New Delhi: India is on the cusp of a historic moment as far as empowerment of socially marginalised groups are concerned. Historically, India has never had a President, PM, and CJI simultaneously representing Tribal, Other Backward Classes and Dalit identities
This will change come 14 May, as for the first time in India’s history three key constitutional positions- the President, the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India- will simultaneously be held by individuals from these specific social backgrounds.
Justice Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai is set to become the CJI on 14 May succeeding Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who retires on 13 May .
Justice Gavai, from a Scheduled Caste community in Maharashtra, will be the second Dalit CJI after Justice K.G. Balakrishnan (who served from 2007 to 2010).
Droupadi Murmu has been the President of India since July 2022. She is the first tribal woman to hold this office, belonging to the Santhal community, a Scheduled Tribe from Odisha.
Similarly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has been the Prime Minister since May 2014, is the first PM from an OBC background. He hails from the Ghanchi community in Gujarat, classified as an OBC.
This alignment- which is a product of an organic exercise and not by design- will make it a landmark moment in India’s socio-political history, reflecting representation from three historically marginalized groups at the apex of its governance structure, something that has never been witnessed before.
The simultaneous occupancy of India’s top constitutional positions—President (Droupadi Murmu, tribal), Prime Minister (Narendra Modi, OBC), and Chief Justice (Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai, Dalit)— will come as a historic milestone reflecting the evolving social dynamics, as it emerges naturally from these leaders independent career paths.
The alignment symbolizes the empowering of historically marginalized communities and underscores the level
In the past, India has had two Dalit Presidents: K.R. Narayanan (1997–2002) and Ram Nath Kovind (2017–2022).
During KR Narayanan’s tenure, the Prime Ministers were I.K. Gujral (1997–1998) and A.B. Vajpayee (1998–2002), neither of whom belonged to the Other Backward Classes (OBC), and the Chief Justices of India, such as J.S. Verma (1997) and M.M. Punchhi (1998), were not from the Dalit community.
Similarly, during Ram Nath Kovind’s tenure, the Prime Minister was Narendra Modi (2017–2022), who is from an OBC background, but the Chief Justices, including Dipak Misra (2017–2018), Ranjan Gogoi (2018–2019), and Sharad Arvind Bobde (2019–2021), were not Dalit.
Droupadi Murmu is the first tribal President, but no prior tribal President existed to overlap with an OBC PM and Dalit CJI.
Earlier PMs like H.D. Deve Gowda (1996–1997) came from backward communities (Vokkaliga, later classified as OBC), but during his term, the President (Shankar Dayal Sharma) was not tribal, and the CJI (A.M. Ahmadi) was not Dalit.
While K.G. Balakrishnan was the first Dalit CJI (2007–2010), at that time, the President was Pratibha Patil (not tribal or Dalit), and the PM was Manmohan Singh (not OBC).