The recent appointment of Father Mariasusai as a member of the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission by the DMK government led by MK Stalin has sparked controversy, as Mariasusai is a Christian priest and a known Maoist sympathizer.

Mariasusai is the Rector of Janodaya Salesian College at The Retreat, Yercaud, and is a Christian priest of the Salesian order. Father Mariasusai has an extremely controversial past as he allegedly had a close relationship with recently deceased ‘Urban Naxal’ and fellow Christian priest Stanislaus Lourduswamy, aka Stan Swamy. In fact, in honour of terror suspect Stan Swamy, who died lately, the Retreat Don Bosco Yercaud launched a campaign and gave “relief materials.”

Mariasousai’s appointment is regarded as a reward to the Christians who voted en masse for the DMK. Contrary to former ADMK minister CV Shanmugam’s claim that the ADMK-BJP alliance cost the party minority votes, minorities would have voted for the DMK-Congress coalition regardless of the ADMK-BJP collaboration.

Late Jayalalithaa, who had previously stated that she would not form an alliance with the BJP in the future, did so again in 2004 and lost the minority vote. Minorities did not trust her, despite the fact that she left the BJP alliance soon after the 2004 parliament election, which made  Jayalalitha lose the 2006 state legislative assembly election. Minorities have never trusted Jayalalitha and have never been the ADMK’s vote bank since 2004. They have always voted en-masse for the DMK and have reaped the benefits after the party has gained power.

Even though the Election Commission prohibits canvassing for elections based on religion, it has become customary for churches and bishop councils to publicly express their entire support for the DMK before every election. During the 2019 election campaign, the election commission had sealed a hall in Chennai Central constituency after receiving information that DMK Dayanidhimaran was negotiating with minority leaders to encourage minority people to vote in favour of him in Chennai Central constituency.

In fact, according to a study conducted by a group of demographic scientists in 2016, Tamil Nadu is the most favourable state in India for the growth of Christianity. The study by AP Joshi, MD Srinivas and JK Bajaj of the Centre for Policy Studies, a Chennai think-tank, has found that the Christian community in Tamil Nadu recorded the most remarkable growth of population during the 1951 to 2011 period. While the Christians constituted only 4.74 per cent of the Tamil Nadu population in 1951 when the first census was held, it increased in an impressive manner over the last six decades to 6.12 per cent. “The last decade (2001 to 2011) saw the Christian population growing up by 16.73 per cent,” said Prof Bajaj. At the same time, the population of Hindus which constituted 90.47 per cent of the State’s population in 1951 has come down to 87.58 per cent by 2011.

Reservation demands from caste and religious groups are very common in India. However in Tamil Nadu, in what is perhaps the first instance of a community rejecting a specific reservation quota in government jobs and educational institution seats have happened. Even without a demand for reservation, former DMK Chief Minister Karunanidhi gave Christians a 3.5% quota inside the OBC quota. Later, a delegation of Christian leaders and Bishops lead by then Congress MLA Peter Alphonse made representation to then CM Karunanidhi in 2008 and got the reservation scrapped.

With this background of DMK, MK Stalin appointing a Maoist sympathizer as a TNPSC member is not shocking. There is nothing to be surprised about, even if a Christian is appointed as the head of the temple or even the minister for the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department.

Mariasusai has also been a vocal DMK supporter. His Twitter profile which has now been deleted had posts supportive of the DMK. Hence, there is the apprehension that as a TNPSC member, Mariasusai would be selecting civil servants for the state who is from a particular religious background and subscribes to the ideologies of the DMK.

In another controversial appointment Dindigual Leoni has been made the head of the Tamil Nadu Textbook & Educational Services Corporation by Chief Minister Stalin. He is known for his sexist statements he made during elections where he compared the waist of Tamil women with barrels.

During the 2021 assembly elections, while campaigning for Karthikeya Sivasenapathy in the Thondamuthur constituency, he said “women have lost their shape” and “increasingly look like a barrel”. He went on to compare their physical shape to that of cows and said that they were starting to look like them since they have been drinking the milk obtained from foreign imported cows. Women activists, political leaders, and the general public all denounced his sexist remarks.

Another concern that is being raised is that, Leoni too is a Christian and has been quite vocal about bringing about changes in the textbooks which was only recently revised to raise its standards to that of NCERT textbooks. The earlier Samacheer Kalvi textbooks introduced by late DMK patriarch Karunanidhi was of substandard quality that regularized rote learning and made state board students mediocre.

It is in the light of these two appointments that concerns have raised about whether the DMK is enacting a mammoth project of Christianizing Tamil Nadu to cultivate its vote bank.

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