Following the complaint filed by Legal Rights Protection Forum (LRPF), the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has issued directions to the Principal Secretary of Andhra Pradesh Social Welfare Department to take action against Christian Pastors who had received ₹5000 through the ‘Disaster Relief Fund’ rolled out by the state government holding Hindu SC/OBC Caste Certificates.

Union Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment directed Principal Secretary, AP Social Welfare Dept to take action against Christian Pastors who received Rs.5K through 'Disaster Relief Fund' by holding Hindu SC/OBC Caste Certificates. Asked to submit Action Taken Report. https://t.co/RRKjV6R4CG pic.twitter.com/vVdBbSwCMi

— Legal Rights Protection Forum (@lawinforce) November 6, 2020

The Legal Rights Protection Forum, an NGO working in the area of national security had unearthed a massive fraud happening right under the nose of YSR Jagan Mohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh.

Its investigation had revealed that 70% of the 29,841 Christian pastors, who received one-time government honorarium of ₹5,000 through the Disaster Relief Fund, held 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 had received ₹5000 honorarium totalling to ₹33.92 crores, an RTI filed earlier 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 had 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 pointed to an anomaly.

While the official estimates place the Christian population in Andhra Pradesh at 1.39%, 43.99% of the honorarium beneficiaries were found to be Christian Pastors.

LRPF had observed in its findings that a large percentage of Christians who have been baptised and undergone Pastor Training courses held Hindu Caste Certificates and had obtained one-time relief honorarium of ₹5,000.

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.

In light of this, the LRPF had written a letter to National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) to take action and issue orders to the Andhra Pradesh Government to submit to the Commission the complete list of Christian Pastors who had received ₹5,000 as one-time disaster relief along with religion/community details of all the 29,841 pastors.

It said that there is a serious abuse and defrauding of public exchequer and added that the present government was  directly encouraging for the Scheduled Caste community to convert to Christianity through this.

It said that as per its sample data and other relevant data obtained from the RTI, around 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.

The LRPF had mentioned in its complaint 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 who corner all the constitutional benefits meant for real Scheduled Caste members.

“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 noted in its complaint.

The LRPF had 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 that only 10-15% of Scheduled Caste in Andhra Pradesh are real Hindu Scheduled Castes clinging to their native religion, culture and civilization.

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The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has appointed Gopi Shankar Madurai, an intersex activist, as one of the five representatives of transgender community to the National Council of Transgender Persons.

The Government of India on August 21 issued a gazette notification announcing the formation of India’s first ever statutory body for dealing with issues related to transgenders – the National Council for Transgender Persons.

The body has been created under Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. The Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment and the Minister of State of Social Justice and Empowerment serve as the Chairperson and the Vice Chairperson respectively. Other members of the council include representatives not below the rank of a Joint Secretary from different ministries and departments, National Human Rights Commission, National Women Commission and NITI Aayog. Apart from them, five representatives from the transgender community are nominated representing different regions of the country who will serve for 3 years.

Gopi Shankar Madurai will be representing the southern region in the commission and is the first openly intersex and gender-queer person to get appointed in a statutory body. Ze is also the youngest member in the council.

Speaking about the appointment, Gopi Shankar Madurai said “Intersex people are often invisiblised in the legal and policy discourse. The distinction between gender identity and sex characteristics is also not understood. Being intersex, refers to sex characteristics. Intersex people in India do not have redressal mechanisms from human rights violations. They face massive barriers in access to health, education, public services and employment.  To bring about changes in the existing governance regime, it is important to work and engage with the system. During my tenure in the Council, I plan to raise awareness about rights of intersex people in general and intersex infants and children in particular. I hope to contribute in developing a comprehensive legal protection regime for intersex people.”

Gopi, a native of Madurai was the youngest and the first intersex person to contest in 2016 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. Ze coined the Tamil term for gender-queer people and wrote the first book on gender variants in Tamil.

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