Five years ago, the daughter of Kalahandi district’s tribal farmer Dana Majhi made headlines for walking with the corpse of his wife for about 10 km. She has cleared this year’s Odisha’s high school certificate examination, results of which were announced on Friday evening.
In August 2016, Chandini, Majhi’s eldest daughter, walked along with her father as he carried the corpse of his wife Amangdei on his shoulders for 10 kms. They had to walk after failing to arrange a vehicle to carry her home. His long walk from the female TB ward of Kalahandi district headquarters hospital at Bhawanipatna gave the world a close peek into the stark poverty and helplessness of tribals in the region. Amangdei Manjhi had died at the hospital during treatment.
The image of a sobbing Chandini Majhi, then 12-year-old, walking along with her father drew much international criticism for Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik.
On Friday, the mood was completely different with Chandini becoming the first in the family to have passed the matriculation exam. Out of the 560,000 examinees, around 98% passed the exam.
Achyuta Samanta, BJD (Biju Janata Dal) MP from Kandhamal had helped Majhi’s three daughters including Chandini admitted in Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) in Bhubaneswar, a tribal school owned by the MP. He said that he was happy to see the girls taking charge of their destinies.
He tweeted, “The villagers are elated to learn about her performance. This is my happiness to see girls taking charge of presiding over their destiny. And this is an example of KISS unlocking every frontier. We are proud of such stories of inspiration and hope.”
Bahraini Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa donated ₹900,000 to Dana Majhi, after the international outrage triggered by the 2016 incident. Dana Manjhi also received assistance from several other individuals and organisations including Sulabh International that made an undisclosed fixed deposit (FD) in his bank account and reportedly promised a monthly assistance of ₹10,000 for Chandini.
Now 50, Majhi has remarried. He has a pucca house built under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. He bought a motorbike in 2017, and he still cultivates a small patch of land that he owns.
