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From Language to Script: Graphic practice and the politics of authority in Santali-language print media, eastern India*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2017

NISHAANT CHOKSI
NISHAANT CHOKSI*
Affiliation:
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article discusses the way in which assemblages of technologies, political institutions, and practices of exchange have rendered both language and script a site for an ongoing politics of authority among Santals, an Austro-Asiatic speaking Adivasi (Scheduled Tribe) community spread throughout eastern India. It focuses particularly on the production of Santali-language print artefacts, which, like its dominant language counterparts, such as Bengali, has its roots in colonial-era Christian missions. However, unlike dominant languages, Santali-language media has been characterized by the use of multiple graphic registers, including a missionary-derived Roman script, Indic scripts such as Devanagari and Eastern Brahmi, and an independently derived script, Ol-Chiki. The article links the history of Santali print and graphic practice with assertions of autonomy in colonial and early post-colonial India. It then ethnographically documents how graphic practices, in particular the use of multiple scripts, and print technologies mediate a contemporary politics of authority along vectors such as class and generation within communities that speak and read Santali in the eastern state of West Bengal, India.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 5 , September 2017 , pp. 1519 - 1560
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*

This material was first presented at the Lives of Information workshop, SARAI/CSDS, New Delhi. Subsequent versions were presented to audiences at the University of Tokyo and the University of California (Riverside). Thanks especially to Rika Yamashita, Tomoko Endo, Durba Mitra, and the peer reviewers who read and commented on draft versions of this article. Also special thanks to the editors of the various magazines which appear in this article. Funding for this research was provided by Fulbright-Hays/USED, the University of Michigan, the America-Scandinavia Foundation, and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science.

References

1 Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India: http://tribal.nic.in/Content/DefinitionpRrofiles.aspx, [accessed 7 July 2017].

2 Under the 8th Schedule, Government of India

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4 These are scripts commonly associated with Hindi, Bengali/Assamese, and English respectively.

5 The famous 1855 rebellion in Santal Parganas (present-day northern Jharkhand) led by Santal brothers, Sidhu and Kanhu, against the British authorities and Hindu upper castes in protest at the onerous tax and revenue burdens. For more on the Hul, especially in reference to literacy and contemporary celebration, see Anderson, P. (2008). Literacy and the Legitimation of the Santal Hul: A Retrospective from the 1890s. In People of the Jangal: Reformulating Identities and Adaptations in Crisis. Carrin, M. and H. Tambs-Lyche (eds). New Delhi: Manohar, and Banerjee, P. (1999). Historic Acts? Santal Rebellion and the Temporality of Practice. Indian Studies in History 15:2, pp. 209–246 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 For a representative work of this vast scholarship, see Sarangi, A. (ed.) (2009). Language and Politics in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press Google Scholar.

7 In employing ‘assemblages’ to show how non-human actors (technologies and material substances) and human actors and practices participate jointly in the creation of political networks, I am drawing on actor-network theory: see Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press Google Scholar. For a somewhat different, though useful, formulation of ‘assemblage’, see Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press Google Scholar.

8 Anderson, B. R. O. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, p. 43 Google Scholar. For criticism of this concept from a linguistic-anthropological perspective, see Silverstein, M. (2000). Whorfianism and the Linguistic Imagination of Nationality. In Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities. Santa Fe, NM: SAR Press, pp. 85–138 Google Scholar.

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16 The Dhol magazine, for instance, is published in several Adivasi languages in Gujarat as is Lokakshar in Chattisgarh. See Devy, G. (2012). Endangered Languages and Dispossessed Communities. In Engaging with Literature of Commitment. Volume 2: The Worldly Scholar. Collier, G., Delrez, M., Fuchs, A. and Ledent, B. (eds). Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 47–61 Google Scholar.

17 Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Discourse in the Novel. In his The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 259–422 Google Scholar. ‘Heteroglossia’ allows one to account for a ‘polyphony’ of voices or forms while also attending to the relations of structural inequality in the ideological organization of these forms. For more see, Irvine, J. T. (1990). Registering Affect: Heteroglossia in the Linguistic Expression of Emotion. In Language and the Politics of Emotion. Lutz, C. and Abu-Lughod, N. (eds). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 126–161 Google Scholar.

18 The idea of graphic repertoires constituting language, ethnicity, and territory is one well known in the South Asian context, most famously, of course, in the situation of Hindi-Urdu. See Ahmad, R. (2008). Scripting a New Identity: The Battle for Devanagari in Nineteenth Century India. Journal of Pragmatics 40:7, pp. 1163–1183 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; King, C. R. (1994). One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India. Delhi: Oxford University Press Google Scholar. The idea of ‘multiscriptality’ in India is a much more pervasive phenomenon both historically and in the present. See Singh, U. N. (2001). Multiscriptality in South Asia and Language Development. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2001 (150) CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 The distribution of authority as a constitutive feature of publics is outlined in Gal, S. and Woolard, K. A. (eds). (2001). Languages and Publics: The Making of Authority. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing Google Scholar.

20 Carrin, M. and Tambs-Lyche, H. (2008). An Encounter of Peripheries: Santals, Missionaries, and Their Changing Worlds: 1867–1900. New Delhi: Manohar, p. 120 Google Scholar.

21 Phillips, J. (1852). Introduction to the Santal Language. Calcutta: Calcutta Schoolbook Society Google Scholar.

22 Hodne, O. (1982). The Seed Bore Fruit. Calcutta: Christ's Disciple Media, pp. 4–6 Google Scholar.

23 Carrin and Tambs-Lyche, An Encounter of Peripheries, p. 122.

24 Carrin-Bouez, M. (1986). De la langue au discours : une dialectique du repli et de la modernisation dans une minorité tribale de l'Inde. Langage et Société 35:1, pp. 67–91 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 The Roman script had earlier been used by Puxley of the CMS who published a short Santali vocabulary in 1868 (Carrin and Tambs-Lyche, An Encounter of Peripheries, p. 233), but this was modified by Skrefsrud, and subsequently by his successor, P. O. Bodding, who is responsible for its current form. The Roman script uses diacritics to distinguish long vowels (o, ō) ‘reduced’ vowels (a, ạ), glottalized stops (t’, c’, k’, p’), and palatal nasals (ń).

26 Skrefsrud, L. (1873). A Grammar of the Santal Language. Banaras: Calcutta School Book Society Google Scholar.

27 The following transcription conventions are used in this article: retroflex consonants (e.g. ḍ), retroflex flaps( ), palatized nasals (ṅ), glottal stops (k’, t’, c’), and reduced vowels (ạ).

28 Hembrom, P. (2007). Saontali sahityer itihas [History of Santali Literature]. Kolkata: Nirmal Publications, p. 119 Google Scholar; Carrin and Tambs-Lyche, An Encounter of Peripheries, p. 233

29 P. O. Bodding, for instance, also published three large volumes of Santal folk tales in Roman script through the press, published in translation as Bodding, P. O. (1925). Santal Folk Tales. Oslo: H. Aschehough Google Scholar. He also completed a multi-volume Santal dictionary, and also published his own grammar, and studies on traditional Santal medicine and law.

30 Ho in Santali means ‘men ‘but also ‘Santal’, as opposed to diku, a term used for non-Santals but even more specifically, for caste-Hindus. This distinction is also applied to language: ho ro is Santali, the language of the people, whereas diku ro are languages such as Bengali, Hindi, Oriya, etc. Ho hopon is also a term for Santals, meaning ‘children of men’.

31 Carrin and Tambs-Lyche, An Encounter of Peripheries, p. 288.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 Borrenson, B. (1900, Aug. 17) [Letter to Baidyanat] Santali Mission Collected Papers. (MS Fol 4190, p. 132, [p. 408]), Nasjonalbiblioteket, Oslo, Norway.

35 Santali has a distinction in the first person plural between ‘inclusive’ [abo, -bon], which means inclusive of the addressee, and ‘exclusive’ [ale, -le], meaning speaker excluding the addressee. This distinction is used strategically for the purposes of in-group and out-group distinctions. This distinction can also be found in western Indo-European languages such as Gujarati.

36 See Bodding, P. O. (1921). The Kherwar Movement in India. Man in India 1:3, pp. 222–232 Google Scholar.

37 Tudu, Ramdas ‘Reska’ (1893). Kherwar bongsho Dhorom Puthi. Calcutta: Bedanto Press Google Scholar.

38 This is further outlined in Anderson, P. (2009). Revival, Syncretism, and the Anti-colonial discourse of the Kherwar Movement, 1871–1910. In India and the Indianness of Christianity: Essays on Understanding—Historical, Theological, and Bibliographical in Honor of Robert Erik Frykenberg. Young, Richard Fox (ed.). Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans, pp. 127–143 Google Scholar.

39 King, R. D. (1997). Nehru and the Language of Politics of India. Delhi: Oxford University Press Google Scholar.

40 For more, see Choksi, N. (2014). Scripting the Border: Script Practices and Territorial Imagination Among Santali Speakers in Eastern India. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 227, pp. 47–63 Google Scholar.

41 Following a pattern seen in other socialist states, such as the Soviet Union. See Graber, Public Information.

42 Hembrom, History of Santali Literature, p. 186.

43 Ibid., p. 216.

44 Nag, D. (1997). Little Magazines in Calcutta and a Postsociology of India. Contributions to Indian Sociology 31:1, pp. 109–133, p. 112CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Ibid.

46 By employing the term ‘fractal’, I am drawing on the concept of ‘fractal recursivity’ in the discussion of language ideologies. ‘Fractal recursivity’ is the process through which ideological distinctions at one analytical level (such as differences in language or linguistic structure) are mapped onto distinctions at another level (such as distinctions between persons). In this case, ideological attitudes about material artefact production, and the scripts and languages that comprise these artefacts, are mapped onto relations between people. See Irvine, J. and Gal, S. (2000). Language Ideology and Linguistic Differentiation. In Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities. Kroskrity, P. V. (ed.). Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, pp. 35–83 Google Scholar.

47 For more on the spread of Bengali metropolitan language and cultural practice in rural areas and its relation to the spread of communism, see Ruud, A. E. (2003). Poetics of Village Politics: The Making of West Bengal's Rural Communism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press Google Scholar.

48 Indeed, oral performance practices, such as Santali song-dance (sereṇ-enec’) and drama were crucial in spreading Santali literacy and the relation between oral performance and Santali literary production is still evident in the content and organization of the ‘literary and cultural’ journals.

49 The Adivasi Mahasabha started as a pan-Adivasi movement known as the Chota Nagpur Unnati Samaj (Chota Nagpur Development Organization) in 1915 and was restructured in 1938 as the Adivasi Mahasabha under the leadership of Jaipal Singh, the captain of the 1928 Indian Olympic hockey team. It began participating in elections and, in 1950, became the Jharkhand Party, contesting on a platform of indigenous rights and the creation of Jharkhand state. For more, see Munda, R. D. and Keshari, B. P. (1992). Recent Developments in the Jharkhand Movement. India International Centre Quarterly 19:3, pp. 71–89 Google Scholar.

50 For Jaipal Singh's speech and other writings on the history and ideology of the Jharkhand movement in eastern India, see Muṇḍā, R. D. and Bosu Mullick, S. (2003). The Jharkhand Movement: Indigenous Peoples’ Struggle for Autonomy in India. Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs Google Scholar.

51 ‘Sorang Sompeng’ and ‘Varang Kshiti’ for Sora and Ho, respectively. See Zide, N. (1999). Three Munda Scripts. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 22:2, pp. 199–232 Google Scholar. These scripts are still popular in Jharkhand and Orissa, but the lack of printing technology has hampered their spread compared with Ol-Chiki.

52 Over 14 independent Santali scripts were developed in Santali-speaking regions of present-day Jharkhand and West Bengal, though none developed printing technology nor gained as much traction as Ol-Chiki.

53 Lotz, B. (2007). Casting a Glorious Past: Loss and Recovery of the Ol-Chiki Script. In Time in India: Concepts and Practices. Malinar, A. (ed.). New Delhi: Manohar, pp. 235–262, pp. 246–247Google Scholar.

54 See footnote 16 for a brief overview of Santal phonology.

55 Das, K. (2010). Tribal Revolt in Orissa. Orissa Review, pp. 47–49.

56 Even today ‘Manbhum’ is often invoked in political discourse among both Santal and non-Santals residing in Purulia district. Corbridge notes that the division also had an economic component, splitting the predominantly coal-mining district of Manbhum from the more rural areas, creating Dhanbad and Purulia respectively. See Corbridge, S. (1988). The Ideology of Tribal Economy and Society: Politics in the Jharkhand, 1950–1980. Modern Asian Studies 22:01, pp. 1–42, p. 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Orans, M. (1965). The Santal: A Tribe in Search of a Great Tradition. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, pp. 113–116 Google Scholar.

58 ASECA was set up in the three border states and now operates independent branches in West Bengal (Calcutta), Jharkhand (Jamshedpur), and Orissa (Rairangpur), with an ‘All-India ASECA’ also recently set up by Santali migrants living in Delhi to coordinate national action around the promotion of the Santal language and the Ol-Chiki script.

59 See Murmu, R. (n.d.). Lakchar seren’ [Culture songs]. Jhargram, West Bengal: Marsal Bamber Google Scholar. For more, see Lotz, Casting a Glorious Past, or Choksi, N. (2015). Charting the Multiple Scripts of Santali: A Visual History of Adivasi Languages and Literature. In Performing Identities: Celebrating Indigeneity in the Arts. Devy, G. N., Davis, G., and Chakravarty, K. K. (eds). New Delhi: Routledge Google Scholar.

60 In Ol-Chiki literature, the Indic scripts (Utkal, Eastern Brahmi, and Devanagari) used to write Santali were called ol urum—‘dusty, obsolete writing’—and necessarily needed to be replaced by the more appropriate ol chiki. See Zide, Three Munda Scripts, pp. 210–211.

61 An article I wrote for Tetre in Santali summarizing scholarly research from different countries on Santali language and culture also served as an inspiration for a one-act play. Thus, it is quite common for journal content to expand beyond the printed content and become recontextualized in performance spaces.

62 For examples of Santali-language newspapers, see Chapter 5 of Choksi, N. (2014). ‘Scripting Autonomy: Script, Code and Performance Among Santali-language Speakers in Eastern India’, PhD thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

63 In concert with script, Santali language film and media have also seen a rise in popularity as circulating media forms in an era of affordable digital technology and post-Jharkhand state-centred politics. The argument on the role of Santali-language film in creating pan-regional consciousness in rural areas is outlined in Schleiter, M. (2014). VCD Crossovers: Cultural Practice, Ideas of Belonging and Santali Popular Movies. Asian Ethnology 73:1–2, pp. 181–200. Film packaging and posters often use Ol-Chiki.

64 Saonta Arsi recently ceased publication and the editor has started a new magazine, Bhabna (Feeling), which is written in Bengali (Eastern Brahmi) and Santali (Ol-Chiki).

65 A greater discussion of the circulation of scripts and codes associated with Santali in public spaces is in Choksi, N. (2015) Surface Politics: Scaling Multiscriptality in an Indian Village Market. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 25:1, pp. 1–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 The village headman system is called ‘majhi-pargana’ in Santali; in it each village has an appointed headman (majhi) and a five man council (more ho ), which includes village priests and advisers. The positions are often inherited, although their decisions are subject to approval by a general assembly (kuhli du up’). ‘Parganas’ are convenors of a council of village headmen in a geographically delineated group of villages (called disom) in Santali. For instance, Purulia district is divided into Man and Sikạr disoms. This term may have been inherited from Mughal-era administrative divisions. Santali writers often appeal to traditional governance systems when addressing political and social issues. For a representative view, see Kisku, S. P. (2009). Adibasider Somosya Samadhan Korte Pare Adibasi Ar Tader Somajbyabostha [Only Adivasis and the Adivasi Social Administration Can Solve Adivasi Problems]. Dainik Statesman, 30 June, Kolkata.

67 The tension between more elite and local forms of authority in Adivasi communities is explored in more detail in Ghosh, K. (2006). Between Global Flows and Local Dams: Indigenousness, Locality, and the Transnational Sphere in Jharkhand, India. Cultural Anthropology 21:4, pp. 501–534. In addition to being ‘classed’ within Santal communities this authority is also gendered (excluding women for the most part) and ‘casted’, that is, it depends on the exclusion of other Scheduled Tribe communities which have fewer resources than the Santals, such as Kherias. For a critical discussion of the Santali politics of autonomy and traditional headman authority in relation to other Scheduled Tribes and castes in the Jungle Mahal region, see Sivaramakrishnan, K. (2000). Crafting the Public Sphere in the Forests of West Bengal: Democracy, Development, and Political Action. American Ethnologist 27:2, pp. 431–461 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 This was also a time of both a growing Maoist insurgency in the area known as ‘Jangal mahals’ and a time of political instability as the 40-year communist rule in the state of West Bengal was in the process of breaking down and being replaced with a new political formation.

69 Santali scholar quits post over Lalgarh. Indian Express, 28 June 2009. http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/santhali-scholar-quits-post-over-lalgarh/482268/, [accessed 6 June 2017].

70 See Dasgupta, D. Ink-Tipped Arrows, Outlook, 4 October 2010: http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/ink-tipped-arrows/267220, [accessed 18 June 2016] for a discussion of the creation of new scripts in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Chattisgarh.

71 For Southeast Asia, for instance, see Smalley, W. A. (1990). Mother of Writing: The Origin and Development of a Hmong Messianic Script. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Google Scholar. Kelly, P. (2012). Your Word Against Mine: How a Rebel Language and Script of the Philippines was Created, Suppressed, Recovered and Contested. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 23:3, pp. 357–378. For the modification of Japanese script for Ainu, see DeChicchis, J. (1995). The Current State of the Ainu Language. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development 16:1–2, pp. 103–124 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.