Rubber stamps can sometimes leave an indelible mark. And everyone lauds a person who has overcome poverty, deprivation, and private grief, to reach for the sky.
And, therefore, there is much reason to celebrate Mrs Draupadi Murmu, inaugurated on Monday, July 25, as Republic of India’s 15th President, for the glass ceilings she breaks, and the flame of pride she lights in the hearts of the Adivasi, or tribal community, one of the most deprived in the country.
For now, the encomiums continue though everyone knows that she would be a ceremonial head of state whose main job would be welcoming global leaders of her rank to New Delhi, and once a year opening the Budget session of Parliament reading out a text prepared by the office of the PM.
Murmu, till recently governor of Jharkhand, was elected last week to the highest office in the land, defeating former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha, getting 676,803 as against 380,177. The electoral college for the presidential election consists of Members of the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and of the legislatures of the States and union territories. The votes have a weightage calculated based on the population of the State.
Ironically both candidates have had a political career in the larger umbrella of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Murmu, born in 1958, has been in the Bharatiya Janata Party all her political career, was a nominee of the National Democratic alliance and hand-picked by Prime minister Narendra Modi. It was a political coup by Modi, and unnerved the opposition. Many smaller groups, especially in areas with an Adivasi presence, declared their support for her. Even tribal members of the main opposition parties, voted for her.
Sinha, chosen by many of the opposition parties in a collective meeting, had served in several cabinet positions in the first National Democratic Alliance government of PM Atal Behari Vajpayee. Modi put him with LK Advani and Dr Murli Manohar Joshi in the Margdarshak Mandal of the party, a big-worded political cold storage, without offering him any post. While Advani and Dr Joshi seem resigned to their fate, Sinha, a former Indian Administrative Service officer, jumped ship, and after a while joined the Trinamool Congress of Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee.
Modi had struck a master in nominating Murmu, a widow who has been a teacher, councillor, legislator and State governor in a distinguished personal career, as the ruling party’s candidate for the presidency. Murmu was born in a Santhal family is Orissa in Mayurbhanj. Though a resident of Odisha, Murmu has a following among the large central Indian Adivasi communities that range from Gujarat and Rajasthan in the west to Bengal and even pockets of Assam in the East, and certainly covering the central Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha. Several of these States including Modi’s home province of Gujarat go to the polls to choose new legislative assemblies next year and he hopes to score big. At present, among these states, Modi’s BJP rules only in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, with the Congress in power in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and a regional tribal party in Jharkhand.
Getting a President from amongst the women, or Dalits and Indigenous group is absolute tokenism, but in the country’s staunch sway under the ancient caste system ancient patriarchal mores, it could be said that even tokenism is a big deal.
But in the corporate-driven polity of the day, tokenism can go only so far. KR Narayanan, India’s first Dalit President, couldn’t do much for the uplift of his community. But Narayanan, who was handpicked by prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to join the nascent diplomatic service, in his role as President five decades later did ensure that the Supreme Court would get its first Dalit Chief Justice.
Ram Kovind, the outgoing president and second Dalit to hold the post, got the short end of the straw of history. The regime in his term was headed by PM Narendra Modi, who in any case takes his policy and personnel decisions on his own without caring much for cabinet or parliament. Kovind’s term ended in the blink of an eye.
The indigenous people, 8.2 per cent of the national population, are not a monolithic block. As a group, the indigenous people comprise 573 communities, recognised in the constitution as Scheduled tribes (STs), who get affirmative action benefits in land, education, and government jobs.
Adivasis are wary of dilution of Fifth and Sixth Schedules under Article 244 of the Constitution in which gives them self-governance in specified tribal majority areas in nine states. It provides protection to the Adivasis from alienation of their lands and natural resources to non-tribals. This, it is feared, will be amended soon to formally affect the transfer of tribal lands to non-tribals and corporate bodies.
The Adivasi Christian community perhaps is the most anxious of them all. Unlike Dalits who have to be Hindus, Sikhs or Buddhists to enjoy reservations and so on Tribals can chose to be in any faith. But in recent years, the ruling BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, have launched a campaign to deny converts to Christianity such rights and privileges. This, it is feared, may rob Christians of their traditional land rights, livelihoods and state-subsidised education. Christians fear Modi has chosen Murmu to speed up the disenfranchisement of tribals who profess Christianity a their faith instead of Hinduism.
(John Dayal is an author, editor and an activist)
