Meet The Woman Who Moved High Court To Gain A No Caste No Religion Certificate

36-year-old Kajal Govindbhai Manjula from Surat in Gujarat has sought a No Caste No Religion Certificate from the Gujarat High Court. The woman belonging to the Brahmin caste filed the petition on Wednesday this week through her advocate Dharmesh Gurjar.

The reason she stated for filing the petition is that the discriminatory caste system has led to a lot of suffering for her and her family and she wants to bring an end to it. She wishes to remove the mention of caste and religion from her identity, legally too, in the future.

Her petition, reportedly, stated, “Petitioner has to face so many troubles in her life due to discriminatory caste system in our country and society and therefore, present petitioner, many times badly treated due to such caste system in the country. However, it is pertinent to note that the present petitioner originally belongs to the Rajgor Brahmin community and despite this, she has to suffer a lot due to such a discretionary caste system in our society.”

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She also mentioned that she opted for the removal of her last name Shilu and applied to the Gujarat Government Gazette for the same. Her next step was to ask for a certificate pertaining to this change in the gazette. It was published in August 2021.

Not only this, but she also wants her last name to be removed from her legal identity proof documents.

Education and work 

She has done her Master's in Science and has worked in the Information Technology (IT) sector in Ahmedabad, as per a report

Who is Sneha Parthibaraja ?

Her story is similar to the story of  Sneha Parthibaraja, an advocate and resident of Tirupattur, Tamil Nadu. She also fought hard to seek the certificate. With consistent efforts, she became the first Indian to obtain an official “No Caste, No Religion” certificate. It took her nine long years to get the certificate. Tehsildar T S Sathiyamoorthy granted it to her on February 5, 2019.

“I feel more responsible and motivated now. This is the starting point and we still have a long way to go. People with the same ideology should help in eradicating casteism from the country,” she had said in an interview.

Suggested Reading : Meet Sneha, The First Indian To Get ‘No Caste, No Religion’ Certificate