The Legal Rights Protection Forum, an NGO working in the area of national security has unearthed a massive fraud that has been happening right under the nose of YSR Jagan Mohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh.
Its investigation has revealed that 70% of the 29,841 Christian pastors, who received one-time government honorarium of ₹5,000 through the Disaster Relief Fund, hold Scheduled Caste / Other Backward Caste certificates illegally. The SC/OBC certificates are given only to practising Hindus.
An honorarium of ₹5000 was being given to all ‘Religious Service Renders’ that includes Archakas, Imams, Mouzzams and Christian Pastors by the Andhra Pradesh government as relief in view of the Wuhan Virus pandemic and the lockdown.
31,017 Archakas, 7000 Imams and Mouzzams, 29,841 Pastors have been paid ₹5000 honorarium totalling to ₹33.92 crores, an RTI filed by LRPF revealed.
However, it was found that a large percentage of Christians who have been baptised and have undergone Pastor Training courses hold SC/OBC certificates and have obtained ₹5,000 honorarium.
According to Census 2011, 90.86% of Andhra Pradesh’s population are Hindus, 7.33% are Muslims and 1.39% are Christians.
However, the data of the honorarium beneficiaries clearly show the anomaly.
While the official estimate of population of the Christians in AP is 1.39%, 43.99% of the honorarium beneficiaries are Christian Pastors.
LRPF has observed in its findings that a large percentage of Christians who have been baptised and undergone Pastor Training courses but holding Hindu Caste Certificates have obtained one-time relief honorarium of ₹5,000.
The LRPF has written a letter to National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) to take action and immediately order the Andhra Pradesh Government to submit to the Commission the complete list of Christian Pastors who have received ₹5,000 as one-time disaster relief along with religion/community details of all the 29,841 pastors.
It said that as per its sample data and other relevant data obtained from the RTI, 58.14 % of Christian pastors are actually holding Hindu-SC community certificates and 13.37%of the Christian pastors are holding Hindu OBC Community certificates.
“On a conservative basis, if we assume that the 70% of the pastors listed above carry Hindu community certificates (sample data reveals 80.81%), the total figure of such pastors come to 20,900. And the amount received by them ₹5000 per head comes to ₹10.45 Crores which is clearly fraudulent misuse of public money.”, urging the NCSC to take appropriate action and weed out converts who have illegally obtained SC/OBC Communities certificate through fraudulent misrepresentation of facts.
Converted Christians committing fraud
The LRPF mentioned that the pastors are holding dual religious identities to utilise the various benefits of the government that are given to Scheduled Caste and Other Backward Communities.
“When government runs schemes for welfare of SCs/OBCs, they are utilising the Hindu identity and in this case, when a scheme which is intended to benefit Christian pastors was announced, they have utilised their Christian identity.”, it said.
The extent of misuse of SC benefits can be seen from the following data.
From the above data it is obvious that there is a huge jump in population of SCs while there is sharp decline in number of Christians. The LRPF noted that this is possible only when large numbers of Christians have started declaring themselves as Hindu-SCs and obtaining relevant community certificates enabling them to illegally corner all the benefits designed to uplift the livelihood of SCs. It said that such a large-scale misuse cannot be possible without active connivance of the administration in the state.
It is important to note that the Jagan Mohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh had announced ₹5000 monthly allowance for Christian pastors in September 2019. However, the state government did not make it mandatory for submitting Christian community certificate which allowed Christians holding Hindu community certificates to apply and benefit.
“As and when the government fulfils its election promise of monthly payments to pastors, all these people will enjoy the benefit every month.”, LRPF said.
It said that this is a serious abuse and defrauding of public exchequer and a direct encouragement for the Scheduled Caste community to convert to Christianity by the present government, who corner all the constitutional benefits meant for real Scheduled Caste members.
State sponsored conversions?
It is to be noted that Government of Andhra Pradesh had released funds for construction/repair/renovation of 76 churches at a cost of ₹5 lakhs each.
“We are not blaming the present government in Andhra Pradesh this has happened over a period of last 5 decades and successive governments in the state have turned a blind eye or actively assisted such a misuse of benefits of Scheduled Castes.”, it said in its complaint.
The earlier government during the 2014-19 period, had funded construction of 817 churches, the LRPF said citing the Budget speech of the then Finance Minister Sri Yanamala Ramakrishnudu.
Most of the churches are said to be located in SC colonies thereby aiding religious conversion of pagan religion followers.
The LRPF has appealed to the NCSC to send a fact-finding mission to Andhra Pradesh to investigate the onslaught of evangelical lobby armed with financial support through FCRA funds through brazen conversion. It noted in its complaint only 10-15% of Scheduled Caste in Andhra Pradesh are real Hindu Scheduled Castes clinging to their native religion, culture and civilization.
