When Rahul Gandhi looked at a hall full of young women students in Pune at 'Chhatron Ki Goonj' and said "Smash the Patriarchy," it was not just a slogan. It was a political call to action. And the cheer that followed did not come only from Gen Z women in the audience. It came equally loudly from Gen X women who have spent their entire lives fighting, negotiating, and surviving patriarchy in their homes, workplaces and public spaces.
That this call was given in Pune is itself history coming full circle. In the 15th century, it was Jijabai from this same soil who smashed the patriarchy of her time. She refused to be confined to the role assigned to her and became the foundational force, the philosopher behind the Maratha Empire. She proved that smashing patriarchy is not new to India, it is in our history of resistance.
To understand why smashing patriarchy matters today, we must understand what patriarchy truly is. Patriarchy and fascism are not two separate systems. They are interdependent. They feed each other. They draw strength from each other to become powerful and permanent.
What does a patriarchal society give to fascism? It gives it a ready-made template. Definite roles for men and women, rigid structures, hierarchical control, unquestioned social order, and a single moral authority. This is the perfect formula for fascism to thrive. A society that is already trained to obey a father, a caste head, or a religious leader will easily obey an authoritarian leader. And when this social hierarchy is backed by brutal economic power of crony capitalism, it becomes almost unbreakable. Crony capitalism enforces patriarchy because it needs cheap labour, unpaid care work of women, and a divided society that does not unite against economic loot.
This is why Babasaheb Ambedkar’s action on 25th December 1927 remains so central to this debate. When he publicly burnt the Manusmriti, he was not just burning a book. He was burning the source code of hierarchy in India. The Manusmriti legitimized a rigid caste system, it institutionalized untouchability, and it codified the complete subjugation of women. Today, as independent India turns 80, we have to ask, has that mindset gone? No. The book may have been burnt, but the Manusmriti mindset, the Manuwad, exists in more sophisticated and invisible forms. We see it in caste discrimination, in class arrogance, in gender violence, in regional and language supremacy, in the idea that some Indians are more Indian than others.
Our greatest social reformers and leaders understood this. Jyotirao Phule, Periyar, PN Rajbhoj, Pt Nehru, Ram Manohar Lohia all of them took strong objection to the regressive Manusmriti because they knew it promotes deep social inequality and a permanent divide. Later, Kanshi Ram reshaped the entire political narrative with his powerful formulation of 'Manuwadi vs Mulnivasi'. It was not just a slogan, it was a political strategy designed to unite the Bahujans, the Adivasis, the OBCs, minorities and women the Mulnivasis to wrest political power away from Manuwadi hegemony.
After several decades of progress, we are seeing a reversal. With fascist forces occupying power, the social hierarchy that Ambedkar fought against is taking shape more visibly again. That is why Rahul Gandhi’s strong and consistent voice against the Manusmriti mindset has not gone down well with the ruling dispensation and its ideological associates. Because it directly shakes their foundation. It questions their moral authority and dents their entire election narrative built on division.
For many years, political parties irrespective of their ideology played to the galleries with a soft-Hindutva touch, fearing they would lose votes if they confronted it. Today, many of them are realizing the imminent danger. They are seeing how the Manusmriti mindset is slowly but strongly breaking our social fabric and re-enforcing structures that help a few to conquer the minds, masses and money effortlessly.
The most dangerous thing about patriarchy today is that it is no longer just about men vs women. In its new avatar, patriarchy itself has become gender-neutral. It is an invisible framework that dictates everything, social order, what morality we should follow, what color we should wear, what food we should eat, what language we should speak. It is this invisible framework that spreads hate, prompts violence against minorities and women, and eventually normalizes the very objectives of the Manusmriti that Babasaheb burnt 100 years ago.
So, smashing patriarchy is definitely not about hating men or hating our society at large. That is a deliberate misinterpretation spread by those who benefit from it. Smashing patriarchy is about challenging the social order that is normalizing injustice, poverty, violence, inequality and discrimination. And we challenge it through relentless resistance, through education, through upholding our rights, and through living our Constitutional values as individuals and as a progressive society.
From the cappuccino generation that chose coolness as a form of rebellion, to the matcha generation that has now chosen wellness and mental health as a form of resistance, women have fought different frames, orders, spaces and colors of patriarchy for a very long time. What Rahul Gandhi has done is important. He has successfully engaged with the women of these two generations. By bringing the patriarchy debate from drawing rooms and seminars into the center of political narrative, he has touched a subject that many political leaders have shied away from for a very long time.
Babasaheb Ambedkar famously said, "They cannot make history who forget history." History tells us clearly that fascist governments across the world derived their power from a regressive social system and from crony capitalism, they used one to strengthen the other.
As a nation, we have a choice. We can skip the painful learning curve of history, or we can repeat it. To skip it, we must resist. And the first step to resisting fascism is to smash the patriarchy that feeds it.
Kavitha Reddy, www.kavithareddy.in