Beyond tribal instincts

Kasturi Ray's biography of President Droupadi Murmu is an exploration into her childhood, her deep inner sorrow, and the impact of her cultural upbringing, which values generosity, on her life

Droupadi Murmu: From Tribal Hinterlands to Raisina Hill

Author: Kasturi Ray

Publisher: Rupa Publications

Pages: 242

Price: Rs. 595

Droupadi Murmu’s election as the President of India is, without doubt, the coming of age of India’s democracy. It was a Western diplomat, who presented his credentials to her, who described her presidency the best. He said: “Amid the panoply of Indian grandeur that the Rashtrapati Bhavan represents, there sat this diminutive woman in her simple sari, sitting absolutely still like a bird in this huge red chair, watching everything with bright eyes, never once fazed by what was going on around her. When you consider where she was coming from, it was…uplifting”.

Kasturi Ray’s book is the first on her life. The author, a well-known journalist, describes Ms Murmu’s rise from Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district. She is a Santali tribal, a group that holds sway from Odisha to north Bengal. She started out as a government official in the agriculture department before becoming  a school teacher,  and later a councillor and vice-chairperson of the Rairangpur Nagar Panchayat, and also vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party Scheduled Tribes Morcha in Odisha. In 2000, she became MLA, winning for a second time in 2009. In between she became minister of state for transport and commerce, and then fisheries and animal husbandry in the state in the coalition between the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the BJP. However, the alliance broke up in 2008 and Ms Murmu had to step down.

The reason the alliance broke down, and Ms Murmu’s stance on it is interesting. The breaking point was the killing of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati in Kandhamal, allegedly by Maoists, when he spoke up against tribal conversion to Christianity. But Ms Murmu, the author says, did not blame the Maoists but the BJD.  Ms Ray quotes Ms Murmu as saying: “I am sure it is the government which is making this [threat of Maoist attacks]”. She had to pay for this: She lost the next elections.

The author describes the other battles Ms Murmu fought and won —  and some that she lost.  The battle for recognition of Santali is not so well-known. It was Ms Murmu’s persistent requests to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee that got Santali the status of a recognised Indian language in 2004. In political terms, she won a march on the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), which had made sporadic efforts for this. The author quotes an interview in which Ms Murmu says: “A tribe can survive only if it has its language, culture and tradition”.

This is a bit confusing. Santali tribes believe in animism and worshipping nature. They believe spirituality resides in jahar  or sacred groves and that land is God. They have been drawn to organised religion—Hinduism and Christianity. But exactly when Ms Murmu made the transition to organised Hinduism is not clear from the book. One can only infer that faced with personal grief (she lost two sons and her husband in a short period of time, leading to a phase of depression and trauma) she turned for solace to the Brahma Kumari movement. The Brahma Kumaris taught her meditation, yoga and counselled her in ways to control her deep inner sorrow.

The centrepiece of Ms Murmu’s political career — her crowning glory, as it were — came during her tenure as Jharkhand governor, a position to which she was appointed in 2015. The author describes in detail how in 2017, the Raghubar Das-led BJP government tried to amend the Chota Nagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act, 1908, and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy (SPT) Act, 1949. Ms Murmu returned the two Bills to the government with queries. The amendments to these Acts envisaged giving tribals the right to use their land commercially without changing ownership. The author says, “During the discussions with various (tribal) outfits she made it clear that under no circumstances would tribals be alienated from their land — their only asset. She was unhappy that the government could not gauge the mood of the tribals in a matter so close to their hearts as jal, jangal  and jameen”. When she returned the Bills, she asked one question, the author says: How would the amendments benefit the tribal masses? She also attached the 192 protest petitions that the Raj Bhawan had received.

This is not an authorised biography — the author has relied on interviews with those who had dealings with Ms Murmu, personal, political and administrative. The interviews are the most valuable element — they reveal Ms Murmu’s personality. She emerges as a shy, giggly schoolgirl who never grudged the fact that she had only one frock, which she would wash every night to wear to school the next morning. It describes in spare prose her emotional paralysis when she lost a large part of her family. It takes stock of her administrative decisions, many  of which stemmed not just from her identity as a tribal, but also as a person from a culture that celebrates generosity.

Independent research shows that even after a stint as minister, the affidavit she furnished when she was contesting the Assembly elections said she had no house, a small bank balance and some land. In the 2014 Assembly elections which she contested from Rairangpur, she listed her assets as  Rs. 2 crore with liabilities of  Rs. 14 lakh and three criminal cases.

The book avoids romanticising tribal identity but explains the questions tribals face about themselves in relation to India. Now, questions have arisen about the President in relation to Parliament and the inauguration of the new Parliament building. Ms Murmu has ignored the controversies, emphasising that the new Parliament building should be a matter of pride, not who inaugurates it. This is a measure of her generosity — and gratitude.