Droupadi Murmu: From personal losses to top post

In 2009, a terrible personal tragedy could have been ended Droupadi Murmu’s political career. Droupadi had been in politics for a few years short of two decades, and in that time, she had a steady climb. But the passing of her elder son devastated her.

Biju Janata Dal MLA Raj Kishore Das, who had first spotted Droupadi in 1992, recalled the trying time. “When we rushed to be by her side in Bhubaneswar, she was inconsolable and said that she will now move away from politics," he said. "‘I’m done now. I’ve lost everything,’ she had said.” Das was at the time with the BJP.

But her elder son’s passing was only the beginning of personal losses for Droupadi. In 2013, her younger son died in an accident, and a year later, her husband, Shyam Charan Murmu, followed.

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As she continued to drift away from politics, Das said he and some other colleagues urged the BJP’s central command to give her more work to keep her busy. The party heeded and made her president of the district unit. Droupadi then established the Shyam, Laxman and Sipun Memorial Residential School in Mayurbhanj’s Pahadpur for tribal girls in memory of her husband and sons.

Born in a humble Santhal household in Uparbeda in 1958, Droupadi scripted success as a young child. In her village, no girl had studied beyond Class 12, and when she expressed a desire to study further, her family spoke to a relative with political clout and sent her to Bhubaneswar.

She started work in the state secretariat in Odisha as a clerk, where she met and later married Shyam, then a bank employee. They settled in Rairangpur, where Droupadi started teaching in a local school without any compensation.

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The year was 1992, and Das first noticed her. “She was educated, was from the Santhal community, and was an honorary teacher in a school. She had also studied at a good college in Bhubaneswar. The BJP was keen to have a foothold in Odisha, and the Santhal community was one of the vote banks the party was eyeing. I spoke to one of her colleagues and requested her to enter politics,” Das said.

She was given a councillor’s ticket and won her first election. Das, who was the chairman of the council, made her the vice president. “I gave her the sanitation portfolio, and she was so sincere, she would land up at every lane and ward to stand and oversee the work. There was a huge change in the department, and her popularity soared,” Das said.

Droupadi was made councillor once again before the party gave her a ticket from Rairangpur in 2000. She won the seat and was made the minister of state with independent charge for commerce and transport in the BJP and BJD coalition government. Between 2002 and 2004, she was the fisheries and animal resources development minister. Droupadi was elected MLA once again in 2009.

BJP’s current MLA from Mayurbhanj Bishweswar Tudu said that Droupadi’s legacy in the district was inspirational.

In 2015, at the age of 59, she was appointed the governor of Jharkhand, becoming the first woman and the first to have completed a full term in the post. An official from the Raj Bhavan said Droupadi’s tenure was impeccable. “She was very understanding but also held a strong sense of right and wrong,” the official said, in reference to Murmu turning back two bills during BJP leader Raghubar Das’s tenure in 2017, which she perceived as anti-tribal.