The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday, 13 September, filed a complaint against Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP A Raja over a comment he purportedly made about Hinduism during a speech last week.
A 40-second clip, out of a 12-minute-long speech, has been doing the rounds on social media, in which Raja is purportedly heard saying, "As long as you are a Hindu, you are a Shudra. As long as you are a Shudra, you are the son of a prostitute."
"You are a Panchaman (Dalit) till you remain a Hindu. You are an untouchable till you remain a Hindu," he further adds.
During the speech, Raja also slammed the Supreme Court, claiming that the latter had said that if one is not a Christian, Muslim, or Parsi, then one "should be a Hindu."
This is despite the fact that a section of Lingayats had filed a case, arguing that they have different religious practises as compared to Hindus and that they did not want to be included in the same category.
"Does such an atrocity happen elsewhere?" the DMK leader had asked.
Raja was speaking at an event for collecting subscriptions for the paper Viduthalai.
He said that the BJP was attempting to "saffronise" all institutions, like the Supreme Court, the Election Commission, and Parliament, apart from central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
"Hereafter, we should not hesitate to question who a Hindu is, in papers like Murasoli, Theekkathir, and Viduthalai. I don’t want to be a Hindu. We need the right to ask ‘why do you want to keep me a Hindu?'" the Nilgiris MP added.
'Raja's Intention is to Incite Religious Violence': BJP
Tamil Nadu BJP Vice-President Karu Nagarajan filed a complaint against Raja for his comments, saying that the intention behind his speech was to "destroy Hindu religious beliefs," "spread rumours," and "incite religious violence" in the state, The News Minute reported.
"A Member of the Parliament, who won through the votes of a majority of Hindus, speaking like this is anti-democratic," the leader said.
Several other BJP leaders also accused Raja of "spewing hatred" against one community to appease another.
Taking to Twitter, Tamil Nadu BJP Chief K Annamalai said that the mindset of leaders like Raja was unfortunate, and that they think that they "own" the state.
"Sorry state of political discourse in Tamil Nadu. @arivalayam MP has yet again spewed hatred against one community with the sole aim of appeasing others. Very very unfortunate mindset of these political leaders who think they own Tamil Nadu," Annamalai said.
BJP's Mahila Morcha President Vanathi Srinivasan also slammed Raja, saying that he had insulted women and Hindus several times earlier as well.
"This time too, he has spewed venom stating that all Shudras are children of prostitutes and they will remain so until they remain in Hinduism," she said.
After being criticised for his comments, Raja put out a tweet in which he alleged that Shudras had been "insulted" in the Manusmriti, adding that the Dravidian movement was the "saviour" of 90 percent of Hindus.
"Who are Sudras? Are they not Hindus? Why they have been insulted in Manusmrithi denied equality, education, employment, and Temple entry. Dravidian Movement as saviour of 90% Hindus questioned and redressed these, cannot be anti-Hindus," Raja said.
(With inputs from The News Minute.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)