Nari Kamakshi is a leading researcher in public education who has founded and run initiatives to guide students from marginalised communities and support them to become empathetic leaders. She is a first-generation Dalit learner from her community, and the daughter of a Devadasi.
For more than two years, her identity as the daughter of a Devadasi has never been accepted by a system which not only denied her passport but also her existence in the country. Though she carried all documents, including her mother’s certificate from the Child Welfare Department, which has clear, legal proof of her mother being a devadasi, the system was not ready to accept or verify her identity, because of her father’s missing name in her application.
Kamakshi has also worked as a Research Assistant for the Karnataka Devadasi (Prohibition of Dedication) Act 1982/2018 Rehabilitation Bill. A bill, which she says has remained dormant for seven years, has not been implemented yet. The Act prohibits the practice of dedicating women as temple servants, illegal and punishable by imprisonment and fines. The Indian Labour Conference Committee in 2018 made the following remarks on its 108th Conference.
“The Committee therefore urges the Government to take the necessary measures to bring an end to the devadasi system in practice, including through enforcement of the legislation adopted in the different states. It requests the Government to continue to provide information on the measures taken in this regard and the results achieved in terms of the number of women and girls that have been withdrawn and rehabilitated. Lastly, the Committee requests the Government to provide information on the number of investigations, prosecutions and convictions concerning the practice of devadasi, as well as the specific penalties imposed, including copies of the relevant court decisions.”
In April 2023, she applied for a passport with every required document, ID proof, educational documents, along with a government-issued notice certifying her mother’s status as a Devadasi.
She says that the officers, while examining the papers, laugh at her, question her about her father, refusing to accept the existence of her mother’s struggles of being a Devadasi since her teenage years. The officer rejected her application and told her that it is likely to be disposed of during the police verification, which ultimately happened. Since then, she has been challenging the hurdle by writing emails, appeals and making visits. After a year, the exhaustion led her to withdraw her application.
However, in March 2025, she again applied, not ready to give up on her rights and her dreams. The documents, along with her passport, were necessary for a scholarship she wanted to secure, and the deadlines were near. With no other options to turn to, she had started the application process once again in Bengaluru under the Tatkal category. This time, the responses were harsher than the last. She was denied entry at the token counter, even before the verification desk. The officer at the token counter said, “You must know your father’s name. Don’t talk like an uneducated person.”
Despite the Maharashtra High Court Judgement clearly saying that a mother’s name is legally alone valid for official documents, the bureaucracy has been insisting on her father’s name to clear her of the verification process.
On May 1, 2025, Kamakshi again did her document verification and submitted a written explaining her mother’s Devadasi status and requested a Passport. Kamakshi says that thousands of Devadasi’ children are denied passports, education and opportunities due to the missing names of their fathers.
