If I could put a black border around this edition, I would. The US Supreme Court has ruled on expected lines: abortion is not a constitutional right. This makes it much more difficult (and impossible in some states) for women in America to have an abortion. But before I get to that (and why we should care in India), I'm excited that our next president is going to be a woman and, for the first time in 75 years, a tribal. Read on… THE BIG STORY: The importance of being Droupadi Murmu Few would have heard of the 64-year-old Droupadi Murmu before the BJP announced her name as the NDA's nominee for president of India. But few have been able to ignore the symbolism of her candidature. When she is elected on July 18, she will become India's first tribal (and second woman) president. It's a done deal. The NDA alliance headed by the BJP has 49% of the vote. In addition, Naveen Patnaik's BJD and Jagan Mohan Reddy's YSR Congress have already pledged support. Others are likely to follow the lure of the powerful optics of what her election will mean. There's more than a good chance that it's identity politics more than a desire to emancipate tribal women that has led to her nomination, but in a post that is largely ceremonial, symbolism counts and "her personal journey and what it means for an Adivasi woman cannot be diminished," says Nikita Sonavane, lawyer and co-founder of the Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project that works with marginalised communities. The data paints a bleak picture Available data on the 705 tribes recognised by the government makes for depressing reading. Located primarily in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan and the North-east states, 60% of India's 104 million tribals live in predominantly hilly or forested areas, according to an expert committee on tribal health set up in 2013. Almost 40% of the 2.13 crore people displaced between 1951 and 1990 due to dams, mines and industry were tribals who continue "to suffer from lack of infrastructure development facilities and services," found the committee. Literacy rates among tribals did indeed improve from 47.1% in 2001 to 59% in 2011, but it remains well below the national average of 73%. For ST women, literacy rates in 2011 were just 49.4%. In many critical parameters, scheduled tribes (ST) are worse off than scheduled castes (SC). For instance, over 45% ST children are underweight; 39.1% for SC and 35.8% for all groups, according to the National Family Health Survey – 4. The same survey found 59.9% ST women to be anaemic (55.9% for SC and 53.1% for all other groups). The rise of Droupadi Murmu The Murmus are Santhals, like Hemant Soren, the current chief minister of Jharkhand where Droupadi Murmu was governor until 2021. Born in Mayurbhanj district, Odisha, she graduated from Rama Devi Women's College in Bhubhaneshwar, Odisha, and began her career with a teaching job. In 1997, she contested the civic election and was elected councillor. In a state where the chief minister Naveen Patnaik spearheaded the greater political empowerment of women by earmarking 33% of all Parliamentary seats for them in the 2019, Murmu's political rise had already begun nearly two decades earlier when she was elected twice to the state assembly from Rairangpur on a BJP ticket. During the BJD-BJP coalition in 2000 she served as a minister. Bureaucrats from that time remember her as low-key, efficient and under-stated. By the time she was appointed governor to Jharkhand in 2015, she had made the space for other tribal women. As a result of Chief Minister Patnaik's 2019 quota, five of seven women who contested won. Amongst them was 25-year-old Chandrani Murmu, a BTech graduate and the youngest woman MP to be elected that year. The dream of possibility As president, Droupadi Murmu's role will be largely ceremonial—unless faced with a Constitutional crisis. Her candidature might have an element of tokenistic identity politics but it doesn't take away from the fact that 'it is valuable because it is unprecedented', says Sonavane. Nobody expects to see the overnight emancipation of tribal women, or even the dramatic improvement of their dismal health and education status, but her presidency will begin on a note of possibility. And that is cause for hope. |