India’s ‘‘rst Kinnar sarpanch’ in Lok Sabha fray from Damoh
The rituals of Navami, the last day of the nine-day Hindu festival of Navratri, have just concluded at the home of Durga Bai Majhwar — better known as Durga Mausi — in Kanhwara village in Madhya Pradesh’s Katni district.
Ms. Majhwar is dressed up as the goddess she is named after, ready for a performance at the famous Maa Sharda Temple in neighbouring Maihar.
Ms. Majhwar, 36, who claims to be India’s rst sarpanch from the transgender or Kinnar community, is in the fray as an Independent candidate from the Damoh Lok Sabha constituency against the BJP’s Rahul Lodhi and the Congress’ Sarwar Singh Lodhi. She has taken a day o¯ from the month-long campaign, criss-crossing the constituency on her trusty Scooty.
Success at grassroots
Elected sarpanch of her village in 2014, she says the people had convinced her to contest the poll as they “were tired of many problems in the village”. She is also a sage, seated as the mahamandaleshwar of a Kinnar Akhara.
Ms. Majhwar is not the rst person from the transgender community in M.P. to have achieved electoral success, as the State also gave India its rst Kinnar MLA when Shabnam Mausi won from the Sohagpur seat in a bypoll in 2000.
Less than a year earlier, in 1999, Kamla Jaan alias Kamla Mausi had won the mayoral election in Katni city. However, she had to step down from the post in 2002 after a local court said she was not “eligible” to be Mayor.
The court had termed Ms. Jaan’s election “illegal” as the seat was reserved for women, and she was registered as male in the electoral rolls at the time.
‘We are not a curse’
Ms. Majhwar never received any formal education, but considers Ms. Jaan her guru since she went to work with her at the age of 14.
“I never went to school as society does not accept people like us. Like others from the Kinnar community, I too used to be called all kinds of names,” she says, adding that while her parents loved her, they too were “bound by society’s constraints”. She adds: “We are not the curse society thinks we are.”
“I had left my parents’ home and worked with our group for about 10 to 12 years before people asked me to join politics when I was 25 or 26,” she says.
Even now, Ms. Majhwar claims that it is the people of Damoh who asked her to contest the Lok Sabha poll. “This is the reason I have entered the fray from neighbouring Damoh instead of my own constituency [Khajuraho],” she says, adding that fellow members of the Kinnar community and the general public are campaigning for her. “I go on my Scooty and the workers and my chele (disciples) join me on their bikes and Scooties,” Ms. Majhwar says, condent that she can give a tough ght to the candidates from major parties.
Up against PM
Though she claims to be contesting the Lok Sabha election as an Independent candidate, her poll a¦davit shows that she is ghting on a ticket from the Indian People’s Adhikar Party. She has also extended her support to Himangi Sakhi, another member of the Kinnar community, who is contesting the Lok Sabha election from Varanasi against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.