Who is Droupadi Murmu, India’s first ever tribal president?
Murmu's appointment to the top position is seen as the victory of tribal empowerment and the long-ignored political aspirations of the tribe.
India's ruling party BJP-led NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu is the first tribal leader to be elected to President as she scooped up over 50% of the total vote value after three rounds of counting.
Succeeding Ram Nath Kovind, Murmu will be sworn in as the 15th president of India on 25 July.
Kovind's tenure ends on 24 July and the new president will take oath on 25 July.
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Who is Murmu?
Murmu was born in the Odisha district of Mayurbhanj in 1958. She studied Bhubaneswar's Unit II High School and Rama Devi College (now University).
From 1979 to 1983, she worked as a junior assistant in the State Irrigation and Power Department, and subsequently as a teacher at the Sri Aurobindo Integral Education Centre in Rairangpur until 1997.
Getting into politics
She entered politics in 1997, when she was elected to the Rairangpur city council. She later received BJP nominations and ran for Rairangpur MLA in 2000 and 2009.
Her political ascension has been steady since then. The BJP was in a coalition with the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal at the time. Murmu won her first Assembly election in 2000, when the parties ran together.
When the coalition took power, she was appointed Minister of Transport and Commerce, and then for Fisheries and Animal Husbandry.
She was given independent charge, which is unusual for a first-time MLA. When the BJP-BJD partnership dissolved, Murmu continued to nurture her Rairangpur constituency, and despite a Naveen Patnaik wave in 2009, she was able to maintain her seat.
In 2015, Murmu was appointed Governor of Jharkhand. It was never an easy assignment for the occupant of the Raj Bhavan in Jharkhand, the State born out of a people's struggle to foreground the political and social rights of tribal communities.
There were frequent changes of government and MLAs often switched loyalties. Murmu, however, created a record of being the first Governor to complete a full term and then served an an extra year before exiting the office in 2021.
When Murmu became Governor, there was a BJP government in Jharkhand. The Raghubar Das-led government brought in two Bills to amend the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act, 1908, and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act, 1949. These amendments related to allowing conversion of land use in tribal areas from agriculture to commercial purposes, and set off a major uproar among tribal groups and civil society.
These Acts were articles of faith in the battle for land rights and rights over natural resources for tribal communities, fought and won in the teeth of opposition and against the British colonial rule. To amend these Acts was akin to a reversal of any gains made by tribal people in terms of land rights.
Murmu as Governor, someone constitutionally empowered to intervene in issues related to scheduled areas, soon intervened and rejected the two Bills when they were presented to her, an act which won her approbation from the Opposition, with current Chief Minister Hemant Soren lauding her for her "sensitivity" for "providing a balm to society that was on the boil for the last six months".
Her appointment to the top position is seen as the victory of tribal empowerment and the long-ignored political aspirations of the tribe.
