocket edition of the Constitution and making an abhaya mudra — a hand gesture common to many South Asian religions — Rahul projected the Constitution as a document of modern India that “could never have been written” without “ancient India and her ideas”.

He drew a distinction between upholders of the Constitution and champions of the Manusmriti, the ancient text that codified the caste system and the subordinate status of women.

Quoting Savarkar on the Constitution, Rahul maintained that the battle in India today was between the Constitution and the Manusmriti.

“It is nice that all of you are so-called defending the Constitution. But I want to ask you (whether) you stand by your leader’s words, because when you speak in Parliament about protecting the Constitution, you are ridiculing Savarkar… you are defaming Savarkar,” he told BJP members.

Alleging that the Treasury benches praise Mahatma Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, Basavanna and Periyar “hesitatingly because you have to”, he asserted: “The truth is, you want India to be run the way it used to be run.”

Rahul emphasised that the Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion, race, caste or gender. He then flagged the Sambhal violence of November 24, when the survey of a mosque to ascertain whether it had been built after demolishing a temple led to clashes that killed at least four people.

“Where is it written in the Constitution that one community should be made to fight against another?” the Congress MP said.

Rahul said political, social and economic equality had been eroded on the Narendra Modi government’s watch, building an argument in favour of a caste census.

“Through the caste census, we will show the people how everyone’s thumbs have been cut,” he said.

During his half-hour speech, Rahul emphasised the reality of India’s caste system by referring to the story of Ekalavya, a brilliant low-caste archer whom the Brahmin Dronacharya got to cut off his right thumb to preserve the Kshatriya Arjun’s pre-eminence.

Rahul also brought up the Agniveer scheme and the frequent exam paper leaks, while making the abhaya mudra (a sign that means ‘Don’t be afraid’) with and without the thumb to suit his argument.

“We say abhaya mudra, and you cut off people’s thumbs,” Rahul said.

He likened Dronacharya’s act of seeking Ekalavya’s thumb as “guru dakshina” (payment to one’s teacher) to the denial of opportunity in India today, bringing up Adani in the process.

“When you give Dharavi (a slum area in Mumbai) to Adaniji, you cut off the thumbs of Dharavi’s small and medium entrepreneurs…. When you help Adani, you cut off the thumbs of all of India’s fair play businesses. When you do lateral-entry recruitment, you cut off the thumbs of India’s youth, poor and socially disadvantaged,” he said.

As he was being heckled, Rahul shot back: “The Constitution nowhere says that there should be any monopoly in the country. The Constitution does not provide for Agniveer. The Constitution does not say the talent of the youth of the country should be snatched away; it does not say their thumbs should be cut.”

Rahul referred to his recent visit to Hathras to meet the family of a Dalit teen who had died in 2020 after being allegedly gang-raped and brutalised, saying the family was being harassed four years later.

“Those who were party to the gang rape are roaming free, but the family of the victim is confined to their home. They are being threatened,” he said.

“...Where is it written in the Constitution that rapists can roam around free and the victims will be confined? It is written in your book, in the Manusmriti, not in the Constitution. In UP, the Constitution is not being implemented, the Manusmriti is.”

Rahul quoted the Hathras family as saying that the Uttar Pradesh government had promised to relocate them and provide them with land. He underlined that they had not been relocated though four years had passed.

“They are being threatened daily,” he said, adding that the upholders of Ambedkar’s Constitution – the INDIA bloc – would together relocate the family “if you will not”.