Inside the mysterious rise of the self-styled 'Queer Tamil' Green MSP: Q Manivannan certainly boasts a colourful backstory, 'descended from musicians, hunters and prostitutes'. But as GAVIN MADELEY discovers, the truth is a VERY different picture

Published: 01:00, 2 June 2026 | Updated: 01:00, 2 June 2026 Standing in the Chamber of the Scottish Parliament preparing to make a solemn affirmation to the King, the latest new arrival certainly cut a striking figure. Dressed in their student best of chinos, blue jacket and Nehru shirt, luxuriant hair cascading, Q Manivannan qualified the vow of allegiance by prefacing the declaration with mawkish sentiment: ‘I make this affirmation for the people of Scotland and for their care. My bonnie, bonnie home.’ The self-styled ‘queer Tamil’, who was born in India, is ‘non-binary’ and uses ‘they/them’ pronouns. Manivannan has boasted how they are ‘passionate about more caring politics rooted in the working class, the queer, and the solidary’ – an esoteric term for inclusivity – adding jubilantly: ‘This is what diversity looks like in power!’ Perhaps so. Yet the election of this colourful Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) has sparked a whirlwind of controversy, raising stark questions over Manivannan’s candidacy and shaking many people’s faith in the integrity of our electoral system. Central to this is the fact Q Manivannan, who is in Britain to study for a doctorate, is not a UK citizen. Their candidacy was legitimate, as MSPs agreed a change in law that extended candidacy rights to foreign nationals with limited leave to remain, including those on student visas. Manivannan’s visa is due to expire at the end of this year and the Scotland Act states that an MSP would then be disqualified from holding office at Holyrood. This raises the farcical prospect that Manivannan could face deportation from the country in which they sit as a legislator, creating its laws. Manivannan claims to be taking steps to remedy the situation by applying for a graduate visa that would grant leave to stay in Britain legally for a further three years. Despite being elected as a Member of the Scottish Parliament, Q Manivannan’s visa is due to expire at the end of this year Newly elected Scottish Green party MSPs including Q Manivannan (left) meet in Edinburgh In the meantime, the MSP is collecting a salary of £77,711 while giving self-congratulatory interviews about making parliamentary history. In a recent appearance on Indian TV, Manivannan insisted they had always been open with party and electorate, claiming there were ‘tens of thousands of people who decided to support me’ who ‘thought that I could adequately represent them’. And who did they chose exactly? Investigations by the Daily Mail reveal much of Manivannan’s journey from Indian schoolboy to trans activist is shrouded in mystery. The story begins with their birth in 1996 in Tamil Nadu, India’s southernmost province, with the male name of Srivatsan. On social media, they claim to have been born in the coastal city of Chennai into a lower-caste family, whose status led them to be marginalised. Yet, it’s been revealed their father, Manivannan Dasarathi, has a degree in chemical engineering and held management roles in the public and private sector. Their paternal grandmother ran a clinic, while their maternal grandmother was a gynaecologist – hardly the lineage of ‘courtesans, dancers, musicians, hunters and prostitutes’ from which the MSP claims to have descended. Despite the Scottish Greens’ proposal for a new tax on so-called ‘elitist and profitable’ private schools, a young Srivatsan went to Bhavan’s Rajaji Vidyashram, a private school in Chennai costing £600 a year, according to the Sunday Times. Manivannan then adopted the moniker ‘Q’. Though purporting to be a voice of the ‘working class’, in 2018 Manivannan graduated with a BA in ‘liberal arts and humanities’ from OP Jindal Global University in Haryana, near Delhi, where a BA costs £9,000 a year in fees and accommodation. Regarded as an elite institution, a source told the Daily Mail: ‘Most students there are from similar educated and privileged backgrounds’, throwing more doubt over Manivannan’s claim to a ‘lower caste’ upbringing. They ‘consolidated the LGBTQI community on campus, and these days it has its own Pride parade’, a source tells us. They also contributed a bizarre obituary to a website called The Delhi Walla, which includes the lines: ‘I had no gender, my identity was always formed in opposition. I was kind because I was afraid of cruelty, I was angry because I was wronged, and I was hungry because I was starved.’ The piece is accompanied by a picture of a bearded Manivannan dressed in traditional Tamil garb. They’ve written obliquely about past loves on a Substack blog The Darkest Things. One passage, written in February, refers to A, whose pronouns are also ‘they/them’, writing: ‘I miss waking up to the sound of a giggle: A’s giggle or any other, a thing that’s even rarer now that I live alone.’ Before Holyrood, Manivannan completed an MPhil in ‘international peace studies’ at Trinity College, Dublin, arriving in Scotland five years ago to begin a doctorate in international relations at St Andrews University. Although studying at the St Andrews Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Manivannan, chose to live in Edinburgh. And it was there the meteoric rise as the darling of the crank Left began. In an interview, Manivannan recently admitted joining the Greens when it set up a ‘Palestine Solidarity Group’ in 2023, going on to co-convene the group and organise grassroots arts fundraisers ‘Fill This Space’. There, they performed poetry to a smitten public. But while the PhD was part of taxpayer-funded research into ‘caregiving as peacebuilding’, their pro-Palestine stance and uncompromising views on issues such as taxing the rich, trans rights and legalising drugs, seemed calculated to sow division and antagonism. The Scottish parliamentarian’s posts on social media site X have sparked controversy for appearing to denigrate white people Even so, this clearly bright and articulate activist became a candidate for Edinburgh and Lothians East which led to Manivannan’s selection as the Green candidate in the city’s Fountainbridge/Craiglockhart local council by-election last year, coming third – 180 votes from victory. Then, on May 8, came victory in the Scottish Elections, when the budding politician was swept to office on a wave of Green enthusiasm as one of the first two transgender MSPs. Soon after, the parliament removed gender from its website directory, making it impossible to search for MSPs by sex. Manivannan wrote on Instagram: ‘If my mere existence causes this much trouble, I’m excited to see how much my words will.’ Certainly rivals were unhappy when a tweet of Manivannan’s resurfaced in which he appeared to denigrate white people. A screenshot shared on social media shows his response to an X user’s post on February 15, 2023, about a graduate’s job application, sent in by the jobseeker’s mother. A response, which appears to come from Manivannan’s ‘@_queering’ account, reads: ‘Goddamn White people’. A second post said: ‘ah white people at it again.’ Manivannan’s constituents are 97 per cent white. The full exchange, which may reveal the context, is not available as Manivannan’s X account is locked. A Scottish Greens spokesperson insisted the posts ‘were clearly meant as humour and satire’. Then there’s the question of the new MSP’s fundraiser for a graduate visa. The web page was suddenly removed with more than £1,100 raised, with no explanation of where the money has gone. Any doubt at Manivannan’s intention to bend democracy to the Scottish Greens’ crackpot ideals have dissipated. A foretaste of virtue-signalling came during campaigning as Manivannan and fellow Green MSP Iris Duane demanded taxpayers fund reparations to Palestinians because of Scotland’s alleged ‘complicity’ in their ‘colonisation’. Last week, Manivannan was accused of trying to ‘criminalise’ parents discussing sex and gender with their children in a first intervention at Holyrood. The MSP lodged a motion demanding a legal ban on so-called conversion practices ‘across all settings’, citing a ‘pressing need’ for legislation. Conversion practices are usually thought of as bigoted attempts to ‘fix’ same-sex attraction, but feminist campaign group For Women Scotland warned a ban could stop parents, teachers and therapists talking to children about the uncertainty of puberty. Co-director Susan Smith said it could criminalise ‘conversations at the dinner table’, adding that extreme forms of conversion therapy, such as electric shocks, were already banned. She said: ‘I would be astonished if Q had encountered conversion therapy in Scotland, so I want to know what problem he thinks he’s solving.’ Addressing supporters on election night, Manivannan said the win was ‘for everyone left behind, pushed out or never invited in’. Given the chaos that’s erupted already, Scottish _politics could rue the day Q Manivannan was ‘invited in’. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? 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