Lakshmi Priya Hits Back At Critics Says She Is A Proud Sanatana Dharma Believer: 'I'm A Tiger...'

Amid the controversy surrounding the 'AMMA' association, actress Lakshmi Priya has declared that she is a believer in Sanatana Dharma. She clarified that she converted to Hinduism 23 years ago out of personal choice. She also took a swipe at actress Usha.

Actress Lakshmi Priya has come out with a long, fiery note on social media, right in the middle of the ongoing issues involving the film body 'AMMA' and actress Ansiba Hassan. Lakshmi Priya says she is not someone who can be easily broken. While stating that she has no caste or religious bias, she proudly declared that she is a believer in Sanatana Dharma. She also had some strong words for actress Usha Haseena.

Here's what Lakshmi Priya said in her own words:

"There are some people who will be with you for years, like a mother or a grandmother. But when the time comes, they will backstab you like Kattappa and stamp on you again and again, thinking you're dead. They don't understand the spiritual strength within us. A tiger doesn't crouch to hide, but to pounce forward with more strength. I am of a breed that can only be broken if I myself decide to be. A person should be forged in the furnace of experience. No force can shatter such people."

1. What is my religion? It makes me feel ashamed to repeatedly talk and write about my religion. My grandmother, who proudly said she had mastered the holy books, never taught me about religion. In my home and in the Onattukara region, religion was something that only came up during weddings and funerals. The feeling that I was born a Muslim left me when I was 16, lying in the women's ward at Alappuzha Medical College after surgery. An old woman from the Pulaya community, with her vitiligo-affected hands, would brush my teeth and feed me. All the mothers in that ward helped me, from handling my urine to cleaning my body. That's when all thoughts of caste and religion left me.

2. However, the waves of Sanatana Dharma were always within me, like embers under ash. It's a beautiful way of life, not just a religion. I believed that my knowledge of dhyana shlokas, mantras, and Sanskrit stories came from learning dance since childhood. After marriage, I was insistent on following my husband's religion, so I converted to Hinduism. Not one or two years ago, but 23 years ago, at the age of eighteen. It was only after that I realised my true identity. This is because I am aware of my family's lineage of seven generations and my heritage.

3. When my autobiography, 'Kadhayum Kadhapathrangalum Sankalppikamalla' (The Story and Characters are Not Fictional), was released in 2019, everyone came to know I was a Muslim only after reading what I wrote in it. Until then, people thought I was some high-born Hindu woman. I never felt that converting to Hinduism or leaving Islam was a big deal. Because I know that no religion gives a person anything other than inner peace. Besides, my choice of religion is completely personal, isn't it?

4. Is Lakshmi Priya secular? Never. Because secularism is a sham word. I am a believer in Sanatana Dharma. That dharma, which has no beginning or end, can accommodate all beliefs. My secularism is about respecting other religions and beliefs, not about calling other religions bad.

To Mrs. Usha Haseena, for 23 years, I have been the one and only wife of the same husband. Lakshmi Priya is not someone who becomes Lakshmi for a Hindu husband and then Sabina for a Muslim husband. Meaning, I don't have my feet in two boats like your name suggests. You are not Usha, which sounds Hindu, and Haseena, which sounds Muslim, to different people. I am Lakshmi Priya - a single identity. Lakshmi Priya, a believer in Sanatana Dharma. I am not Usha to some and Haseena to others, like you. My religious freedom is a right given to me by the Constitution.

You called me someone who disowned her parents. But when my father, oh sorry, my 'vappa'—a father's love I was destined to see only five or six times in my life—came back to me as a cancer patient, it was this daughter who took him to Amrita Hospital in Edappally for his entire treatment and looked after him like a treasure until his death. My vappa was a person who saw Chettikulangara Amma as his family deity!

If I can sit on the prayer mat that my 'itha' (my elder sister) leaves behind after her prayers and chant the Lalitha Sahasranamam, it means my family respects other religions. If our daughter, whom we are raising without teaching any one religion, puts her Unnikannan (baby Krishna) to sleep in the slender hands of Jesus Christ every night, it is an example of inter-religious respect in my home. Above all, if you, a Muslim, and Ponnamma Babu, a Christian, and Ansiba Hassan, who received all kinds of help from me including money, were my friends, then I am indeed someone who doesn't see religion. If you're still not clear, I request you to stir it well and drink it again. Thanks.

P.S: If I called you a 'jihadi', you should go and file a case, my friend. Isn't that the fashion now? Let the lawyer get some mileage out of it.