The MK Stalin led DMK government made a big song and dance about electing the first ‘Dalit’ (Scheduled Caste, SC) woman Mayor of Chennai when they nominated 28 year old R. Priya to the said post. The DMK, its allies and their media fellow travellers hailed it as a symbol of Dalit empowerment.

R Priya Is a Christian & Not A ‘Dalit‘

There is a slight problem with the picture perfect propaganda of DMK optics. R Priya is a Christian with a Hindu name and not a SC Hindu to avail the benefit of a reserved SC seat.

Pertinently, only in January 2022, the Stalin government passed an order reserving the Chennai Mayor seat for an SC woman. It is an open secret that the Church and its concomitant evangelist lobby is very close to the DMK honchos right from the times of party patriarch, M Karunanidhi, and has always wielded its clout in the anti-Hindu policies pursued by the party.

R Priya’s Meet With Hatemonger Bishop Sargunam

Soon tumbled out news in social media that our young heroine, R Priya is in fact an admirer of rabid evangelist hatemonger Bishop Ezra Sargunam, who infamously hates Hindus and denies the very existence of Hindu Dahrma so much that he had urged in 2019, “There is nothing called as a Hindu religion, Punch them in their face couple of times, make them bleed and help them understand the truth”. Pictures of her meeting with the venom spewing Bishop Sargunam was splashed all across social media.

The Indu Makkal Katchi Chief, Arjun Sampath tweeted stating, “Mayor of Chennai is a member of “Ottery ECI Church”. She went to meet Bishop Ezra to receive his blessings. Now any doubt on Gopalapuram connection- Crypto. This is total injustice to Dalit community”.     

Constitutional Order of 1950 Bars non-Hindus for SC/ST Reservation

Pertinently, Christian R Priya and DMK are guilty of committing fraud and usurping the rights of eligible Hindu SC candidates to occupy the post of Mayor reserved only for SCs.

Notably, the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order,1950 unambiguously states that, “No person who professes a religion different from the Hindu (the Sikh or the Buddhist) religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste”

The provisions of reservation were conceived by Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar in the Constitution of India only for a period of 10 years, from 1951-1961 and was meant only for SC/ST but the Mandal Commission extended it to include the Other Backward Classes too in 1990. 

Interestingly, the Church claims that Christianity does not have any ‘caste system’ and runs propaganda of discriminatory ‘caste system’ in Hindu Dharma to convert marginalised sections of Hindu society by employing force, fraud and monetary allurement.

Madras High Court Mentioned Christian Converts Usurping Reservations

In the George Ponnaiah hate speech case, the Madras High Court had observed that, “One can take judicial notice of the fact a large number of Scheduled Caste Hindus, though having converted to Christianity and professing the said religion, call themselves Hindus on record for the purpose of availing reservation. Such persons are called as Crypto-Christians”. The Court in this case further cited this as the reason why notwithstanding the census figures, Pastor George Ponnaiah boasted about Christians being 62% of the population in Kanyakumari and soon reaching 72%. 

The Court had also mentioned that “There was even a motion picture based on this theme (Rudra Thandavam)…”

UCA News Hails R. Priya As ‘Dalit’ Christian

Pertinently, The Union of Catholic Asian News (ucanews.com) had proudly claimed R. Priya to be youngest ‘Dalit’ Christian woman appointed as Mayor of Chennai city. It has also claimed that R. Priya is said to be a member of the Evangelical Church of India (ECI), which has congregations in at least 10 states.

The UCA news also stated that Pastor Vincent Chinnadurai, the former spokesperson of the Tamil Nadu Bishops’ Council, said it was a remarkable moment for ‘Dalit’ Christian women.

Interestingly, the UCA news (archive link) had on 7th March, 2022 clearly carried a news report with its headlines and contents mentioning R Priya as the first ‘Dalit Christian’ Mayor of Chennai. But on 8th March, 2022 the UCA news website mischievously removed the mention of R. Priya as ‘Dalit Christian’ in the tittle of the article and mentioned her as a Dalit woman.

Sensing trouble of prosecution for fraud and challenge to illegal appointment of R. Priya, a Christian in the reserved SC seat for Mayor position, the UCA news has employed its usual chicanery to edit their content on 8th March, 2022 to obfuscate the matter. Pertinently, UCA News is a mouthpiece for Asian Catholic evangelists with tagline, “Christ Calls, Asians Respond”.

R. Priya Should Be Prosecuted For Fraud & Election Legally Quashed 

Nevertheless, R Priya’s fraudulent usurpation of a reserved SC seat being a Christian is in gross violation of Constitutional provisions and Constitutional Order of 1950 and is an act which has robbed deserving candidates from the Hindu SC community for whose benefit the reservations were mandated in the Constitution. In fact, her actions attract provisions of Indian Penal Code for committing fraud and should be prosecuted for the same. 

Christian R. Priya’s bogus deceitful occupation of Mayor’s post of Chennai Corporation should be legally challenged and quashed by suitable SC candidates from the BJP and other political parties who have been cheated of their opportunities due to fraud. FIRs should be registered against this daylight fraud. 

It is important to prosecute R. Priya and set aside her Mayoral election from SC seat as it pushes the envelope of reservations giving incentives to conversion by including Christians and Muslims converts through the backdoor in patent violation of the Constitution.

Priya’s case also brings to fore the rampant fraud of Christian converts retaining Hindu names with an intent to avail reservations meant for upliftment of Sanatani Dalits. Such gross misuse also begs a question whether Hindu Dharma Gurus should start a movement to pressurise the government to legislate a law making it mandatory to change the name in cases of conversion to reflect their adopted faith. It is also time to review the efficacy of seven decade reservation policy.

-By Gayatri N

(This article first appeared on bharatvoice.in and is reproduced here in full, with minor changes to conform to HinduPost standards)