New Delhi (AP) – India’s new president Draupadi Murmu has been sworn in. The 64-year-old is the first head of state of India’s indigenous ethnic group. Murmu, a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP party, was sworn in on Monday. “My election is proof that the country’s poor have dreams and can achieve them,” she said afterwards, according to local broadcaster NDTV. The Indian head of state fulfills – like the German Federal President – above all representative tasks, the power belongs to the Prime Minister. The president is elected every five years. Murmu is the second woman to hold this position.
Murmu are ethnically one of the indigenous people of India. Indigenous peoples make up 8.6% of India’s population of approximately 1.3 billion. Indigenous peoples are often poor and marginalized – even though, among other things, certain positions in government are reserved for the ethnic group. Traditionally, they dwell in or near forests, where they subsist as hunter-gatherers. Many are also active as farmers.
Murmu was a former teacher and then governor of the state of Jharkhand. As governor, she campaigned for the rights of India’s indigenous peoples. As president, she wants to work for the well-being of marginalized people, she said Monday.
The previous president also belonged to a marginalized group: Ram Nath Kovind is a Dalit, that is to say a member of the lowest level of the caste system who was once considered “untouchable”. The situation of the Dalits changed little during his presidency. Dalits face a lot of discrimination.
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