When Droupadi Murmu was sworn in as India’s 15th president in July 2022 C.E., she became the first person from a Scheduled Tribe community to hold the country’s highest constitutional office. Born in a small Santali village in Odisha, she had worked as a government clerk and a schoolteacher before entering politics. Her election marked a historic shift in who India chooses to represent the nation to itself and to the world.
At a glance
- India’s first tribal president: Murmu won the 2022 presidential election with the backing of the Bharatiya Janata Party, becoming the first person from a tribal community to hold the office.
- Scheduled Tribe representation: India’s Scheduled Tribes make up roughly 8.6 percent of the population — over 104 million people — who have long been underrepresented in the country’s highest institutions.
- Political career: Before the presidency, Murmu served two terms in the Odisha Legislative Assembly, as a state minister, and as Governor of Jharkhand from 2015 to 2021 — the longest-serving governor in that state’s history.
A journey from Uparbeda to Rashtrapati Bhavan
Murmu was born on 20 June 1958 C.E. in Uparbeda village in the Rairangpur area of Odisha, to a Santali family. Her father was a farmer who also served as a traditional village council head. She was the first girl from her village to attend college, graduating in arts from Rama Devi Women’s University in Bhubaneswar.
She began her working life as a junior assistant in the state irrigation department, then spent three years teaching Hindi, Odia, mathematics, and geography at the Sri Aurobindo Integral Education and Research Centre in Rairangpur — reportedly never claiming her full salary.
Her entry into politics came in 1997 C.E., when she was elected as a local councillor as an independent candidate from a seat reserved for women. She went on to win two terms in the Odisha Legislative Assembly and served as a state minister for commerce, transportation, fisheries, and animal resources. In 2007 C.E., she received the Nilkanth Award for the best MLA of the Odisha Legislative Assembly.
What the milestone means for tribal communities
India recognizes more than 700 distinct Scheduled Tribe groups, speaking hundreds of languages and spread across nearly every state. The Santali people, Murmu’s own community, have one of the largest tribal populations in South Asia and their own script, Ol Chiki, recognized in India’s constitution.
Despite constitutional protections, tribal communities in India have faced persistent land displacement, poverty, and exclusion from elite institutions. The Forest Rights Act of 2006 C.E. and the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act were designed to protect tribal land and self-governance — but enforcement has been uneven.
Murmu’s election does not resolve those structural gaps on its own. Activists and scholars have noted that symbolic representation at the top does not automatically translate into policy gains for communities on the ground. Some tribal rights advocates were also critical of her tenure as Jharkhand’s governor, pointing to her response to protests over proposed amendments to tenancy laws that safeguarded tribal land rights.
Still, for millions of people from communities that have rarely seen themselves reflected in national leadership, the moment carried real weight. Analysts writing in The Indian Express noted that the election of a woman from an Adivasi background to the presidency sent a visible signal about who belongs at the center of Indian public life.
The second woman, the youngest president, the first born in independent India
Murmu is also the second woman to serve as India’s president, after Pratibha Patil, who held the office from 2007 to 2012 C.E. At 64 when she took office, she was the youngest person ever to become India’s president. And she is the first president born after Indian independence in 1947 C.E. — a generational marker that carries its own symbolism.
She has spoken of admiring figures across India’s political and intellectual tradition, from Mahatma Gandhi to B. R. Ambedkar, the Dalit jurist and chief architect of the Indian constitution who spent his life fighting caste discrimination. Ambedkar’s legacy is particularly resonant here: he built a constitutional framework meant to protect the marginalized, and Murmu now occupies the office that serves as its symbolic guardian.
She is also a follower of the Brahma Kumaris spiritual movement, and has spoken publicly about how personal loss — she lost her husband, two sons, mother, and a brother over seven years — shaped her inner resilience.
What comes next
The Indian presidency is largely a ceremonial role, with executive power resting with the prime minister and cabinet. But the president does hold meaningful constitutional duties: summoning and proroguing parliament, giving assent to legislation, and acting as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
More than the formal powers, the office shapes national narrative. Who holds it matters to how India tells its own story. As BBC News reported at the time of her election, Murmu’s rise from a remote Odisha village to Rashtrapati Bhavan was described by many as a story that would have been nearly unimaginable a generation ago.
Whether her presidency accelerates concrete gains for India’s tribal communities remains an open question — and an important one to keep watching.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Wikipedia — Droupadi Murmu
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