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NEW DELHI: Madhu Kinnar was elected by the people of Raigarh as the Chhattisgarh Mayor recently. What makes this banal event interesting is the fact that the newly elected is a transgender and used to beg and sing on trains till just a few months back for a living .
A member of the Dalit community, her real name is Naresh Chauhan.
This is not just interesting but a happy break from an ever encompassing BJP terrain , whose candidate Madhu defeated from a decent margin of more than 4 thousand votes.
While the BJP candidate attributed the loss to the wish of people as is the norm in such instances. the Congress rather called it BJP's defeat than Madhu's win.
The plight of transgenders has never been very comforting in our country. One is usually advised to wear ones identity on her sleeve but, identity has not been easy to define for a 'ghost 'community which always lived in aloof clubs marked for the non-privileged. Such is the exclusiveness of this club that people ascribe mythical powers to its members. A 'Hijra 's curse is something to be feared, it is largely believed.
Even their funeral procession is carried out in the night under of volley of abuses, by her own peers for the recent departed , for having lived a life of disrepute.
Such is the nature of iniquities which any transgender has to face in order to merely survive.
Last year's apex court's decision to allow transgenders as third gender has been one of the progressive steps towards giving a distinct identity to a group of individuals which had till then been reduced to a 'tertium quid' or, a third something .
This mandate of the people of Raigarh , howsoever small, is an antithesis to the belief of their being quotidian and ordinary as held by the general elites . This shows that people hold their sway in voting choice , and are not as pliable, if given distinct options.
