An Odisha village woman’s journey from protecting peacocks to the Indian parliament

When newly-elected Member of Parliament from the East Indian state of Odisha, Pramila Bisoyi spoke in the House in her mother-tongue Odia, it was the subject of many jibes. Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik fielded the grassroots conservationist as a political candidate in a tribute to the hundreds of thousands of women involved in the state’s “Mission Shakti” movement that empowers women through creation of Women self-help Groups (WSHGs). The diminutive septuagenarian, who lacks formal education, hails from the village of Chermaria in Aska block of Ganjam district, on the foothills of the Pakidi hill range, which is around 200 km from Odisha’s capital Bhubaneswar.