What a teacher’s Sahitya Akademi award for Santali poetry means for students at an Adivasi school in West Bengal

“My journey started from there,” Marandi says.

On November 14, India’s Sahitya Akademi, the country’s national academy of letters will award Marandi, 36, the Bal Sahitya Puraskar for 2022 in the Santali language for his book Hapan Mai in the poetry category. Every year, the Akademi awards an Indian author for the most outstanding book in this language, published within five years preceding the year of the award.

Pronounced Hopon Mai in Santali, the name of Marandi’s book means ‘younger sister’, and is a collection of over 100 rhymes and poems written in the Ol Chiki script, with illustrations. (Image: Ganesh Marandi)

Retelling Santali folk tales

Pronounced Hopon Mai in Santali, the name of Marandi’s book means ‘younger sister’, and is a collection of over 100 rhymes and poems written in the Ol Chiki script, with illustrations. “Children create an imaginary world for themselves and they also have their own way of interpreting the world around them. They are curious about the unknown and wonder about things like ghosts and spirits. One of the goals of my book is to introduce children to Santali culture and heritage,” Marandi says.

In his work, Marandi says he has taken mythological and other popular characters from Santali folk tales, and introduced them through poems for children, similar to the way in which cartoons are used to make mythology and folk tales relatable and interesting for children.

After Marandi’s book was published in 2016, Durgacharan Murmu, a physical education teacher at the Para village’s Deoli Pahargora High School, in the Purulia district, purchased a copy of Hapan Mai for his two children, both below the age of 10. “The book reflected the curiosity that children have—‘why are the mountains so high?’, ‘why does the sun set?’, ‘how can we see stars?’ It answers many questions that a child may have in their heart. It has some beautiful verses so the children like reciting it and they learn at the same time,” Murmu says.

In his work, Marandi says he has taken mythological and other popular characters from Santali folk tales, and introduced them through poems for children. (Image: Ganesh Marandi)

For Murmu, it was important that his children be introduced to the Santali language and literature, right from their early years. “Santali is our mother tongue and it is important that the first few years of a child’s education includes instruction in the language,” he says.

For the Santal community, watching their children start education in their own language from the early years is significant because many among Murmu’s generation and that of his parents who enrolled in government schools across the country were taught in the dominant local language which was different from the language spoken at home. This resulted in at least two generations of Santal students across India dropping out of school in large numbers because of a combination of being unable to cope with the different mediums of instruction and a lack of resources and assistance available to indigenous students seeking an education in India.

“These days, there is a lot of diversity in Santali children’s literature. When I was a child, there were fewer books on Santali literature and language, and we would only get to purchase them at indigenous village fairs,” Murmu says. In comparison, introducing Santali literature to his children has become easier because of the accessibility and the larger number of works that are available.

More should be done

There has been some writing in the Santali language focusing on children’s literature post the 1980s, but Santali authors interviewed for this report said it is not enough. In its early years, Santali literature and poetry focused on themes like social development, social empowerment, and education, because community leaders had believed that these were necessary for emancipation, progress, and equality and for generating awareness in the community. “These subjects were obviously for adults, so children’s writing was ignored,” Marandi says.

In 2003, the 92nd Constitutional Amendment Act added Santali to Schedule VIII, which lists the official languages of India, to the Constitution. This addition meant the Indian government was obligated to undertake the development of the Santali language and to allow students appearing for school-level examinations and entrance examinations for public service to use the language. This recognition gave further impetus to the development of Santali literature and poetry because it created space for more original work that was required for comprehensive curriculums across educational institutions.

The Sahitya Akademi has been giving awards for writings in the Santali language since 2004, under four categories: poetry, literature, prose, and the fourth being a mix of poetry and prose, a format which is called champur in Santali. “The history of Santali literature and poetry is very rich and diverse but there is very little awareness of it, even in the community, because of low education levels,” says Dr Ratan Hembram, the head of Vidyasagar University’s Santali department and a member of the Sahitya Akademi advisory board.

Students of Purulia village sit outside a Santal home and read ‘Hapan Mai’ after school hours. (Image: Durgacharan Murmu)

The invention of the Ol Chiki script by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in 1925 further helped enhance Santali literature and poetry. “Before Ol Chiki, we were writing Santali using the Roman script but the pronunciation was not accurate and it would severely impact the quality of the work. Sometimes it would change the word’s meaning entirely. Santali literature and poetry have witnessed rapid development because of Ol Chiki,” Dr Hembram says.

Spreading the word

During his day job, Marandi teaches English at the government-run Mudali R N M High School where approximately 60 per cent of the students are Adivasis. In Chatu village where this school is located, a majority of the families are Adivasis as well. When Marandi’s students found out about his award on social media, word spread quickly.

Just as school is about to start the day, wearing her white uniform and her hair in pigtails, Barsha Hembram, 11, has travelled for an hour from her home in the Radhanagar village to reach Mudali R N M High School. “Hapan Mai is interesting. I enjoyed reading this book. It contains many attractive illustrations that made me want to read it. I also gave it to my friends to read,” Hembram says. Standing next to her classmate, Aparna Manjhi, 12, doesn’t have more to add but mentions that she read and enjoyed Marandi’s book as well.

Aparna Manjhi (left) and Barsha Hembram, two students of Mudali R N M High School, who have read ‘Hapan Mai’. (Image: Ganesh Marandi)

Educators like Marandi who work with Adivasi students in village-level schools are well-informed about the many challenges that these students face. But these awards don’t impact the author alone. “Students see that because I write, I have won this award. It may inspire them to pursue literature for themselves. I also come from a rural background and now that I have achieved this, it allows them to believe that they too can dream of reaching a better place through education and writing. It does give them hope because we—these students and I—come from the same background. They think ‘If he could do it, so can we’,” Marandi says.

Back in Maheshnadi, a small village in the state’s Purulia district comprising only 54 families where Marandi was born, not many understand the importance of the Bal Sahitya Puraskar or what the award means for young Santali authors and writers in the community hoping to pursue literature and poetry. “My parents and the village elders don’t really understand literature, regardless of whether it is published in Santali or Bengali. They don’t have an understanding of the award either. My father studied a little bit but my mother didn’t study at all. Despite his basic education, my father doesn’t really understand this award,” he says.

But for now, inspiring the students in Mudali R N M High School is enough for Marandi. He is busy writing his next book, this one, on children’s literature in Santali.