Kinnar Akhara’s Evolution: How a Transgender Spiritual Movement Redefined the Kumbh Mela

New Delhi- The Kumbh Mela, one of the largest spiritual congregations in India, has been a mirror of the country’s cultural and religious canvas. Over the past several years, it has evolved into a stage for conflict, where religion intersects with politics, media, and cultural dialogue. With the Kumbh holy lands opening up to previously excluded communities and sensationalized by the media, questions arise over whether it is truly a Kumbh.

This article explores gender politics, gendered media narratives, and the commercialization of spirituality at Kumbh Mela, with implications for changing meanings of the sacred and inclusion.

The Rise of Kinnar Akhara and Gender-Centric Politics

It has evolved from a purely religious group into a multifaceted ratio of modernity, beauty, and cultural significance over the years. And the media discussion has grown—often through politically fraught frames. The “beauty” and “boldness” of this holy event are now being revealed, as are the cultural and political narratives.

The Kinnar Akhara has been established in the session of 2018-19. This was a landmark moment. Kinnar Akhara was formed as the 14th Akhara under the Zuna Akhara by Dr. Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, and the concerned Akhara was also in the news. It placed transgender people in authority over others in religious matters, eradicating age-long clerical authority that has been associated with patriarchy. On one hand, Tripathi was successful in creating a space for the transgender within the religious fold; on the other, he was instrumental in bringing the transgender into the public domain and, with it, the public glare. Therefore, the Kinnar Akhara has remained at the core of the discussion on the representation of the transsexuals in India since then.

Others, like Mahamandaleshwar Kalyani Maa from Uttar Pradesh, have grabbed media attention in the ongoing Kumbh Mela. In such conjuring social media videos and reels, senior officials, including UP police personnel, are seen with her seeking her blessings. Her captivating beauty, sartorial choices, and charismatic presence have made her a sensation, but they also raise questions about how media narratives shape perceptions of spirituality and gender. What the emphasis on appearance and spectacle ignores is the layered cultural function of the Akhara.

The Kinnar Akhara, its registration, and its presence at Kumbh Mela are merely symptoms of a much larger power contestation. For many, this ancient model of Guru-Chela, or the Mutual Protection itself, provided a home and family. But today those organizations have become managed ecologies that are highly choosy about whom they will claim as members and, more importantly, exactly what their status is and what role they play in the system writ large. This system builds on field studies in academia and personal narratives; it structures identity and community, but it also serves as an unchangeable structure that limits individuals. Transgender people can be special only by virtue of these bestowed blessings or godly status and therein lies the paradox. It establishes its own identity, while still endorsing structures that violate the most fundamental premise of equality.

The media’s fascination with the Kinnar Akhara, their vibrant culture, and their fashionable presence often polarizes the discourse. It accentuates power dynamics within and outside the religious framework, leaving critical questions about the politicization of spirituality and inclusivity unanswered. What makes something “special,” and how much does the designation disguise the broader agenda of equality and acceptance? The different stories and what they mean for the Kumbh Mela show how complicated and conflicting the official stories of citizenship and belonging are. They also show how religion and politics are often mixed up and how people are negotiating the limits of both religion and the Kumbh Mela.

Mamta Kulkarni and the Politics of Purity in Religious Institutions

Mamta Kulkarni’s desire to become a Mahamandaleshwar has led to widespread debates on social media, with discussions on Google growing on the topic of gender, morality, and religious authority. Since her story first came to light, the ex-Bollywood actress has been embroiled in controversy within spiritual circles, with many critics questioning whether her so-called spiritual awakening can really be considered authentic when it comes from someone who has spent time in the Indian film industry and who is rumored to have been embroiled in legal troubles.

Kulkarni’s story parallels some of the Kinnar Akhara’s initial struggles. Reluctant to admit newcomers, transgender persons, or women whose previous existence does not conform to traditional notions of piety, established religious orders demonstrate prejudice against those who defy conventional religious virtue. Ultimately, the religious establishment& rejection of Kulkarni exposes their hypocrisy, as they openly advocate for inclusivity yet secretly maintain patriarchal gatekeeping.

Mamta Kulkarni becoming Mahamandaleshwar of Kinnar Akhara illustrates the power equation of religious institutions. Her resignation came after a tussle between Acharya Mahamandaleshwar Laxmi Narayan Tripathi and Rishi Ajay Das over her appointment. It’s more than a power struggle; it’s the broader battle over gender and the encroachment of men onto women’s turf in places of worship.

Beginning as a matter of secular distinction, Kumbh has since had partisanship, media hype, and the trolls of the gender politics moon be-paged into the Kumbh narrative. But such a trend is at least as revealing about brittle, patchy identity politics as it negotiates larger shifts toward sexual and gender diversity both among laypeople and within their faith-based power structures. The Mamta Kulkarni controversy and the increasingly influential Kinnar Akhara make one wonder, how secular or political are religious spaces? Who gets to scan and see the authority behind them? Who defines legitimacy? And in what measure do moral and social prejudices control access to places of holiness? The Kumbh becomes a charge of personal histories, sexual politics, and the quest for the sacred, and it’s a collision that elicits a string of questions the filmmaker has no answers to.

Media, Religion, and Politics: A Toxic Triangle?

Lastly, the Kumbh Mela has turned into a place for trials in media and political battles. Political noise subverts the event’s spiritual and cultural ethos by the media’s obsession with sensational narratives from ‘Monalisa,’ Kinnar Akhara to Mamta Kulkarni. Political parties have the Kumbh to show that they are the custodians of people’s culture and interests, but for them, Kumbh is nothing less than a spectacle to attract people, when in fact they have switched from the true spirit of representation and empowerment.

This toxic triangle transforms the Kumbh into just a spectacle and commodifies its sacredness, even making it into an ideological battleground. The excessive focus on aesthetics, controversies, and tokenistic gestures hampers the event’s main aim of a collective spiritual journey.

Reclaiming the Sacred in a Politicized Space

The Kumbh has become a new space of gender politics, media, and power, rather than a sacred pilgrimage. In this sense, the Kinnar Akhara is not just a religious organization but a progressive step in the process of recovering such institutions by marginalized communities. Nevertheless, this event also shows the flaws in systems that say they support spiritual equality but, at their core, keep up gatekeeping systems based on patriarchal class structures. Understood in light of Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of symbolic power, this transition can be seen as a conflict over religious authority, a battle not simply for a spiritual claim but for legitimacy itself, as historically privileged groups continue to control access to sacred spaces. It can be seen as Michel Foucault’s idea of the disciplining gaze of power, or biopolitics, in that institutions decide who is pure or worthy of religious leadership. The criticism of figures such as Mamta Kulkarni and the media’s portrayal of Kalyani Maa are particularly clear examples.

Therefore, the Kumbh Mela serves as a venue where tradition selectively reinforces gender, class, and morality.

Accordingly, the idea of gender performativity allows for an expansion of the view of the media’s interest in appearance and ‘bold’ personalities such as Kalyani Maa. There is certainly progress in the increased visibility of transgender spiritual leaders, but if the illusion of inclusion is driven more by spectacle than actual spiritual authority, it is without true substance. Instead of labeling these figures as “sacred,” the term “sensational” is used to show the relentless commodification of one’s individual identity in a capitalist society.

Giving back the sacred is to recognize and work beyond performative representation, attention-seeking media, and sensationalist headlines. Institutions of religion will need to look at their own internal hierarchies and make sure that inclusivity is not performative but a structural change to become real equality. The media has also perpetuated the Kumbh Mela as a source of intense controversy, potentially erasing the deeper spiritual atmosphere that has shaped the event over centuries.

The Kumbh Mela stands at a crucial juncture. Will it continue to serve as a battleground for conflicting narratives, or can it transform into a truly inclusive spiritual space where religious legitimacy is no longer dictated by gender, class, and past histories? The question is whether the sacred can be liberated from the forces of political maneuvering, media voyeurism, and entrenched hierarchies, allowing faith to be what it was always meant to be: a space of transcendence, not exclusion.

- Neelima is a PhD scholar at the Dr. K.R. Narayanan Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, working on the thesis Health Concerns and Access to Health Care System of Transgender: A Sociological Study with Reference to Punjab.