Prayagraj: In a desert tent guarded by armed police and a thick-set bouncer, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi is blessing a constant stream of pilgrims, who garland her with marigolds and kneel to touch her feet.
Tripathi, a tattooed transgender leader and a former reality TV star, has become an unlikely icon at the ongoing Kumbh Mela here. Up to 150 million people are expected to attend by the time the festival ends in March.
Tripathi, her religious movement, called the ‘Kinnar Akhada’, became the first transgender group to bathe at the confluence of the holy Ganges and the Yamuna rivers on the first day of the ancient festival, traditionally reserved for reclusive Hindu priests, almost all of whom are men.
“After centuries down the line, it was when the community finally got its due,” Tripathi told this agency, seated on a pedestal next to her Michael Kors bag, juggling calls on an iPhone.
Many at the festival cheer Tripathi for reclaiming the lost place in Hinduism for India’s ‘third gender’, known as the hijras (eunuchs), worshipped as demi-gods for thousands of years, but ridiculed and sidelined during British colonial rule.
A law passed in 1871 classed the hijras as ‘criminals’. They were always under the hammer and lived in pitiable conditions. It was only in 2014 that the Supreme Court officially recognised transgender people as a third gender and since then their conditions have somewhat improved.
But even then today, despite their legal recognition, many still face prejudice in India, forced into sex work or seeking alms at weddings and births, a long-held practice among hijras.
Tripathi is one of the best known among the third gender. But her support for building a controversial Hindu temple on the site of a demolished mosque has angered some in the LGBT community, who allege she is courting support from India’s powerful religious right to further her own influence.
Born in 1979 in Thane, Tripathi said she had a difficult childhood scarred with abuse by a close relative. A sickly child who was bullied at school for being feminine, she grew in confidence after learning Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance.
She gained fame when she appeared on reality TV show ‘Bigg Boss’ in 2011. She was a petitioner in the landmark court ruling that recognised transgender people.
In 2015, she founded her Akhara and began a campaign to have hijras represented at the first ‘Shahi Snan’, or royal bath, of the Kumbh Mela. Her efforts finally paid off in 2019.
“It all started to reclaim the lost position in the dharma,” Tripathi said, referring to the Hindu cosmic law underlying correct behaviour and social order. “I was not very religious until 2015 – life changed.”
Tripathi plans to spend the rest of the Kumbh festival at her Akhara, receiving visitors among her colourful band of followers, who have little in common with the holy men living monastic lives in the other camps. “We are not celibate,” she said. “We are demi-gods, not saints. We have our own rules.”
Reuters