"My election is proof that the poor in India can dream and make them come true," Droupadi Murmu, India's 15th president, only the second woman and the first from the indigenous tribal community to ascend to the nation's highest constitutional office, said on Monday after her oath-taking at Parliament House in New Delhi. 

Hailing from the remote district of Mayurbhanj in the eastern coastal state of Odisha, Murmu's election as president is seen to reflect the capacities and contradictions of India's 75-year-old democracy.

On Monday, after she was sworn in as the President of India by Chief Justice N V Ramanna, she also took over as the commander in chief of the India's million strong armed forces. Significantly, Murmu, 64, also became the country's first president born after the country's independence in 1947. 

Her ascendance, from a poor but determined village girl who struggled to do her education to the 15th president of India, also answered many apprehensions that leaders at the time of independence had had about the future of the country's tribal community, largely disconnected from the mainstream. 

My journey from a tribal village in Odisha is "not a personal achievement", she said in her inaugural speech, "it shows the greatness of India."

"It is a matter of great satisfaction for me that those who have been deprived for centuries, who have been away from development, the poor, the downtrodden, the backward and the tribals can see their reflection in me." India's tribal community, who were originally inhabitants as well protectors of its forests, is now 100 million strong comprising about 8 per cent of its 1.4 billion population.

In that sense, for a woman from an impoverished tribal community, whose people have received only uneven benefits of India's progress despite many affirmative programmes in their favour and often dispossessed of their traditional homes and livelihood in the name of  infrastructure development, becoming the president also instils a sense of confidence in India's democratic politics.

In that sense, her choice by the dispensation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, otherwise seen as an autocratic leader who has been accused of undermining many of India's democratic institutions, is seen as nothing sort of revolutionary, both by the standard of the country's conservative political and social norms.

Political observers have said such a decision could only have been taken by a decisive and strong-willed leader like Modi, who in one stroke is seen to have won over a 100 million strong community, who were otherwise not seen well disposed towards the ruling BJP because of its majoritarian Hindu agenda. 
  
In her speech, Murmu, who had a history of personal tragedies having lost her husband, two sons and a daughter, said she  felt proud to lead a country where the youth have the courage to break away from the old rut. Their interests, she said, would be "paramount" to her. 
   
(SAM)