Anti-Hindu hate on display: Leftist historian vilifies Manusmriti and blames it for killing of Sikh woman
India 
29 August, 2026
Case Summary
Anti-Hindu propagandist and historian, Dr Ruchika Sharma, vilified the Manusmriti while falsely attributing it to the death of Sikh social media influencer Manjeet Kaur. Manjeet Kaur, a 28-year-old social media influencer from Chandigarh, died on August 26, 2026, after spending nearly two months in hospital with severe burn injuries. According to the complaint filed by her mother, Kaur was called to meet two acquaintances in Chandigarh on 3 July 2026, after which she was forcibly taken to a forested area near Morinda, Punjab. She was assaulted, tied to a tree and set on fire before being rescued and taken to hospital. She was subsequently shifted to PGIMER in Chandigarh, where she died from her injuries. Chandigarh Police registered a case of kidnapping and murder against two suspects following her death. An autopsy later found that Kaur had been nearly seven weeks pregnant when she died. Following a Times of India report about her death and pregnancy, historian Dr Ruchika Sharma responded on social media by linking the death of Manjeet Kaur to Manusmriti, writing, “This is Manusmriti in action.” Her remark drew criticism from historian and social-media user @TrueIndology, who pointed out that the individuals named in connection with Kaur’s killing were in fact Sikhs and that Sikh religious practice did not follow the Manusmriti or other Smriti texts. TrueIndology also stated that the Manusmriti itself condemned foeticide and infanticide, and therefore criticised Sharma for invoking the text in connection with Kaur’s death. Sharma subsequently posted a video in which she extensively vilified the Manusmriti and its portrayal in the NCERT Class 9 Social Science textbook. She alleged that the text is “misogynist” and “casteist” and claimed that NCERT had selectively cited Manusmriti 3.56, “Yatra naryastu pujyante ramante tatra devatah,” to portray women as respected and empowered in ancient Indian society while omitting other passages that prescribed restrictions and subordination of women. Subsequently, she selectively quoted verses portraying the Manusmriti as regressive and patriarchal, claiming that women should be placed under the authority of fathers, husbands, and sons. She also claimed that women are inherently susceptible to sexual corruption, and that provisions restricted their role as witnesses or advisers. Sharma also focused extensively on Manusmriti’s treatment of Shudras. She claimed that some passages in Manusmriti prescribed severe punishments for Shudras who insulted members of the twice-born varnas or taught religious doctrine to Brahmins, including corporal mutilation and the use of heated substances. She further referred to passages concerning Shudras’ property and servile status, using them to argue that the text institutionalised caste-based discrimination and violence. She similarly highlighted passages concerning the beating of wives, sons, slaves and disciples, presenting these provisions as evidence of the text’s patriarchal character. In the video, Sharma also challenged the classification of the Manusmriti as a Vedic-period source. She said that historians generally dated its composition to several centuries after the Vedic period and questioned why NCERT had used it while discussing the status of women during the Vedic period. She discussed scholarly debates surrounding the authorship and composition of the text and referred to translations and interpretations by scholars including Patrick Olivelle and Georg Bühler. Sharma further criticised the continued public and institutional references to the Manusmriti. She referred to a 2022 observation by Delhi High Court judge Pratibha Singh concerning the status accorded to women in the Manusmriti and criticised the presence of a statue of Manu near the Rajasthan High Court’s Jaipur Bench. She argued that a text containing provisions she considered discriminatory towards women and Shudras should either not be taught to schoolchildren or should be taught with its casteist and patriarchal passages fully contextualised. Through the video and her earlier response, Sharma presented the Manusmriti as a text that promoted the subordination of women and discriminatory treatment of Shudras, while strongly criticising its use by NCERT and references to it within contemporary Indian institutions.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category selected in this case is- Hate Speech against Hindus. The subcategory selected is- Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith. Anti-Hindu slurs and the deliberate mocking of the Hindu faith owing to religious animosity involve the usage of derogatory terms, stereotypes, or offensive references to religious practices, symbols, or figures. One of the common anti-Hindu slurs used against Hindus is “cow-worshipper” and “cow piss drinker”. The intention of using this term is to demean and mock Hindus as a group and their religious beliefs since Hindus consider the cow holy. Additionally, some symbols and the slurs attached to them have a historical context that exacerbates the insult, hate, stereotyping, dehumanisation and oppression against Hindus. Cow worship has been used for centuries to denigrate Hindus, insult their faith and oppress Hindus specifically as a religious group. There has been overwhelming documentation about how cow slaughter has been used to persecute Hindus with cow meat being thrown in temples and places of worship. There has also been overwhelming documentation where cow meat (beef) has been force-fed to Hindus to either forcefully convert them to Islam or denigrate their faith. Apart from cow worship, the Swastika – which holds deep religious significance for the Hindus – has also been misinterpreted and distorted to use as a slur against Hindus. Similarly, the worship of the Shivling has been used by supremacist ideologies and religions to denigrate Hindus owing to religious animosity. Such slurs and denigration stem out of inherent animosity and hate towards Hindus and their faith, therefore, it is categorised as hate speech targeted at Hindus specifically owing to their religious identity. The other sub-category selected here is - Subversion of scriptures. Subverting the religious scriptures of Hindus has particularly devastating consequences. Subversion of the scriptures of Hindus is often done to justify or promote hatred, discrimination, or violence against specific individuals or groups of Hindus. Religious scriptures are often nuanced and those who harbour religious animosity towards Hindus often misquote or misrepresent the scripture to legitimise their animosity and hate towards the faith and its adherents. Any such misquoting of scriptures or subversion to justify hate, violence and discrimination against Hindus owing to religious animosity is hate speech and is categorised as such. In this case, Sharma’s statement, “This is Manusmriti in action,” was directed at a report concerning the killing of Manjeet Kaur. The perpetrators involved in the case were Sikh, and the crime did not establish a connection with Hindu religious doctrine or the Manusmriti. By nevertheless presenting the incident as an example of the Manusmriti being put into practice, Sharma falsely attributed a crime committed by individuals belonging to another religious tradition to a Hindu religious text. The formulation was significant because it did not merely criticise a particular verse or discuss the Manusmriti in an academic context; it presented a brutal crime against a woman as the supposed consequence of Hindu scripture. This created a direct association between a violent crime and Hindu religious doctrine, thereby casting Hinduism and its scriptures as responsible for conduct with which they had no established connection. The Manusmriti is a religious text within Hinduism, traditionally attributed to the sage Manu. It functions as a dharmashastra, guiding morality, law, social order and religious conduct, and represents an important symbol of Hindu religious and cultural heritage. For Hindus, the text forms part of the broader corpus of Hindu religious and Dharmic literature and carries historical and civilisational significance. Although, the Manusmriti does contain passages that are controversial and can reasonably be subjected to critical historical and scholarly examination. At the same time, it also contains verses that speak of honouring women, maintaining familial duties, and upholding social and moral responsibilities. Selecting only passages that appear objectionable while ignoring passages that present a different or more favourable conception of social conduct can therefore produce a one-sided representation of the text. In this case, Sharma selectively highlighted verses that supported her portrayal of the Manusmriti as inherently misogynistic and casteist, while presenting those passages as representative of Hinduism as a whole. Her approach also risked imposing contemporary moral standards directly onto a pre-modern text without adequately accounting for the historical, social and intellectual context in which it was composed. Criticising such passages from a modern perspective is legitimate, but treating them as straightforward evidence of the beliefs or conduct of contemporary Hindus disregards the considerable historical distance between the text and modern society. Additionally, critics often weaponise the Manusmriti to portray Hinduism as regressive, casteist, or anti-women, but this argument collapses under even basic scrutiny. Hinduism is not a religion centered around one book, prophet, or fixed law. The Manusmriti is not the Hindu equivalent of the Bible or Quran; it is one among many Dharmashastras written for specific times and circumstances. Texts like the Yajnavalkya Smriti, Narada Smriti, and Parashara Smriti often contradict Manusmriti, showing that Hindu thought was never rigid or dogmatic but pluralistic and adaptable. To hold Hindus accountable for verses in Manusmriti is deeply unfair and reflects a bias against Hinduism itself. No other faith is judged by selectively quoting its ancient or contextual texts, yet Hinduism alone is targeted in this way. Expecting modern Hindus to answer for verses written thousands of years ago, in an entirely different era, is utterly irrational. Will Muslims be comfortable if they are held responsible for obscure hadiths, or Christians if they are blamed for verses in the Old Testament? Furthermore, no modern Hindu derives their moral or spiritual life from Manusmriti. Hindu rituals, festivals, and everyday ethics are guided by the Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Ramayana, and the living tradition, texts that emphasize duty, equality, and the divinity of all beings. In essence, the Manusmriti is a historical text, not a religious scripture that defines or governs Hindu life today. To use it as a weapon to vilify Hindus is intellectually dishonest and driven by prejudice rather than scholarship. It is a distortion that ignores both the pluralism of Hindu thought and the fact that Hindu society long ago moved beyond any literal reading of such ancient codes. The manner in which Sharma connected the two subjects was particularly relevant to the hate-speech classification. The original statement did not say that a particular individual had personally followed a particular verse of the Manusmriti. Instead, it used the name of a Hindu scripture as an explanatory label for a violent crime and thereby implied that the conduct was a manifestation of Hindu religious principles. Such framing reinforces a negative stereotype in which Hindu religious tradition is presented as inherently responsible for violence against women. The subsequent video strengthened this association by portraying the Manusmriti as evidence of a wider culture of hatred and oppression. The cumulative effect was therefore not simply criticism of an ancient text, but the negative characterisation of Hindu religious tradition through an unrelated criminal act. The targeting was also apparent from the selective religious attribution. The crime involved individuals who followed a religious tradition distinct from Hinduism, yet Sharma chose to invoke a Hindu scripture when commenting on the incident. This distinction is important because the statement did not arise from evidence that the accused had acted under the Manusmriti or that the crime was motivated by Hindu beliefs. The attribution instead originated from Sharma herself. By assigning the conduct to a Hindu religious text without an established factual basis, she effectively transferred responsibility for an act committed by individuals outside that religious tradition onto Hinduism. Such a framing can reinforce prejudice by portraying Hindu scriptures as uniquely responsible for violence and oppression while disregarding the actual religious identity and circumstances of the perpetrators. The religious dimension became even clearer when Sharma subsequently produced an extended video specifically attacking the Manusmriti. Rather than limiting her discussion to the historical or textual interpretation of particular verses, she repeatedly characterised the text as fundamentally “misogynist” and “casteist”, described it as containing “hatred” towards women and Shudras, and presented its alleged influence as a continuing poison within Indian society. She used selected passages concerning women, Shudras, caste hierarchy, corporal punishment and social restrictions to construct a broader narrative in which the Manusmriti represented the oppressive character of Hindu society. The video therefore transformed an individual criminal incident, which had no established religious connection to the Manusmriti, into an occasion for a sustained attack on a Hindu religious text and the social tradition associated with it. By presenting the text as representative of a continuing Hindu social order, the commentary extended the criticism from an ancient scripture to a broader characterisation of Hindu civilisation and its adherents. The case therefore differed from a purely academic discussion of the Manusmriti. A historian may legitimately examine controversial passages, question their historical context, challenge their interpretation or debate the extent to which the text influenced Indian society. Such scholarly criticism, by itself, would not constitute hate speech. The concern in this case arose from the manner in which Sharma first invoked the Manusmriti to explain a violent crime unrelated to Hindu religious practice and then used that framing as the basis for a much broader denunciation of the text and the Hindu social tradition associated with it. The combination of the two created a religiously prejudicial narrative in which violence against a Hindu woman was presented as the manifestation of Hindu scripture, despite the absence of an established connection between the crime and the faith. The statement also had the effect of collectively associating Hindus with the alleged negative characteristics Sharma attributed to the Manusmriti. By repeatedly describing the text as hateful towards women and Shudras and linking its supposed principles to contemporary Indian society, the commentary contributed to a portrayal of Hindu civilisation as inherently misogynistic, casteist and oppressive. This was not directed merely at the historical authorship or textual composition of the Manusmriti; it invoked the scripture as a representation of Hindu social and religious values. The distinction is important because hate speech can operate through the denigration of religious traditions and their foundational texts even when the speech does not contain an explicit slur against every individual adherent. It is necessary to highlight that Ruchika Sharma’s hate remark fits within her well-documented pattern of anti-Hindu behaviour. Over the years, she has repeatedly distorted Hindu history and glorified Islamic invaders under the guise of scholarship. Her writings, including her 2017 article in Scroll titled “History lesson: Padmavati was driven to immolation by a Rajput prince, not Alauddin Khilji,” whitewashed the atrocities of medieval Islamic rulers while portraying Hindu traditions in a derogatory light. She has publicly praised figures like Aurangzeb and Tipu Sultan, downplaying their persecution of Hindus, destruction of temples, and forced conversions. Through her YouTube content and social media presence, Sharma has continually propagated anti-Hindu narratives and attempted to delegitimise Hindu civilisational history. Her record further reveals a deliberate ideological bias. After once facing threats for criticising the Muslim practice of hijab, Sharma publicly declared that she would no longer speak about Islam or Muslims and would focus her criticism solely on Hindus and Hinduism. This admission makes clear that her conduct is not rooted in academic critique or free speech but in a one-sided agenda, shielding Islam from scrutiny while targeting Hindus with persistent hostility. Accordingly, the hate-crime concern in this case arose from the religiously prejudicial framing of an unrelated crime and the subsequent use of that framing to denigrate a Hindu religious text and, by extension, the Hindu tradition associated with it. Sharma’s statement attributed a crime committed by Sikhs to the Manusmriti, while her subsequent commentary portrayed the Hindu scripture as inherently hateful, misogynistic and casteist and suggested that these characteristics continued to contaminate Indian society. Taken together, the remarks went beyond criticism of a historical text and constituted a targeted form of religious denigration against Hinduism and its adherents. The case was therefore categorised in the Hinduphobia Tracker as anti-Hindu hate speech.
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Others
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
female
Sources 
