[Generations of oppression, coupled with limited economic opportunity, long kept senior political positions out of the reach of most low-caste Dalits, once known as “untouchables.” Kovind is the second Dalit president since India’s independence; the first was Kocheril Raman Narayanan, who was president from 1997 to 2002.]
By Vidhi Doshi
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Ram
Nath Kovind, India’s president, waves upon arrival at the airport
in
New Delhi. (Tsering Topgyal/AP)
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NEW
DELHI — A few weeks ago,
relatively few people in India had heard of Ram Nath Kovind. But on Thursday
the country’s Parliament and state leaders selected the low-caste
septuagenarian to be India’s president, the constitutional head of state.
Born in a mud hut in an impoverished village,
Kovind, who is from the Koli weaver caste, rose to become a Supreme Court
lawyer and later a politician with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP).
As president, his role is mostly ceremonial,
but he does have certain powers — the right to issue presidential pardons to
those facing the death sentence, for example.
His victory, by a two-thirds majority, was
widely predicted after he was selected by the governing coalition led by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP.
Analysts said that his selection was an
effort on the part of the party to woo lower-caste voters.
Generations of oppression, coupled with
limited economic opportunity, long kept senior political positions out of the
reach of most low-caste Dalits, once known as “untouchables.” Kovind is the
second Dalit president since India’s independence; the first was Kocheril Raman
Narayanan, who was president from 1997 to 2002.
Modi tweeted congratulations to Kovind on
Thursday, as well as a photo of the two men together in their younger days.
In earlier tweets, the prime minister
carefully avoided mention of Kovind’s Dalit status, presenting him instead as a
representative of people from poor socioeconomic backgrounds.
“I am sure Shri Ram Nath Kovind will make an
exceptional President & continue to be a strong voice for the poor,
downtrodden & marginalised,” he wrote.
In recent months, BJP-led policies have
antagonized low-caste leaders. Efforts to curb the sale of beef, by which many
Dalit communities subsist, have led to public lynchings by self-styled cow
protectors, who believe the animal is sacred in the Hindu religion.
The nomination of high-caste Yogi Adityanath
to the coveted position of chief minister in India’s most populous state, Uttar
Pradesh, was also seen as pandering to the party’s high-caste voter base.
“The BJP has been at the wrong end of the
political spectrum due to the rising number of atrocities committed against the
Dalits during their regime,” said Praveen Rai, political analyst at the Center
for the Study of Developing Societies, based in New Delhi. “By selecting him on
‘Dalit identity,’ it hopes to [calm] the rising tempers of the community and
win back their votes for the next general elections in 2019.”
For weeks ahead of the presidential vote,
Indian newspapers and magazines detailed Kovind’s virtuous beginnings: that he
would walk miles to the next village to attend high school, that he could
recite sacred texts from memory as a 15-year old, that he once solemnly
corrected a politician’s Hindi mispronunciation at a swearing-in ceremony — a
testament to his devotion to the Indian constitution.
The opposition candidate, Meira Kumar, also
born a Dalit, was reportedly chosen to split the electoral college along gender
lines, a strategy that “failed miserably,” Rai said.
Sonia Gandhi, head of the opposition Indian
National Congress party, had presented the election as an ideological battle.
“We cannot and must not let India be hostage to those who wish to impose upon
it a narrow-minded, divisive and communal vision,” she said, according to NDTV.
Over
the years, Kovind has been close to the Hindu nationalist organization known as
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the right-wing ideological parent of the BJP — supporting
its causes but never actually participating in its daily meetings, according to
India Today magazine. Though a BJP stalwart, his distance from the Sangh meant
his nomination was palatable to secularists, analysts said.
Analysts say that Kovind has repeatedly shown
deference and a willingness to be a yes-man, especially in his previous role as
governor of Bihar, where he loyally backed state initiatives including a
controversial liquor ban. A profile in India Today suggested that he will be an
“unobtrusive” president, leaving the limelight for Modi.
Vidhi Doshi is a
reporter based in New Delhi. Follow
@vidhiwapo