By Purushottam Nayak
Bhubaneswar, Nov 11, 2024: The daughter of a bangle selling tribal couple in Odisha now thanks Jesus for helping her become a model for the marginalized in the eastern Indian state.
Runita Pradhan, a Catholic woman from Kandhamal’s Brahasalka village near Daringbadi town in Kandhamal district, has fought all odds to become an officer of the Odisha Administrative Service (OAS) this year.
When the Odisha Public Service Commission announced the OAS results on October 19, Runita stood 530 among 700,000 candidates who had written the exam.
Only 683 candidates could clear the exam, including 258 women like Runita. It was her first attempt and she wrote the exam without attending any coaching class.
Susama Pradhan, one of the residents of her village, says Runita has made them proud. “She is the cause of our great joy and hope to rise above our poverty and can become equal with mainstream society,” she told Matters India.
Her parish priest, Father Bimal Kumar Nayak of Runita’s parish of Our Lady of Lourdes, Bamunigam, described Runita as “simple and humble and a model young woman for the younger generation.”
He said Runita’s family offered a Mass to thank God for her success.
The family is regular to the church. “I have seen their continuous prayer and deep faith in God,” the priest told Matters India.
Runita says it is “Lord Jesus who has blessed me with this great success.”
She said her parents had inspired her to dream big in life despite their poor background. She recalled her father constantly reminding her, “Failure is the pillar of success.”
Runita was born on February 28, 1999, at Brahasalka village, 10 km from Daringbadi town, under the Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar. She is second of six children of Bisikesan and Santoshini Pradhan.
She passed the tenth grade from Daringbadi’s Government Girls’ High School in 2014.
She then moved to the state capital of Bhubaneswar to study the twelfth grade from Maa Mamataa Mayi Science College. She passed the Bachelor’s degree with first rank in 2019 from Ramadevi Women’s University. She also topped the master’s course from Utkal University Vanivihar. She did her doctorate in Political Science at Kalinga Institute of Social Science, Bhubaneswar.
Runita was just nine at the time of the 2008 anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal. “I went through pain and agony during those days. It is the Lord who stood behind us during persecution.”
During the violence, her parents went to the relief camp at Daringbadi. “I was with my sister in Bhubaneswar.”
Runita’s father Bisikesan says he is proud that his daughter has “brought great honour and respect for me and for my village.”
Bisikesan and Santoshini sell bangles on footpaths to support the family. Bisikesan also works as a daily wager.
The father says he has seen how rich children spend money lavishly on food, clothes and entertainment.
“But my children never complained, rather they gracefully accepted our pathetic condition,” he told Matters India.
Santoshini says her daughter’s success is the answer to her prayers to the Lord, “When will you lift me up from the footpath?”
Pradhan has now moved to New Delhi to collect study materials to prepare for the Indian Administrative Service exam. The Odisha government is expected to assign her a post after two months.
Praise to the Lord