As a minority community, Santals have been deeply concerned with preserving their unique cultural identity along with their heritage, which has largely been orally transmitted down the generations. Literature from and/or about the Santals was first published in print through a series of periodicals brought out by Christian missionaries working with the community in eastern India during the early 19th century. In more recent times, there has been the need to digitize these rare and endangered Santali books and periodicals from the past two centuries to safeguard them for the future and enable students and scholars today better understand a crucial period that saw the slow but steady transformation of an oral culture to a written one.
This task forms the crux of a project that I started in 2021 and continue to build under the Endangered Archives Programme of the British Library, London. Titled “Locating and Digitising Early Santali Periodicals Published between 1890 and 1975 in Eastern India” (EAP1300), the initiative drew its initial support from the expertise and guidance of Professor Amlan Dasgupta, Professor Samantak Das and Professor Sukanta Chaudhuri (Founder-Director of the School of Cultural Texts and Records) of Jadavpur University, Kolkata. I was also inspired by the private archive of the Scandinavian Santal missionary, Paul Olaf Bodding, most of which has been digitized and made available by the National Library of Norway. The material I gathered documents a vast body of first-hand knowledge and information about Santali cultural heritage, including stories, songs, poems, riddles and other historical, educational and reflective texts from the early 18th century onwards. These chart the interconnections between indigenous religion and Christianity, and record migrations and major events, such as the Santal Hul (uprising) of 1855. The periodicals are written in Santali and use the Bengali, Devanagari or Roman scripts with diacritics. Their vocabulary and grammar are multi-layered, with technical terms related to Christianity being borrowed from English, Hindi and Bengali and incorporated in Santali literature. Many songs, which are translations of hymns from English to Santali, have non-standard spellings and dialects. These works represent the community’s challenges in arriving at a written linguistic register of their own. [1]
Most of the archive’s materials were sourced from collectors at Banduan, Purulia and Berhampore in present-day West Bengal, Ranchi and Dumka in Jharkhand, and Rairangpur in Odisha (the Santals survive as scattered groups across these regions, even as they are also aware of collective community origin and identity). Bulk of these printed texts are in an acutely vulnerable condition, with pages becoming discoloured or turning yellow, and quite a few with brittle or wrinkled edges. The cause of decay stems from the fact that they were repeatedly dislocated and underwent wear and tear with prolonged exposure, when private collectors had to flee and go into hiding during the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency of 2008-2010. The periodicals have immense potential to provide a primary research bank for those studying Santali linguistics, folklore, folk songs, and specific cultural forms such as riddles and puzzles, threatened in this era of globalization. They also reflect the voices that can help generate a subaltern and more authentic narrative of the histories of the community, their forced relocation across Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam and West Bengal, and their contemporary political scenarios.
The digital archive currently holds 275 items with 5,524 images, easily available online [2] along with appropriate metadata.This includes the private collections of Dablu Soren (1931-1986) (EAP1300/1), Raban Chandra Baskey (1968-1982) (EAP1300/2), Sushil Baskey (1968-1973) (EAP1300/3), Mahadeb Hansda (1958-1982) (EAP1300/4), and Purna Chandra Soren (1940-1984) (EAP1300/5). Among the holdings are 32 volumes of the periodical Dharwak (the name refers to a Santali system of communication that uses uniquely folded leaves of Shorea robusta), published by the Roman Katholik Mission, Dinajpur, between April 1931 and September 1936. The subject matter includes short stories, writings on medicine, historical figures, and matters related to the Christian community, news about the Mission, and a correspondence section with readers in the form of questions and answers. It is especially interesting to note the representation of indigenous people from Africa, America and the Middle east in these periodicals. Also, noteworthy are the constant appeals to the Santal population to embrace Christianity. These are subtly woven within indigenous stories featured in the periodicals. An example can be found in the following translated extract:
“In this month, after harvesting paddy, all Santals go to visit relatives. So why not the goslings? They also go. We go to a relative’s place where there is ample water; however, the children of men (Santals, Hor = man, hopon = children), especially during Sohrae, go somewhere where there is ample handi (rice beer) and spend five to six days swimming in handi. Some say, the children of men drink and behave like us during their festivals. Being geese, this is very shameful to us. We go straight to visit our relatives, stay very well and come back well and good. However, many Santals (not all) go to visit relatives as sane people, stay like street dogs and come back as pigs. Honestly, we are distant relatives through Has Hasil, but dogs, pigs and drunken men are not related to us. That is all I have to say!” [3]
(Translated from Santali to English by the author)
This extract goes back to the Santal Creation Myth, where the first man and woman hatched from eggs laid by the geese Hans and Hasil. In it, one might read a gentle nudge to get Santals to rethink their indigenous belief system and encourage a disassociation from the kind of Hans and Hasil. Other periodical texts and illustrations were created to make them wary of people from Kabul (presented as deceitful and conniving) and Africa (described as Habsi Hor, in tune with colonial stereotypes of Negroes, which placed them within different categories of animals).
Later texts include Hor Gidra Enec (Games of the Santal Children) by Solomon Murmu, published by the Santal Education Committee, Dumka, Santal Parganas. This text talks about 73 different children’s games. Some of the games are Hako Sap (Catching Fish), Durup Tengon (Sitting-Standing), Oko Oko (Hide and Seek), Marak Bele (Peacock’s Egg), Merom Tarup (Goat and Tiger) and Sui Topa (Burring the Needle). There is also mention of the game popularly known as Baag-Chal/Baag Bondi (Trapping the Tiger), with diagramswhich show the multiple possibilities it opens up for players. These games, many of which are no longer played, are categorized according to age and gender. A worthwhile initiative would be to try and revive some of these activities, which both entertain children and aid their mental growth.
The archive also contains a copy of Chotrae Desmanjhi Reak Katha (Chotrae Desmanjhi’s Story), authored by Raya Soren and first published in 1917. The author bases this text on the oral history of the Santal Hul of 1855, as recounted by Desmanjhi, who lived in the village of Bhognadihi, the epicentre of the uprising. Soren also writes about Desmanjhi travelling from Benagaria (in present-day Jharkhand) to Assam’s Guma colony. The book is controversial, since it turns its lens on internal strife amongst the Santals -- an aspect which is not well received or accepted by the community.
The texts within the archives also comprise of later-day publications, authored, edited, produced and circulated by indigenous community initiatives. Among them are Tetre (the name means someone who has taken an important responsibility), Sarjom Dhaurak (similar in meaning to Dharwak), Ol Doho Onorhe (Poems Written from Down Under) and Susar Dahar (The Good Path). [4] These remain valuable for their insights into the under-researched field of Santal cultural heritage and for the commemoration of Hul, a reminder of the long history of Adivasi resistance against internal colonialism that continues even today. I hope these archives lay the foundation for more such documentation and digitization initiatives from within the community and training programmes that empower its members. The goal is also to make these resources accessible to global scholars, that would help nurture an equitable space in academia and beyond.
Rahi Soren is an Assistant Professor at Jadavpur University, interested in the use of effective scientific information and practices to conserve endangered cultural and biological diversity.
Notes
[1] Santali is written in five scripts (Roman, Devanagari, Eastern Brahmi, Odiya and Ol Chiki). All of these strive to secure the ‘correct’ pronunciation with the use of diacritics. But it has been a challenge to ‘standardize’ the written forms and this process is still highly debated among scholars.
[2] To access the archive, see “Locating and Digitising Early Santali Periodicals Published between 1890 and 1975 in Eastern India,” British Library Endangered Archives Programme, July 10, 2024.[3] Most early missionary publications were written anonymously.
[4] Note that Santali, as an Austro-Asiatic language, has glottal pronunciations which could not be included in this article.
Other References
Anonymous. Cover page of Tetre, Special Issue on the Santal Hul, September 1978.
Anonymous. “Kabli.” Dharwak, Year III, no. XXVII (1931): 38.
Anonymous. “Nui Gede Cete Meneda.” Dharwak, Year VI, no. LX (1934): 21.
Hembrom, Ruby. We Come from the Geese. Kolkata: Adivaani, 2013.
Murmu, Solomon. Hor Gidra Enec. Dumka: The Santal Education Committee, 1946.
Soren, Raya. Chotrae Desmanjhi Reak Katha. Benagaria: Benagaria Mission Press, 1985.