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| Draupadi Murmu/Twitter |
Santhal, also spelt as Santal, literally means a calm, peaceful man. Santha means calm, and ala means man in the Santhali (also spelt as Santali) language.
Santhals are the third largest scheduled tribe community in India after Gonds and Bhils. The Santhali population is mostly distributed in Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal.
The BJP’s presidential election candidate Draupadi Murmu’s home district, Mayurbhanj, is one of the districts having dense concentration of the Santhali people.
The Odisha government’s website for Bhubaneswar-based Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Research and Training Institute (SCSTRTI) has amazing details on the lives of the Santhali people, tracing their life from prehistoric times.
The Santhals were a nomadic stock before they chose to settle in the Chotanagpur plateau. By the end of the 18th century, they had concentrated in the Santhal Parganas of Jharkhand (earlier Bihar). From there, they migrated to Odisha and West Bengal.
The tribal communities, outside the Northeast, generally have lower levels of literacy but the Santhals have higher – a result of a pro-school education awareness since at least the 1960s – literacy rate compared to other tribes in Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Many of the community have entered the creamy layer of the Indian society.
For example, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren is a Santhal. The incumbent Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAGI) Girsh Chandra Murmu, who was the first Lt Governor of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, is also a Santhal.
The current Union Jal Shakti Minister Biseswar Tudu – the Lok Sabha MP from Draupadi Murmu’s home district Mayurbhanj – is from the Santhal community. Some news reports quoted their community leaders terming the nomination of Draupadi Murmu as the ruling party’s presidential election candidate as “a golden era for Santhals” in the country.
Despite their social uplift, the Santhals are usually connected to their roots. They are nature worshippers and could be seen paying obeisance at Jaher (sacred groves) in their villages.
Most Santhals are agriculturists, depending on their farmlands or forests.
Their homes, called Olah, have a particular three-colour pattern on the outer walls. The bottom portion is painted with black soil, the middle with white and the upper with red.
Their tribal language is called Santhali, which is written in a script called Ol chiki, developed by Santhal scholar Pandit Raghunath Murmu. Santhali written in OI-Chiki script is recognised as one of the scheduled languages in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution.
