ROAD TO RAISINA
THE TRAJECTORY OF DROUPADI MURMU’S RISE FROM GRASSROOTS
EARLY LIFE
➘ Born on June 20, 1958, in a Santhal family in Rairangpur tehsil of Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district as the only daughter in a predominantly male household, Droupadi was doted upon by everyone
➘ Her father, Biranchi Narayan Tudu, was a farmer and her mother, Singo Tudu, a homemaker. Having studied only till Class II, Droupadi’s father was keen that his daughter get an education, especially as his sons, Bhagat and Tarini, showed no inclination towards studying. Originally named Puti, she was given the name Droupadi by her teacher.
EDUCATION
➘ Droupadi studied at the village school till Class VII. Having forgotten her compass in class once, she was given one by her teachers. Once she fin
ished school, she returned the compass and geometry box so some other poor student could use them. She did the same with her textbooks.
➘ During monsoons, she would walk barefoot to school, crossing a canal with fast-flowing water. Often soaked to the skin, she would contrive to keep her books dry. Good in sports, she won the first prize in various athletics events.
➘ Her father mortgaged their land so she could move to Bhubaneswar and join the Capital Government High School. She would sit with five other tribal girls on the back benches, perhaps conscious of her identity. While her friends ate ghugni, aloo chop or sweetmeats at the school canteen, she survived on the free food at the tribal hostel. It was all she could manage with the Rs 10 her father sent her every month. In her entire time at school, friends recall her going to the cinema hall just once.
➘ After completing her Intermediate in Arts in 1974, she had to wait a year to join college as getting a caste certificate took a lot of time. In that time, she helped out her father in the fields and gave tuition to students. Later, she completed her BA from Rama Devi Women’s University, Bhubaneswar.
JOBS AND FAMILY
➘ In the late 1970s, she joined the state irrigation department as a junior assistant in Bhubaneswar. She then married Shyam Charan Murmu, who worked at the State Bank of India’s Rairangpur branch. The couple had a daughter, but the child died at a very young age. Droupadi quit her job in Bhubaneswar and moved back to Rairangpur, where she joined the Sri Aurobindo School of Integral Education as a teacher, settling for an honorarium instead of a full salary and helping tribal children with their education. Meanwhile, the couple were blessed with another daughter and two sons.
POLITICS
➘ Impressed by her work at school and her social outreach, BJP leader Raj Kishore Das convinced her to join the party in 1997. She won the local council polls that year and became vicechairperson of the Rairangpur municipality. She could be seen driving around in her Maruti 800 and supervising sanitation works.
➘ In 2000, she won the assembly poll from Rairangpur constituency and became the transport and commerce minister and later the fisheries and animal resources development minister in the Naveen Patnaik-led BJDBJP coalition government. It was during her tenure as transport minister that Uparbed (her home) and Paharpur (her in-laws’ place) saw pucca roads being built. Earlier to reach Paharpur, the couple would hire a cycle and take turns riding pillion.
➘ As president of the BJP ST Morcha and three-time district party president of Mayurbhanj, she worked for social development and women’s empowerment. She also played a big role in bringing the Santhali language under the Eighth Schedule.
➘ She overcame personal tragedy—losing her two sons and husband—to devote herself to the cause of tribals, which included opening a residential school for them in the name of her husband.
➘ She became the first woman Governor of Jharkhand in 2015. Her school friends remember being invited over to the Raj Bhavan. “She was just the same,” a friend recalls. “Only the oily plait and school uniform had given way to spectacles and sarees.”
➘ More than just a rubberstamp governor, Droupadi returned the contentious amendments to the Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act in 2015 to the government with queries. In 2018, she used her negotiation skills to pacify gram sabhas that had stopped the entry of the police and the administration into tribal villages by invoking the Pathalgadi custom.
➘ The Odia translation of PM Nehru’s favourite poem— Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by the Woods’—was her favourite too. When friends would tease her about it and ask if she was planning to become the PM or the President, she would say, “Why not?” She was nominated NDA candidate on June 21 and took oath as the 15th President of India on July 25.