Did Elections For Mayoral Post In Chennai Make A Mockery Of Social Justice?

The DMK Government announced that in Priya Rajan (28), Chennai was getting 'a Dalit' as the Mayor of the city for the first time.

However, this claim had been proved wrong as the first Mayor of Madras (Chennai) from the Scheduled Community was Sri. Namasivayam Sivaraj.

DMK supporters then claimed that Priya Rajan was the first Dalit woman Mayor of the city.

But now, even that claims seems to be wrong.

Today, two separate news agencies brought out the revelation that the much highlighted 'Dalit' woman mayor may not be actually Dalit.

According to the Indian Constitution, those from the Scheduled Community who get converted to Christianity are no longer considered as belonging to the 'Scheduled Community.' They lose the benefits of affirmative action. Those of the Scheduled Community, who, despite the social disadvantage, owe their allegiance to Hindu Dharma alone are entitled to the benefits of affirmative action.

This is justifiable because the crime of untouchability is a disease that ails Hindu society.

On the other hand, the propaganda around conversions has always been that Christianity was a religion which was free of such social evils.

There have been allegations of a large number of crypto-Christians—Hindus on certificates but Christians in their actual religion—exploiting the benefits meant for SC Hindus.

But what has happened in the case of Priya Rajan seems to be an explicit violation and not a case of someone claiming to be a Hindu on paper but being a practising Christian in real life.

The truth seemed to have surfaced when the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN), a news agency for Catholics, published a report with the headline 'Dalit Christian woman is the youngest mayor of India's Chennai city.' It claimed that Priya was a Christian and a member of the Evangelical Church of India (ECI).

Incidentally, ECI is the Church whose most prominent face in Tamil Nadu is Ezra Sargunam - a Bishop who is very close to the ruling DMK. ECI has a goal of establishing 10,00,000 churches by 2056. Ezra Sargunam is the same Bishop who had became notorious for his statement that 'Hindus should be punched in the face'.

The Hindu Makkal Katchi (HMK)of Arjun Sampath has already shown that the newly elected Mayor in fact went and paid a visit to this rabble-rousing Christian Bishop.

An investigation by Deccan Chronicle has this to say:

Talking to Swarajya, Sri. Ma. Venkatesan, Honourable Chairman, National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK)(Govt of India) said that if true, then the news really pains him.

If Dr. Ambedkar believed that converted Christians really deserved the benefits of affirmative action, then he would have written so specifically in the Constitution, Venkatesan pointed out. Further, he stated that Dr. Ambedkar himself had rejected conversion to Christianity. On one occasion, he had stated that it would strengthen the British in India and on another occasion he stated that while moving to Buddhism was like moving from one room to another in the same house converting to Christianity was akin to going to another house.

He had used the term 'denationalise' with respect to conversion to Christianity. So according the benefits of affirmative action to the Scheduled Community is also the recognition of their commitment to the culture and spiritual traditions of this land while fighting against the sin of social stagnation and evils of inhuman practices like untouchability.

Sri. Ma. Venkatesan passionately pointed out that using the tools of social justice to play evangelical games is a betrayal to the great revolutionary icon that was Dr. Ambedkar as well as the three greatest social justice warrior Hindus of Tamil Nadu: Perunthalaivar M.C.Rajah, Paramacharya Swami Sahajananda and 'Thatha' Rettaimalai Srinivasan. He pointed out:

If Priya Rajan is indeed a convert to Christianity then this is a direct challenge to social justice and Indian Constitution.