By Krishna Jha
Continued fragmentation has been a reality of our society to meet the interest of the ‘haves’ as against ‘have-nots’. The exploitation comes in practice in the garb of Brahminical Mantra for salvation laid down by Manusmriti. Its one of the main themes is the concept of “varna dharma”, embedded in the idea of unwavering performance of duty of the caste to which one belongs to by birth. Manusmriti’s central message, which is repeatedly highlighted in the scripture, has been nothing more than observance of one’s caste duties, and nothing more heinous than their breach.
All women and all men who slog and produce those commodities that the society needs to meet their needs to keep alive are those belonging to the working and producing classes, living in the lowest depths of the society without enough resources to live and keep their family alive. They are those defiled by their very birth, and they are to follow their “varna dharma” at any cost. The stigma is so deep that it fades only when they themselves perish.
Manusmriti says that the god himself created the four-caste division. Manusmriti is believed to have been composed in response to the growing defiance of caste rules by lowered castes and women. It was considered to be a social weapon to deal with the rebellion by the toiling masses against the injustice they were made subject to. Those who had vested interest in the status quo could not bear the transition and called the era decadent.
It is this weapon against the working masses that the BJP government seems to revive as its draft labour policy that invokes Manusmriti, declaring that it “embeds the moral basis of labour governance within India’s civilisational fabric, centuries before the rise of modern labour law.”
Released for public comments earlier in October, the Shram Shakti Niti2025, has ignited backlash from the Opposition that sees the reference as an attempt to reframe modern governance in Hindutva’s ideological terms.
The policy, drawing from ancient treatises such as the Manusmriti, Yajnavalkyasmriti, Naradasmriti, Sukraniti and Arthashastra, asserts that India’s understanding of labour (shram) extends far beyond economics, portraying work as a sacred and moral duty that is without any demand for the return for the labour put in, sustains dharma, social harmony and collective prosperity. It is direct and crude packaging of exploitation, the source of surplus.
“In the Indic worldview, work is not merely ameans of livelihood but a contribution to the broader order of dharma (righteous duty). This perspective recognises every worker — whether an artisan, farmer, teacher, or industrial labourer — as an essential participant in the cycle of social creation,” the draft policy said.
Reality is no more under layers. The fruits of labor are not meant for exploited, but for the masters. “Ancient texts such as the Manusmriti, Yajnavalkyasmriti, Naradasmriti, Sukraniti and Arthashastra articulated this ethos through the concept of rajdharma, emphasising the sovereign’s duty to ensure justice, fair wages, and the protection of workers from exploitation. The Shram Shakti Niti 2025 draws inspiration from these indigenous frameworks while embedding them in the constitutional and international context of the modern state,” the policy added.
“The civilisational roots of India’s labour philosophy anticipated several elements now recognised as universal labour standards. The concept of SulkaNyaya reflected the principle of wage justice — fair, prompt and proportionate compensation for work performed — with emphasis on both dignity and equity. The responsibility of employers to provide safe and humane working conditions —recorded in texts like the Sukraniti —prefigured modern occupational safety norms. Guilds (sreṇis), which represented collective groups of artisans and workers, exemplified an early form of tripartite harmony, balancing the roles of the state, employers and workers in maintaining industrial peace. Moreover, decentralised regulation through guild councils demonstrated an understanding of subsidiarity, allowing decisions on skills, wages and welfare to be taken closest to where workers lived and laboured. These features show that India’s indigenous traditions of labour governance were participatory, inclusive and self-regulatory in character,” the draft read.
Clearly, the draft policy of the BJP government recognises that India’s ancient scriptures are fully compatible with contemporary principles of decent work, social dialogue and sustainable development.
“By aligning these timeless values with the Labour Codes, particularly the Code on Wages (2019) and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code (2020), the policy reclaims India’s own ethical and intellectual lineage in the governance of labour. This synthesis of tradition and modernity establishes labour not merely as a sectoral concern but as a moral and developmental commitment of the nation,” it read.
Manusmriti’s precepts may appear an excellent moral recipe for the Sangh Parivar, as they themselves concede that it ‘embeds moral basis of governance within India’s civilisational fabric’. It is not just chance that the final scripting of the Manuscript by the Brahman authors and the emergence of Indian feudalism in the Gupta period were almost simultaneous. While the pre-Manusmriti period, with a strong Buddhist presence in this part of South Asia, was marked by a vigorous social, cultural and economic life and as the Indian civilization flowered, the post-Manusmriti period saw a stagnant and decadent society characterized by a closed economy, insular outlook, excessive caste conservatism and growing tentacles of feudalism. The text has initiated again a battle with the Draft Labour Policy, 2025 in hand. It has started a stream of criticism from the opposition. The opposition has called it an attempt to draw from ancient times when the entire context was different except the crude and cruel ways of exploitation of those at the receiving end.
Concepts like wage, workers’ rights and protection from exploitation are modern concepts which came up after industrialisation and the emergence of capitalism. These concepts did not exist in ancient times – when Manusmriti was composed. In those times, there was no defined system of wage. In return for work, workers were paid a subsistence level of remuneration, mainly in kind. They had no say in fixing payments.
The BJP government’s attempt to glorify the concept of shram (labour) as promoted by the Hindu texts is nothing but an attempt to reinforce the same caste-based hierarchical division of labour in which the Brahmins would enjoy the highest status for their ritualistic practices in religious ceremonies, while the working masses would be left with the fate they had suffered in pre-modern times. (IPA Service)
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