New Delhi, Feb. 18: One of the three student leaders who quit the ABVP unit at Jawaharlal Nehru University yesterday had last month demanded the RSS-linked student body publicly burn a copy of the Manusmriti, the two-millennia-old mouthpiece of the Hindu caste system.

Pradeep Narwal, who was the ABVP's joint secretary at the university, resigned along with Rahul Yadav and Ankit Hans, president and secretary, respectively, of the ABVP unit in the School of Social Sciences at JNU.

Some of the reasons the trio cited for their decision were the "oppression unleashed by the government" on JNU protesters, the "hooliganism" of the ABVP and the arrest of students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charges.

Narwal today said his ties with the student body had been strained since last month when it refused his demand to burn the Manusmriti, the ancient book that codified the laws upholding the caste system.

The first-year MA student of history had made the demand following PhD scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide at Hyderabad Central University amid allegations of caste discrimination.

"Vemula became a victim of Manu's caste system, which assigns a lowly role to Dalits," Narwal, a Dalit himself, said.

"I too have often been called a member of a ' neech jaat' (low caste). I demanded the Manusmriti be burnt but they did not agree."

Kancha Ilaiah, academic and a scholar on Dalit issues, said: "Bhimrao Ambedkar located the source of untouchability and the rigid caste system in the Manusmriti. He burnt a copy of it in protest."

A JNU teacher said the BJP government in Rajasthan had set up a statue of Manu - the author of the Manusmriti - in front of the high court in Jaipur. "The BJP considers Manu a symbol of positivity," he said.

Vishwa Mohan Jha, a history teacher with Delhi University, said the Manusmriti described women as family property and banned Brahmin women from marrying lower caste men while allowing upper caste men to marry lower caste women.

ABVP organising secretary Sunil Ambekar said the Manusmriti had lost its relevance now under the laws of the country.

"Narwal's demand was rejected because it's an irrelevant issue. No Hindu follows the Manusmriti any more - so, what's the point in burning it?" he said.

Narwal, though, cited how the social traditions espoused by the Manusmriti still flourished, with Dalits suffering the consequences. "They are taunted and discriminated against even at institutions of higher learning," he said.

Ambekar claimed the ABVP was campaigning peacefully on campuses. He alleged that the three students who had left the organisation had yielded to pressure from their teachers and Left student bodies. The trio have denied the charge.

Narwal said the tipping point in his relations with the ABVP came when the group began portraying JNU as a centre of "anti-national elements" and "resorted to hooliganism in the name of patriotism". "The way things are going, they will soon say that those who do not vote for the BJP are anti-national," he said.

Narwal, who is from Rohtak in Haryana, is the son of a CRPF officer.