Real journeys — start to finish — from scholarship to career.
Born in a remote Odisha village to a Santhal tribal family, Droupadi Murmu became a schoolteacher, then a state Governor, then in 2022 the first person from a Scheduled Tribe to be elected President of India.
Droupadi Murmu
Born into a Dalit family in rural Kerala too poor to always afford school fees, K.R. Narayanan went on to study at the London School of Economics on scholarship, become a career diplomat, and in 1997 was elected the first Dalit President of India.
K.R. Narayanan
Tina Dabi topped the UPSC Civil Services Examination 2015 on her first attempt — competing in the open merit list rather than through reserved-category ranking — becoming the first Dalit woman to secure the top rank nationally.
Tina Dabi