Every 12 years, the sacred Kumbh Mela festival takes place across four riverbank pilgrimage sites across India. In 2019, transgender Sadhus – holy, religious ascetics in the Hindu and Jain tradition – were allowed to participate in the festival for the very first time.
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Although Hindu traditional myth looks favourably upon India’s trans individuals, British colonial rule outlawed homosexuality and, by extension, criminalised transgender people.
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However, in a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2014, India became the very first nation to recognise trans as a third gender. Yet trans people in India still face discrimination, violence and abuse as the stain of Western imperialism lingers long after the country’s independence.
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In the new exhibition, The Holy Third Gender: Kinnar Sadhu, French photographer and cinematographer Guillaume Ziccarelli travelled to Allahabad to document their controversial initiation into Kumbh Mela as spiritual leaders akin to saints.
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