Aishwarya Rutuparna Pradhan’s journey from a small village in Odisha to becoming one of the country’s most recognised transgender civil servants is marked by years of struggle, education and determination.
Because of her gender identity, born in Kanabagiri village in Odisha’s Kandhamal district, Aishwarya has spoken about facing humiliation during her school and college years.
She also said that she had to deal with a lack of support from her family while growing up.
Despite these challenges, she continued her education. She completed a postgraduate degree in Public Administration and also studied at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. Before entering government service, she worked at a nationalised bank and interned with a newspaper. She later served as a Commercial Tax Officer in Paradip. She adopted the name Aishwarya Rutuparna Pradhan and began the process of changing her name and gender in official records. Her story has since been associated with greater visibility for transgender people in government service.
Aishwarya cleared the Odisha Financial Service examination in 2010 and joined the state government service. In 2014, after the Supreme Court recognised transgender people as a third gender, Aishwarya decided to publicly embrace her transgender identity. The Odisha government officially recognised her transgender identity through a gazette notification in 2017. In 2018, NDTV described her as Odisha’s first state civil servant from the transgender community.
