In West Bengal, for the first time, an Adivasi scholar’s digital archive is documenting rare Santali manuscripts

The Santal Hul of 1855 was an uprising against exploitative zamindars (landlords), mahajans (moneylenders), traders and administrative officials appointed by the British Raj, as well as security forces that bore allegiance to the East India Company. Many historians consider the Indian Rebellion or the Uprising of 1857, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny, to be the first war of Independence against colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent. However, scholars of indigenous history believe that this narrative dismisses the many tribal revolts that preceded this war, including the Santal Hul, one of the most important occurrences in the subcontinent’s history.

Dr. Rahi Soren explains the history and significance of the July 1978 issue of the Tetre magazine at an exhibition on rare Santali manuscripts in Kolkata. Photo credit: Neha Banka

Documenting the Santal Hul

The exhibit showcases copies of texts which are a part of the Endangered Archives Programme of the British Library and manuscripts from the National Library of Norway. In 2021, Dr Rahi Soren was awarded a grant from the British Library to digitise and preserve rare and endangered periodicals which provide primary research materials for scholars focusing on Santali linguistics, folklore, folk songs etc.

“Nobody has done this work before Rahi. Most of the documents in the exhibit are a result of our own hard work. This is why it is important for our community from the perspective of history,” says Dr Dablu Soren. “I was concerned about Santali documents because many are endangered. They needed to be digitised because people were not aware of the language or had much knowledge about cultural heritage and history,” says Rahi.

The project that began in 2021 involved a process of locating and digitising early Santali periodicals published between 1890 and 1975 in eastern India and took over two years to complete. In September last year, the project went online and was made open access. This year, to commemorate the Santal Hul, copies were put on display in Kolkata, particularly for people in the community who do not have easy access to the digital platform.

A massive digital divide

It is not that important Santali texts are not digitised, says Rahi. But they are scattered and require single-minded devotion to track them down in digital archives and neither are they comprehensive. She points to the collections of the National Library of Norway, which holds one of the largest collections of manuscripts and documents related to Santali history and culture in the world. “They have three to four huge files and one of them has been digitised,” says Rahi. The Santali manuscripts are part of the private archive of Paul Olaf Bodding that is now preserved and managed by Norway’s National Library.

Bodding was a Norwegian missionary who lived in the Indian subcontinent between 1890-1934 and worked in the region that was formerly called the Santhal Parganas, documenting the lives of the Santal community. “If you look at the digital divide in the Santal community, it is the reality. It is difficult for people to have access to documents. One of the basic principles of archives is access to digital versions. And for the longest period of time, it has been inaccessible to the community,” says Rahi.

In the digital archive, Dr Dablu Soren’s private collection of Santali manuscripts is among the oldest set of texts, put together over the years, by travelling to remote Santal villages and scouring bins filled with crumbling documents in decrepit rural libraries. “I really want to go to the Norwegian library but I don’t have the means to do so. This is why I gave my documents for this digital archive. So that our community’s children can access it easily and don’t have to run around the way I have,” he says.

An issue of Dharwak from 1936 focusing on Santali culture, from the private collection of Dr. Dablu Soren, on display at an exhibit on rare Santali manuscripts in Kolkata. Photo credit: Neha Banka

The digital archive curated by Rahi is unique, says Mahadev Hansda, a Santali writer, who has served as the editor of Tetre, a monthly literary magazine in Santali, published from Purulia. Among the many documents on display is a copy of the July edition of Tetre published in 1978, which was one of the first magazine documentations of the Hul, comprising Hul saereng (songs), oral histories, poems, information about Hul revolutionaries, a Santali play documenting the Hul, along with a list of important historical locations in the erstwhile Santhal Parganas.

“Although now it is common to see writings on the Hul, back then it was the first time it had been documented this way. I had done it using the few resources that I had. There were many contributors from our community who had written for this edition,” says Hansda.

Challenging, painstaking research

Over the years, there has been an increase in research and writing on the Santal Hul but gaps remain, say Santali scholars. Records on the Hul are difficult to find. “Some documents like district gazettes and records of judicial proceedings give us some indication of the history. There are a few newspapers but they are not reliable texts because they refer to Santals using phrases like ‘looters’, ‘gundas’, but you can glean some information from them,” says Hansda. In 1885, there were Santals who had received Western education due to their proximity to Norwegian missionaries and there were others who had learned Hindi and Bengali languages, which resulted in the few surviving texts on the Hul written by the Santals themselves.

Hansda points to an important text written in 1885, written just before the start of the Santal Hul, called the Porowana by Kirta Majhi, where he along with other Santal leaders demanded that the British colonial powers stop the torture of Santals, in a mix of Hindi and Bengali. “There were very few people who were there to document the Santal Hul from within the community. The educated Santals were arrested and thrown into prison by the British. Many records were destroyed by the British when they burned down Santal villages.

There is little research on the Santal Hul because it is complex and the community does not have access to resources required for the kind of work that the investigation into history from 170 years ago would require,” says Hansda. The research that does exist has been painstakingly put together with community members devoted to documenting their history. “There is so much that we still don’t know. When you look at these texts, the British have written it from their perspective, the community has written about it from its own perspective. But so much nonsense has also been written about the Santal Hul,” says Hansda.

Even within the community, there is a lack of understanding and knowledge about the Santal Hul and its history, say researchers. “June 30 is commemorated as the anniversary of the Santal Hul but the Santals had only decided to start the Hul or the rebellion on that day. The actual battle against the British started on July 7. On June 30, 1885, Santal leaders like Sidho and Kano and the larger community came together to decide to revolt against the British,” says Hansda.

He points to a letter from the then Commissioner of Bhagalpur sent to the Secretary to the Government of Bengal, dated July 9, 1855, which says, “Mahesh Lal Datta, daroga of thana Dighee, reached that place on July 7, 1855, with his party. But he was soon killed by Sidho, along with a few others (19 people)…including a mahajan, two barkandazes (armed retainers) and some chowkidars…”. This letter was published in Dhirendranath Baske’s book Santal Gonosongramer Itihash in 1980, considered to be an important Santali text.

It is well-documented that Datta’s killing sparked the start of the Santal Hul but few know about how the Santal Hul did not actually start on June 30 as is commonly believed, says Hansda. In 2002, when the Indian government issued a stamp featuring the caricatures of Santal leaders and freedom fighters Sidho and Kano, the date was formally recognised by the Centre as the anniversary of the Santal Hul.

A stamp issued by the Government of India in 2002 in honour of Santal revolutionary leaders Sidho and Kanho. The depiction of Sidho is from the sketches of British official W.S. Sherwill. Photo credit: Mahadev Hansda

“Now all over India, Hul diwas is considered to be June 30, but it is wrong. Bengal gazetteers marked June 30 as the start of the rebellion. The date is actually July 7. Also, a rebellion cannot occur on one single day as June 30 seems to indicate. But people in our community are not as focused on the specific date as such. They are just satisfied with the recognition of the Hul,” says Dr Dablu Soren.

Priceless archives in Norway

A significant amount of research that scholars conduct is thanks to Bodding’s writings, which are in archives in Norway. “Even the Santals who helped Bodding with his research and contributed through writings gave all of their work to him. Bodding did not leave anything in India. I guess it had to do with the understanding that it would not be valued here. Even today, there is ignorance, disregard and neglect of Santali history in India,” says Dr Dablu Soren.

There are no easy answers to the question of whether bringing back Bodding’s archival collection to India would give scholars of Santali history more access to the important texts. “This is a question that people have been dealing with since 1947. In the 1970s, the Norwegian government had sent five copies of microfilms or slides which were given to different universities in and around the Santal Parganas, including St. Xavier’s, Kolkata. Unfortunately, most of it has been destroyed. The weather, the inability to preserve the texts and how secure they would be here, are concerns,” says Rahi.

Documenting the community’s heritage has been a slow process and it has been a result of a combination of factors, says Dr Dablu Soren. “The digitisation and archiving of history has not happened the way it should because the community is still backward,” he says.

According to the 2011 Census of India, there are over 70 lakh (seven million) people who speak Santali across the country, and the community is the third-largest tribe in India, concentrated in seven states in large numbers, including in West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand. According to the 2011 Census, the literacy rate of the Santal community in West Bengal was 54.72 per cent, a figure that is lower than the national (73 per cent) and state average literacy rate (76.26 per cent).

A copy of a manuscript documenting the less well-known Santali revolution of Koilda Badoliya at the exhibit on copies of rare Santali manuscripts in Kolkata. Photo credit: Neha Banka

“Although middle-aged people in the community might be educated, they only received basic education and entered the workforce. The focus of the community has been a livelihood for the longest time. Higher education is still low in numbers. Since we are involved in research, we know the importance of documenting our history but others don’t have time for these things. Although we have Santali politicians and educators, they have not taken the initiative to document our heritage which is unfortunate,” he says. Still, that is changing. More Santali youth in the country are now trying to study the community’s history and heritage, despite the many challenges.

“Digitisation of documents is very little so information on specific subjects like mythologies, customs, sports and games, are hard to find,” says Tusar Hansda, 32, a PhD student in Santali history at Jadavpur University.

“Resources are either hard to find or we cannot access them. They need to be translated and made available to students. The Norwegians took the documents back with them, so we can access them only when senior research scholars travel to Norway and bring back photocopies. Junior scholars like me cannot access them otherwise. Without background, you cannot do research,” he says.

Rahi hopes she can take her exhibit around West Bengal and parts of the world where the Santal community lives to help them get access to the texts that are presently a part of the archive. “When I was planning this, I got to talk to people and wanted people from the community to come from in and around. But they said it is hard for them to travel. So I would like for the exhibit to travel around so people could see for themselves and learn how to access them online,” she says.

Other research scholars hope that the archive’s collection expands to incorporate more texts with easy accessibility. “The expansion of the digital archives will help the community immensely in accessing documents that they don’t have the means to otherwise,” says Dr Dablu Soren.

The exhibition will be on at Jadunath Bhavan Museum and Resource Centre in Kolkata till July 6. It is also available online at: https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP1300