By: Dr. Ratan Bhattacharjee
She is the first Tribal woman that India chose as President from a minority ethnic community. In 2017, the BJP chose Ram Nath Kovind, a Dalit born into poverty, to run for president. By installing Murmu as president, the BJP further strengthened its hold over Indian politics by cementing the Indigenous vote. A tribal woman in Raisina Hill is hugely significant in the present political context. Droupadi Murmu has an outstanding political career. She served as governor of Jharkhand from 2015 to 2021, the BJP which after winning the confidence of the upper caste Hindus, is now greatly focused on the tribal as well as women vote, which is key new support bases. Murmu combines both bases in her persona. Murmu, 64, hails from the eastern state Odisha and previously was governor of Jharkhand state. Her village Uparbeda is eight hours away from Bhubaneswar and miles and miles have lush green forests, farmlands, and forest reserves along with designated paths for elephants. Uparbeda men are hunched in ankle-deep water tending to their paddy fields. Women ride bicycles to the local market. The village has a population of about 1600 and there are three schools and a primary health care center. For serious cases, they have to go to a hospital twelve miles away. Now all these villagers are overwhelmed and share the ecstasy with all tribal people of India. They are overwhelmed to see their daughter on the highest post in the country.
She is the first person from Odisha and only the second woman after Pratibha Patil to occupy this post. She is the youngest and first individual to have been born after India’s independence in 1947, elected to this post. She worked as an assistant professor at the Aurobindo Integral Education and Research Institute Rairangpur and junior assistant at the irrigation department Government of Odisha Before her presidency she served as the ninth Governor of Jharkhand between 2015 and 2021, and held various portfolios in the cabinet of Government of Odisha between 2000 to 2004 On 21st July 2022, Murmu secured a comfortable majority in the 2022 Presidential election defeating common opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha with 676,803 electoral votes (64.03% of total) in 21 of the 28 states (including in the union territory of Puducherry) to become the 15th President of India.
In November, Modi led celebrations for India’s first-ever national tribal pride day. It was an open secret that the 64-year-old Draupadi Murmu former governor of Jharkhand state was destined to win with a remarkable margin to sit on the highest post of Indian administration and democracy. On the other hand, Yashwant Sinha, 84, was finance minister during the previous BJP government from 1998 to 2002. He quitted the party following a divergence with Modi on economic issues in 2018. The divided house of the Opposition and the half-hearted wrong selection of the candidate made Droupadi Murmu’s win a certainty. Mamata Banerjee whose own legislators were engaged in cross-voting, herself told that she might have given a second thought to supporting Droupadi Murmu if she had known about her candidature earlier. A unanimous election was desirable at least in these Presidential polls for showing solidarity with the downtrodden people of the country. The Opposition could not give any positive message by selecting the octogenarian Yashwant Sinha a man mostly known as a turncoat in Indian politics.
Those in India’s indigenous population, also known as the Adivasi, or “original inhabitants have long lagged behind the rest of the country in literacy rates. The BJP party in recent decades has expanded its outreach to Hindus traditionally considered lower in the caste hierarchy and the Indigenous tribal population. Tribal groups make up nearly 9 percent of India’s population. The prime minister has also appointed eight members of tribal communities to his council of ministers. That strategy along with the selection of Droupadi Murmu as the candidate for the Presidential post has reaped dividends. Hindus from “backward castes” and Dalits, formerly known as untouchables, have voted for the ruling party in growing numbers in every election since 2014 when Modi – a candidate who hailed from a humble caste himself – rose to power. Modi’s party has projected Murmu as a leader representing poor tribal communities, which generally lack health care and education facilities in remote villages. Today the whole world has seen that a woman has become the first president of one of the country’s tribes and the second-ever female president of India. She is a member of the Santal ethnic minority. Those who continuously hurled arrows against BJP by saying that it is anti-women or a party for the upper classes now feel uncomfortable. The most ridiculous thing is that Murmu’s main opponent was a former BJP rebel, a candidate put up by a divided opposition. The election of Draupadi Murmu is a formality as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP controls enough seats in federal and state legislatures to push its favoured candidate. She is also likely to get the support of other regional parties in state assemblies. Her Santhal tribe is the oldest and the largest in India.
The president in India is chosen by an electoral college that consists of lawmakers in both houses of Parliament and elected members of the legislative assemblies of all states. The president’s role is largely ceremonial, but the position can be important during times of political uncertainty such as a hung parliament when the office assumes greater power. For years the BJP known as a Hindu Nationalist party has been doing its best for making inroads with tribal voters in states like Odisha Jharkhand, Bihar, and Bengal where they make up a great portion of the population. The new packaging of the BJP has been going on They want to promote that BJP is also a part of the lower castes and the marginalized people and even the tribals have a big say in BJP. Specialists in Identity politics have noted this point and Professor Harish Wankhede of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi endorses the view in an interview for the New York Times.
Uparbeda where President Murmu grew up did not have electricity even last month. Many still cook over firewood and water is drawn from community hand pumps. Now development works have started in full swing. Murmu was born to a rice farmer who was a member of the Uparbeda village council as a child she had to walk a kilometer each day and studied at night with a kerosene lamp. She started as a teacher and soon went into local politics joining the BJP and eventually serving in Odisha’s state legislature. In 2015, the party nominated her for the governorship of Jharkhand, a neighbouring state that also has a substantial tribal population. Murmu’s victory will extend the political base of the BJP and the Santhals now can get recognition for their culture and tradition. While BJP will win politically the Santhals will thrive culturally and traditionally so that they can keep their distinct languages and way of life alive. (The author is a senior academician & writer)