IN HIS SEPTEMBER 1, 2026 Indian Express commentary on the Manusmriti, legal scholar Prof. Tahir Mahmood (former Dean, Law, University of Delhi, and an AMU alumnus) purports to rescue ancient legal traditions from the perceived distortions of colonial translation by offering a benevolent, protective reinterpretation of the famous verse Na striswatantrayamarhati. He contends that when the text sequentially places a woman under the guardianship of her father in childhood, her husband in youth, and her son in old age, it does not declare her inferior or unfit for independence. Instead, Mahmood argues that the verse imposes a sacred obligation of “protection” (raksha) and safety upon her male relatives. By translating swatantrayamarhati as “never left unprotected,” he attempts to harmonize classical Dharmashastric jurisprudence with modern statutory maintenance laws, asserting that male oversight is merely an ancient counterpart to a family’s legal duty to provide food, housing, and security for dependent women.
For illustration, Sir William Jones (1794) in Institutes of Hindu Law: or, the Ordinances of Manu, translated swatantrayamarhati as “never fit for independence” (or in related passages as, “ought never to enjoy independence”), creating the classical British legal rendering that entered Anglo-Hindu colonial jurisprudence. British Indologist Sir George Bühler (1886), In The Laws of Manu (Oxford University Press, Vol. 25, of Sacred Books of the East), similarly rendered it as, “A woman is never fit for independence.” Meanwhile, Prof. Tahir Mahmood renders the concept as “never left unprotected” by re-reading swatantryam not as political or personal “freedom”, but as absence of protection/custody, understandably, drawing from classical Indian commentators such as Medhātithi and Rāghavānanda, who interpreted svātantryam in this specific context as rākṣitṛ-rahitatvam, that is, “being left without a guardian or protector”.
