Every project has a history that explains why it exists. The proposal to build the Bhagwan Shri Narendra Modi Mandir rests on three milestones in Indian law and policy, spread across twelve years.
2014: The NALSA judgement
In April 2014, the Supreme Court of India delivered its judgement in National Legal Services Authority versus Union of India, widely known as the NALSA judgement. It recognised transgender persons as a third gender, entitled to the same fundamental rights as any other citizen, and directed the central and state governments to treat them as a socially and educationally backward class for the purpose of reservations.
2019: The Transgender Persons Act
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, passed by Parliament in 2019, gave that recognition the force of statute. It came into effect in January 2020. The Act prohibits discrimination against transgender persons in education, employment, healthcare and access to public services, and requires every state to work towards their welfare.
2025: Bihar's Kinnar Kalyan Board
Bihar acted on that requirement in August 2025, when its Social Welfare Department constituted the Bihar Rajya Kinnar Kalyan Board. The Board has 28 members, seven of them from the transgender community, and is chaired by Social Welfare Minister Madan Sahni. Its brief includes education and vocational training, protection of rights, and a path to stable, respectable employment.
2026: The Mandir proposal
It was this Board, at its very first meeting on 31 July 2026, that took up member Rajan Singh's proposal for a Mandir honouring the Prime Minister under whose government the 2019 Act was passed. The proposal passed unanimously. Seen against this timeline, the Mandir is not a sudden idea. It is where a decade of recognition, law and institution building arrived.