Droupadi Murmu

Droupadi Murmu became the 15th president of India on July 25, 2022, when she was sworn in by the chief justice of the country’s Supreme Court. She is the first person from the tribal community, and the second woman after Pratibha Patil, to hold the office of president. She is also the first president to have been born in independent India as well as the youngest person to occupy the post. Murmu previously served as the governor of Jharkhand state from 2015 to 2021 and as a member of the legislative assembly of Odisha state from 2000 to 2009.

Early life and education

Droupadi Murmu was born on June 20, 1958, in Uparbeda, a village in Odisha state, to a Santhali tribal family. Her parents named her Puti Tudu; a teacher later gave her the name Droupadi. Uparbeda, which is located in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, is one of India’s most remote and underdeveloped places, and the Santhal are one of the largest tribal communities in India.

Murmu experienced poverty as a child. She completed her primary education in the village school, and she subsequently earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rama Devi Women’s College in Bhubaneswar. She is the first woman from her village to complete a university education.

Career and family

Murmu’s career began in 1979 at Odisha’s Irrigation and Power Department, where she was a junior assistant. While working there, she married Shyam Charan Murmu, whose surname she adopted, and they had a daughter (who died as a child). She left that job in 1983 to care for her growing family, which included three more children. From 1994 to 1997 she taught at Sri Aurobindo Integral Education and Research Centre in Rairangpur.

In 1997 Murmu joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and she was elected as councillor of the Rairangpur Nagar Panchayat (town council). In 2000 she was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Odisha from the Rairangpur constituency, and she served two terms, until 2009, representing the BJP. During this period, Murmu was minister for commerce and transport and then minister for fisheries and animal resources. She was awarded the Pandit Nilakantha Das Best Legislator Award in 2007 by Odisha’s Legislative Assembly. Murmu also served as the vice president, and later president, of the BJP’s Scheduled Tribe Morcha (“meeting” or “march”) in Odisha, and she was briefly BJP’s district president for the Mayurbhanj (West) unit.

Murmu did not fare so well in later elections, being defeated in the 2009 federal legislature (Lok Sabha) election for the Mayurbhanj constituency as well as the 2014 Odisha state legislature election for Rairangpur. She also experienced personal losses: one son died in 2009, another in 2013, and her husband in 2014.

In 2015 Murmu was appointed governor of Jharkhand state, becoming the first woman tribal governor of any tribal-majority state in India. In this role, she opposed the state BJP government’s proposed amendment to a 1908 law that would have given tribal people in the state the right to let the government make commercial use of tribal land, including leasing such land. The amendment was subsequently withdrawn.

Are you a student?

Get a special academic rate on Britannica Premium.

Subscribe

President of India

In June 2022 the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a political alliance led by the BJP, nominated Murmu for the presidency of India. India’s president is indirectly elected by an electoral college comprising the elected members of both houses of the federal parliament and the elected members of the legislative assemblies of India’s 28 states as well as the union territories of Delhi, Puducherry, and Jammu and Kashmir. Murmu defeated Yashwant Sinha, a candidate chosen by the parties in opposition to the NDA, winning 64 percent of all electoral votes. She took the oath of office on July 25, 2022, succeeding Ram Nath Kovind.

Murmu is known for her efforts to promote health care, economic development, and education among tribal communities as well as for her work in preserving tribal culture and heritage.