The gender activist from Maharashtra Trupti Desai is really a multifaceted woman. She is an aggressive protester, committed activist and a devoted Hindu. Yes, Trupti is a deeply religious and spiritual person.
Now 34 years old, Trupti, the president of Bhumata Ranragini Brigade was then responsible for rallying a strong force of 1000 women to enter the core shrine area of Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar.
Desai, a social activist, has been at the forefront of a series of high profile and successful campaigns to secure access for women to religious sites they have been excluded from in India – a role that has seen her receive death threats and become the victim of violent attacks.
Women entered the inner sanctum of the historic Haji Ali mosque and tomb in Mumbai for the first time in five years after a campaign in which Desai played a critical role led to a court order to lift a ban on their presence.
Born in Nipani Taluka on the border of Karnataka and Maharashtra, Desai has her roots in Kolhapur. At the age of eight, she moved along with her family to Pune. She claims to have a spiritual background and is an ardent follower of one Gagangiriji Maharaj of Kolhapur.
A home science student of Shrimati Nathibai Damodar Thackersee College, Desai left college in the first year due to family problems and was made the president of an organization known as Krantiveer Jhopdi Vikas Sangh, which was her first foray into activism.
“I used to work on social issues since I was in class 10. In 2003, I started working with Krantiveer Jhopdi Vikas Sangh and used to work for people living in slum areas. We generally used to help them with their day-to-day problems like providing ration cards, dealing with unemployment, legal problems and so on,” Desai had then told us.
In 2007, she came into the limelight when she protested against Ajit Cooperative Bank with NCP heavyweight Ajit Pawar as its chairman, for allegedly perpetrating a fraud of Rs 50 crore. She had said, “Ajit Cooperative Bank was a den of people with political nexus and only people with political connections used to get loans. 35,000 people who deposited their money in this bank were cheated. I formed Ajit Bank Sangharsh Samiti and after a rigorous battle of four years, I managed to get back the money of 29,000 depositors.”
After her campaign against Ajit Cooperative Bank, a few people suggested that Desai form a social organization, which led to the formation of Bhumata Brigade on September 27, 2010. According to Desai, the organization started with 40 people, but now has thousands of members.
Desai said, “Land is one of the most important things in this world and without it, nothing can survive, that is why we named our organization Bhumata Brigade. Our organization works on various issues such as corruption, farmer suicides, and women rights, environmental issues and we help everyone who is in distress and needs our help.”
According to Desai, her organization had also extended support to Anna Hazare’s Janlokpal movement and Baba Ramdev’s protest against black money. Bhumata Brigade is an organization for both men and women, but it has a special wing for women known as Bhumata Ranragini Brigade, which led the agitation to enter the shrine area in Shani Shingapur.
I noticed from a young age that there was discrimination between boys and girls and how men always want to control girls in Indian society and I didn’t feel this was acceptable,” says Desai, who lives in the city of Pune. “The focus is always to get women married and they’re considered a second-grade citizen in society.”
Desai heard in 2015 that women were banned from worshipping at the holy shrine of the Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra state, and that if a female touched the idol, it would have to be bathed in milk to cleanse it because women were considered “impure”.
“I was really affected by this,” she says. “I called a meeting of my group and we decided to start a movement to allow women the same access as men to temples. They should have equal rights.”
Mumbai: Activist Trupti Desai during her visit to Haji Ali Dargah in MumbaiIn December 2015, she travelled to the temple with members of her group, intending to climb on top of the platform where the idol was situated. But she was stopped by local villagers and security guards, the temple’s trustees.
The incident grabbed the Indian media’s attention, and Desai says some conservative Hindus responded by labeling her “anti-Hindu” and saying “she was not fit to be a Hindu”.
Undeterred, Desai gathered 1,500 female members of the Bhumata Brigade from across Maharashtra and organized 45 buses to take them to the temple in January last year. But their efforts were again thwarted after police detained them.
In response, veteran activist Vidya Bal filed a petition in the high court, citing a 1956 law that gives women and men equal rights to enter temples in India. The court ruled in favor of the petition, saying women were legally allowed to enter the Shani Shingnapur temple. Desai returned to the temple in April and was granted entry to the sanctum.
“It was a big victory and a breaking of tradition,” she says. The win inspired her to work on other cases including helping women to gain entry to the sanctum at the Haji Ali mosque.
Post Shingnapur entry, Desai reached to the Mahalakshmi temple in Kolhapur where the temple management committee allowed her entry but the priests became violent against her.] Five priests were arrested for attacking Desai and the protestors. She also entered the inner sanctum of the Trimbakeshwar Shiva Temple near Nasik where she was peacefully escorted by the police, but only with wet clothes similar to how the temple allows men.
In April 2016, she made an attempt to enter the Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai: however, an angry mob made it unsuccessful. On 12 May 2016, she made a successful second attempt and entered the mosque under tight security but not in the inner sanctum where women are not allowed.
Later, in November 2016, after her successful campaign in Maharashtra, she set her eyes on Sabarimala.
“Menstruation is a natural process. No gods have said they consider women impure because of it. The right to pray is our constitutional right and we will come to claim it,” Trupti had said.
Recently, she announced that she will be arriving at Kerala with 6 others on November 16, 2018, and will attempt to visit the hill shrine on November 17. The Kerala government is on high alert ahead of her announcement, and she has written to the Kerala Chief Minister demanding security and travel arrangements.
Trupti, who is married and has an 8-year-old son, said she has the full support of her family. “Women of every religion should be allowed to go to religious places of their respective faiths. People, who consider women as impure, should realize that they have come into existence only because of women. Even the milk that is poured on the shrines inside temples is from cows and buffalos, which are also female.”
Desai had planned to try and enter the Sabarimala temple in Kerala this month but the state government said they would prevent her from entering.
Although Desai says she believes things are improving for women in India, her activism has put her at great personal risk. When fighting for women’s rights at the Mahalaxmi temple in Kolhapur, protesters threw chili powder at her eyes and beat her up. She ended up in a hospital for a day.
She also says contract killers were hired to kill her when she was campaigning for access to another temple. Her car was pelted with stones by a group of attackers on motorbikes, smashing the windows and injuring the driver. “We had a lucky escape,” she says. “Had we stopped the car, they would have killed us.”
But when asked whether she ever feels scared, Desai says she “is happy to die for people’s causes rather than dying of a heart attack or a natural death”.
However, despite her activism, Desai’s husband Prashant says his wife is extremely spiritual. “She and her entire family are disciples of Gagangiri Maharaj and follow all the religious rituals.”
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