The election of Murmu cannot be an empty symbolic gesture, mere lip service to inclusion. It must signal a new era where it cannot continue to be business as usual
National Democratic Alliance presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu in Patna, Bihar, July 5, 2022 (Santosh Kumar/Hindustan Times)
At a time when political parties are queuing up to pledge support to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s official candidate for president, Draupadi Murmu, news from Madhya Pradesh (MP) of another tribal woman, Rampyari Sehariya, being set ablaze for claiming land that belonged to her, couldn’t have come at a worse time.