The Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath in Uttarakhand has appealed to saints and priests of Sanatan Dharma to “expel” Rahul Gandhi from the Hindu religion “because of his past remarks against the Manusmriti”.
The Manusmriti, a foundational text in Hindu law and tradition, is known for codifying the caste system.
The Shankaracharya’s office had sent three letters to Rahul since December 2024 to explain his remark on the Manusmriti in the Lok Sabha.
“Rahul Gandhi has ignored all our letters. This means he really has contempt for the Manusmriti. This also means he doesn’t believe in the Hindu religion. Henceforth, he should be considered ostracised from the Hindu religion. I appeal to all the saints and priests to expel him from Hinduism. Nobody would assist him in puja, and he shouldn’t be allowed to enter any temple,” Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati told reporters at his ashram in Badrinath on Sunday.
This is the first time a Shankaracharya has issued such a diktat against Rahul.
Shortly after his visit to Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, where a 19-year-old Dalit girl was gang-raped in 2020, Rahul had on December 14 last year told Parliament: “Where in the Constitution is written that the rapists should be free while the victim’s family is confined in one place? It is written in your Manusmriti.”
The victim had died in September 2020, days after recording her statement naming the four accused, of whom three were subsequently acquitted. The girl’s late-night cremation by Hathras police, allegedly to save the rapists who belonged to the upper castes, had shocked the country.
The victim’s kin had alleged that while the accused were welcomed with garlands upon their return to the village from jail, the Dalit family was forced to lock themselves inside their house.
A Congress leader from Uttarakhand said on the condition of anonymity that they had no idea about the question that the Shankaracharya had asked Rahul.
“We don’t have any idea about the Shankaracharya’s question and why he didn’t get a reply. We are waiting for our central leaders to react,” he said.
The Kaul Brahmins had ostracised Rahul’s great-great-grandfather Motilal Nehru for crossing the Arabian Sea to go to a foreign country. However, Motilal refused to give the diktat any importance.