'Modi Temple' for the Trans Community: Why Critics Call It Segregation, Not Inclusion

When news emerged that members of the Bihar State Transgender Welfare Board proposed constructing a temple in Patna dedicated to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it was framed by its backers as a grand gesture of gratitude because the community received the legal recognition and institutional representation granted under central initiatives like the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. Board members also argued that because the transgender community lacks a dedicated physical shrine of its own, dedicating the space to the sitting head of state serves as a public assertion of their social existence and newly recognised rights. But when we look beneath the performative politics, an unsettling question arises: Why do transgender citizens need a segregated temple in the first place? And more importantly, since when did an elected head of government doing their basic constitutional duty become an act of divinity requiring an altar? The Pride of Hindu Nationalism in Ram Mandir Built on the Ruins of SecularismTo justify a separate temple by claiming that gender-diverse people "have no deity of their own" is to ignore centuries of subcontinental history and sacred traditions. Hindu mythology is deeply woven with queer, non-binary, and gender-fluid identities. Shiva as Ardhanarishvara embodies the seamless blend of male and female energies; Vishnu takes the form of Mohini, Shikhandi plays a crucial role in the Mahabharata; and traditional narratives from the Ramayana speak of Rama granting a specific boon of spiritual dignity to the Kinnar and Hijra communities on the banks of the Sarayu. These narratives are not fringe anomalies, they sit at the very heart of traditions worshipped in major religious centres from Varanasi to Ayodhya, the very cities heavily promoted under the current ruling establishment's socio-cultural banner. When mainstream tradition already contains these histories, building a separate, segregated shrine does not bring inclusion. It does the exact opposite. It creates a ghetto. As sociologist and activist Dr DaShanne Stokes famously observed regarding the illusions of protective exclusion: "When we hide discrimination under the guise of protection or religious freedom, we make a mockery of human rights." Creating a separate shrine does precisely that, it hides ongoing gender based exclusion under the guise of providing "protection" and a "dedicated space." Instead of forcing mainstream temples to throw open their doors, dismantle institutional bigotry, and treat transgender devotees with equal dignity, this proposal pushes marginalised people into a side corner, politely telling them to stay over in their own separate building. There is a dangerous shift happening when citizens start framing basic policy and legislative rights as divine favours bestowed by a benevolent ruler. In a constitutional democracy, an elected leader passing laws, running welfare programs, or fulfilling statutory duties is simply doing the job they swore an oath to do. They are accountable to the public, held strictly to the standards of the law, and bound to guarantee universal access to all public spaces. Elevating a sitting politician to the status of a God transforms these inalienable structural rights into political patronage. It converts rights won through decades of hard, painful, grass-roots struggles in courtrooms and on streets into acts of royal grace and PR victories for a single political figure. When democratic accountability gives way to the politics of deification, leaders are elevated beyond critique, and marginalised citizens are left dependent on political benevolence rather than fundamental rights. The Reality of Transgender Welfare Boards in India: An RTI InvestigationWhen we look back at history, the deification of human figures didn't happen overnight through administrative announcements or political boards. It grew organically out of deep, lived struggles tied to specific places and times. Consider Birsa Munda in the Chota Nagpur plateau. He came to be revered as Dharti Aba (Father of the Earth) because he led an uprising against British colonial oppression and feudal exploitation, fighting directly for the survival and land rights of indigenous communities. Consider Gautama Buddha, whose veneration evolved over centuries across Bodh Gaya and Sarnath around a philosophy of liberation from suffering. Contrast that with building a temple for a sitting politician in Patna. Why Patna, and not his home state of Gujarat or his electoral constituency of Varanasi? The choice of location isn't rooted in a collective, organic spiritual awakening of the community, it is driven by local administrative patronage and political optics. It misuses the language of sacred space to build a monument to power. There is a bitter irony in how the state treats ordinary transgender citizens on paper versus how it elevates political authority to the heavens. According to the 2011 Census, India officially recorded nearly 4.88 lakh transgender persons. Yet, over a decade later, administrative data from the Ministry of Social Justice reveals that only a tiny fraction, roughly three percent, of this population has successfully received official Transgender Certificates and ID cards. The state constantly demands proof, medical verification, and endless paperwork before it agrees to recognise a citizen’s lived identity. This administrative failure cascades directly into the justice system. National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data recorded a mere 236 transgender victims of crime across the entire country in 2020, an absurdly low figure that rights organisations point out is not proof of safety, but of institutional invisibility. Because police stations still register complaints under rigid binary genders due to a lack of updated documentation, hate crimes and atrocities against trans people are routinely erased from official statistics. This contrast exposes the core absurdity of the proposal: an ordinary transgender citizen must navigate a hostile, bureaucratic maze just to get their basic humanity verified by the state, yet a sitting political figure requires no verification or scrutiny to be handed an altar. The state fails to count trans lives, fails to record trans deaths, but eagerly counts political points using trans bodies. Mandal for the Mandir | On BJP and the Dalit VoteSince a physical temple is being planned, it cannot exist as an abstract idea, it will inevitably require a sanctum, a daily ritual regime, and a officiating priest. This is where the proposal collides head-on with the deeply guarded, centuries-old grammar of Hindu ritual purity. Temples in India have never been neutral public halls, they are spaces where access to the garbhagriha (sanctum sanctorum) and the authority to touch the divine have been fiercely monopolised along rigid caste lines. Imagine the scene on opening day when the incense is lit and the first bell rings, who stands behind the “deity” (in this case Prime Minister Narendra Modi) to perform the aarti? If the board appoints a traditional Brahmin priest to ensure the shrine carries conventional religious legitimacy, the temple instantly surrenders to the very Brahminical hegemony that has historically humiliated and excluded Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi individuals within the transgender community. It would mean building a space ostensibly for trans liberation, only to hand the keys of spiritual authority back to traditional gatekeepers. Conversely, if a non-Brahmin or Dalit trans individual steps forward to conduct the rites, a different wall goes up. The broader orthodox establishment, the very institutions that control major pilgrimage sites from Varanasi to Puri, will almost certainly label the sanctum "impure" and refuse to acknowledge its spiritual validity. The shrine would be dismissed not just as a political gimmick, but as an uncanonical anomaly. This dilemma exposes the fundamental flaw of trying to bypass intersectionality, a new set of walls cannot dismantle an old hierarchy. When 2011 Census metrics revealed a transgender literacy rate of barely 46 percent which is far below the national average of 74 percent and workforce participation stagnating at abysmal levels, it became glaringly obvious that what the community needs are functional government hospitals, non-discriminatory housing, equal employment opportunities, safe public spaces, and the enforcement of constitutional rights. A segregated temple built to honour political power does none of these things. Ultimately, this proposal forces us to confront uncomfortable questions about the state of our constitutional democracy and social justice. Should an elected leader be elevated to divinity merely for fulfilling their sworn duty to the Constitution?If we accept a separate shrine for marginalised gender identities, are we demanding real structural integration, or are we quietly agreeing to the centuries-old imposed segregation? Who will sit in the inner sanctum of such a temple, will it break down the rigid walls of caste hegemony, or will it simply recreate the same old exclusions under a new banner? And when state mechanisms demand exhaustive verification from transgender citizens just to recognise their basic legal existence, why is political power handed an unexamined altar without question? True inclusion does not lie in building isolated monuments or turning public servants into deities. It demands making every existing temple, school, workplace, court, and street safe and accessible for everyone, regardless of caste or gender identity. Transforming an elected head of state into a God inside a segregated shrine does not empower the marginalised, it merely uses their struggle as a backdrop to celebrate power. In the end, this dangerous slide from democratic accountability to political devotion brings us back to Babasaheb Ambedkar’s historic warning to the nation: "For in India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world...Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship." — Dr BR Ambedkar, Constituent Assembly Speech (November 25, 1949) (Sanskriti Pandey is a research scholar at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author's. The Quint does not endorse or is responsible for them.)

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Building a ‘Modi Shrine’ for Transgender People Does the Opposite of Inclusion

Building a separate, segregated shrine does not bring inclusion. It does the exact opposite. It creates a ghetto.

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Topics: Transgender Hinduism