Manjamma Jogati received a Padma Shri for 2021 in the arts category
Transgender folk dancer Manjamma Jogati received a Padma Shri honour for her contribution to arts today.
President Ram Nath Kovind handed over the award at the 2021 Padma awards ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan. In a video clip tweeted by news agency ANI, Manjamma Jogati approaches the President and then makes a gesture that many in social media said was to wish him luck. She then receives the award, with a warm smile that won hearts. The President also seems touched by the gesture as he hands over the award.
Manjamma Jogati is the first trans-president of the Karnataka Janapada Academy, the state government's top institution for folk art forms.
For Manjamma Jogati, now in her early 60s, the Padma honours comes after decades of social and financial struggle. Originally named Manjunath Shetty, Manjamma Jogati began to identify as a woman in adolescence. Her family then took her to Huligeyamma's temple near Hospet to be initiated as a Jogappa -- a community of transgenders that has dedicated themselves in the service of the fiery Goddess Renuka Yellamma. Members of this community are considered married to the goddess.
Amid poverty, social exclusion, and even rape, Manjamma Jogati mastered, among other art forms, Jogati Nritya and Janapada songs, Kannada language sonnets in praise of various female deities.
In 2006, she was awarded the Karnataka Janapada Academy Award and, 13 years later, in 2019, she was appointed president of the institution. In 2010, Karnataka government honoured her with the annual Kannada Rajyotsava award.
The President today awarded seven Padma Vibhushan, 10 Padma Bhushan and 102 Padma Shri awards for this year.
This comes a day after the President gave out awards for 2020, the ceremony for which had been postponed due to the Covid pandemic.