The newly elected Scottish Green politician who campaigned on being transgender and having a poor Indian background has been revealed to come from a private-schooling upbringing.
Q Manivannan, who was elected to the Scottish Parliament this month, drew attention after it emerged that he would serve as an MSP while on a student visa. The situation sparked controversy because the visa could expire before the end of Manivannan’s term. Reporters also revealed he was crowdfunding for a graduate visa extension.
Manivannan identifies as transgender and nonbinary. He campaigned as a “queer Tamil immigrant” who would be a voice for the “working class and marginalised.” He also claimed to have a “lower caste” background, saying at times he was “hungry” because he was “starved.”
He further claimed to have “saved and worked and lied and begged” in order to obtain his PhD.
However, according to a report by The Sunday Times, Manivannan actually has an upper-middle-class background in one of the wealthiest cities in India and attended a private high school. He also attended an upper-class private university that costs roughly 30 times more on average than the country’s most prestigious public universities.
The report further revealed that Manivannan previously ran a subsidiary of an Indian business that teaches rich children to access elite institutions. This comes despite his advocacy for banning private schooling.
Manivannan’s family has had high-status roles for multiple generations, despite him saying he is a descendant of “courtesans, dancers, musicians, hunters, and prostitutes.” His father was a childhood tennis champion and has degrees in chemical engineering and business administration. His mother has a successful career in academia.
“It appears that Q Manivannan has questions to answer after apparently pulling the wool over the eyes of the Scottish Greens,” a spokesman for the Scottish Tories said. “This new MSP wouldn’t be the first left-wing politician to embellish their supposedly working-class credentials to curry favour. But the public expect those they elect to be transparent and honest about their life before politics, rather than peddling false information about what they have done and where they came from.”
