Biography

Trupti Desai is an Indian social activist and founder of the Pune-based NGO Bhumata Brigade. The organization was started in 2010 to fight against injustice to women and corruption in the country. Over the years, the organization has campaigned for the entry of women to several religious places like Shani Shingnapur Temple and Haji Ali Dargah.Desai was born in Nipani Taluka, which is the second-largest city in Belgaum in Karnataka. The city shares its borders with Maharashtra. Desai and her family belonged to Kolhapur, and when she was eight years old, the whole family decided to leave Kolhapur and move to Pune. She is the follower of spiritual guru Gagangiri Maharaj of Kolhapur.She went to Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey Womens University, Mumbai, for her bachelors degree but left her college in 1st year because of some family issues. Later, she was appointed as the president of an organization called Krantiveer Jhopdi Vikas Sangh, where she used to work in slum areas. I used to work on social issues since I was in class 10. In 2003, I started working with Krantiveer Jhopdi Vikas Sangh and used to work for people living in slum areas. We generally used to help them with their day-to-day problems like providing ration cards, dealing with unemployment, legal problems and so on..She came into the limelight in 2007 when she protested against Ajit Cooperative Bank and its chairman, Nationalist Congress Partys (NCP) Ajit Pawar, for an alleged fraud of Rs. 50 crore. Over 35,000 people lost their money to this fraud; however, Trupti Desai formed Ajit Bank Sangharsh Samiti to help recover the money. After four years in court, Trupti managed to recover the money of 29,000 depositors. Trupti Desai in conversation with former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis.After a successful campaign against Ajit Cooperative Bank, people suggested that Trupti should form an NGO, and this led to the formation of the Bhumata Brigade in September 2010. The organization has over five thousand members that are actively supporting the public.Desai was noticed by some senior ministers of the Indian National Congress (INC), who gave her the ticket to contest elections in the next civic elections. She contested elections from the Balaji Nagar ward in 2012, but she lost the elections.The organization worked for the benefit of both men and women, but it also has a special wing specially dedicated to women. The name of this wing is Bhumata Ranragini Brigade, and it is the leading body that protested to get women the right to enter the Shani Shingnapur Temple in Maharashtra. Trupti Desai at the Shani Shingnapur Temple.In November 2015, Trupti saw the news of priests of Shani Shingnapur Temple carrying out a cleansing ritual after a woman had entered the premises. Desai was agitated to see this, and she decided to hold a protest against this practice and get women equal rights as men to worship in the temple. As the protest kept getting stronger, the state government asked the temple board to allow the entry of women to the shrine. On 8 April 2016, Trupti, along with several other women, entered the shrine of Shani Shingnapur Temple. While the movement sparked national interest, many questions were also raised on how Trupti was able to gather the finances for buses that took hundreds of women to the temple. Trupti responded to this and said- There are social organisations such as the Chhatrapati group in Kolhapur which helped us organise buses to take women from Kolhapur and Pune to Shani Shingnapur..In April 2016, Trupti Desai decided to take her right-to-pray campaign further, and she was ready to enter the Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai. However, when she reached there, an angry set of protestors started banging on her cars door and started shouting, asking her to go back. Desai also received an anonymous tip that there was a bounty of Rs. 1 lakh on her. Later, she decided to march towards the bungalow of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. She was again stopped by the police, who informed her that she needed an appointment before meeting the CM.Trupti Desai made another attempt to enter the Haji Ali Dargah in May 2016 and managed to enter the mosque with security forces. However, she was not allowed to enter the inner sanctum, which is forbidden for women.