Shahtaj/Pune

Salma Khan, the first third sex person to be appointed a member of the Lok Adalat (DLSA) in Mumbai has been helping common people living in the slums and shanties of Mumbai with rations and essentials to enable them to pull through the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and related lockdown.

Salma and her Kinnar Maa trust has launched a massive programme to reach out to the third gender persons and others who have lost their regular financial resources due to the prolonged lockdown and other impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Though her trust is engaged in creating awareness about the rights of the third gender persons and distributing dry rations and other essentials like facial masks and sanitisers to them, the Covid-19 has made them take care of many slum dwellers who have become jobless.

Salma Khan with Governor Bhagat Singh Kioshiyari

“We have been collecting donation of dry ration in the Trust in the pandemic,” Salma told Awaz the Voice.

Sincekinnar are good at gathering information, Salma says it’s easier for them to understand which family is suffering financially in the lockdown. After identifying the family, a volunteer visits the house, leaves the kit of ration at the entrance, rings the bells and vanishes before the inmates come to check.

She said her trust has developed this method to avoid causing embarrassment to the hard working people. “Some of our kinnar were living off their donations in the past and it would be awkward for them to see the same person helping them in their hard times,” she explains.

Salma Khan's different pictures

Salma says before the Pandemic the trust would distribute rations to transgender persons only. Today, we are giving 80 per cent of collected rations to them and 20 per cent is meant for common people, some of whom had sustained Kinnar in normal times.”

For this, Salma says, they avoid taking pictures of the recipients and also collecting documents of many people for records.

Salma’s act breaks the stereotype image of transgender persons dressed as women in gaudy clothes and full makeup stopping vehicles at the traffic signals and asking people to pay them in lieu of blessings they offer for their safety and well being with loud clapping.

Traditionally, they also visit families where a child is born and burst into an impromptu song and dance show that continues till the family pays their money.

Salma Khan had set up the Kinnar Maa Trust in 2014 and she is its current President. Salma says her trust works for getting transgender persons their rightful place in society. Although the third gender has been officially recognized their problems have not vanished nor are these discussed and addressed.

Salma Khan at work outside her office (left) and at her office (right)

“We are also a part of this society; we are human beings. We don't want sympathy, pity and compassion; we want our rights,” Salma says.

She says her that third sex persons somehow manage to earn money by begging of staging shows and even through sex trade but as they get older, life becomes very difficult for them since they are beset with disease and there is nobody to look after them.

During a meeting with the Governor of Maharashtra

Salma’s Trust is creating awareness about the problems of third gender persons. Salma wants to see more third gender persons getting to colleges and getting jobs. She is also setting up a  shelter home for transgender persons for their old-age for.

Since its inception, her Trust, has been distributing rations and medicine to the sick and elderly people on the 4th of every month.

Now she is working for ensuring that all transgender persons are vaccinated against Covid-19. Many of them don’t have identity papers and we are trying to help them, he said.

Salma Khan holds a Master’s degree in Social Work. She is the first transgender member of the Mumbai District Suburban Legal Services Authority (DLSA) Lok Adalat and also of the Maharashtra State Transgender Protection of Rights and Welfare Board.

Salma Khan was brought up in Mumbai. Her father worked in RTO and her mother took care of the house. Salma Khan says that her mother played an important role in her higher education.

"When I got the offer to work in the Lok Adalat (DLSA) in 2018, I didn't take a second to say yes," she told Awaz-The Voice. “When I first sat in my seat in the Lok Adalat, people were looking at me in amazement, but everyone supported and respected me,” Salma said.

She says although the government has announced facilities and financial assistance for many daily wage earners like auto-rickshaw drivers, owners of small roadside shops and house cleaners etc, it has left the third gender out.

She has petitioned the government on this discrimination.