Abstract
Nishaant Choksi. 2021. Graphic Politics in Eastern India: Script and the Quest for Autonomy. New Delhi: Bloomsbury. xv + 203. Figures, tables, note on transcriptions and index. £95 (Hardback––ISBN: 9781350159587)
Set in a village in the south-western part of West Bengal, near the Jharkhand border, Nishant Choksi’s work is about the politics of script development. Conventionally described as an oral language, Santali and its scripts are at the centre of multiscalar political projects around identity, territoriality and cultural autonomy. Santali was declared an official language of India in 2003, but efforts at script development have long preceded this official recognition. Historically, many languages in the subcontinent were written in multiple scripts. It is only after the printing press came to Bengal with the British in the early 19th century and there was a mass production of books that the relation between language and script became homogenised. Thus, there was a demand that Hindi be written in the Devanagari script that marginalised the use for Perso-Arabic that became associated with Urdu, and the Eastern Brahmi script became known as the Bengali script. Santali is somewhat exceptional in that there have been many attempts at script creation in the recent past, some of which are said to be revealed, such as Ol-Chiki, while others are invented. Ol, that is, writing, is an important aspect of Santali culture, conveying its sense of history and mythology. If we take a more expanded notion of script than as a mere representation of language, and include ritual diagrams and other graphic symbols, then the concept of writing has always been used to bind Santals to the land, to kin, and to the spirits (bongas). It also features in their narratives about the Santal Rebellion (Santal Hul). The brothers Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu, the legendary leaders of the Santal Hul, claimed to have received written orders to lead the rebellion from the divine Thakur on pieces of paper and in a white book, even though history says that they were illiterate. Christian missionaries used the Roman script to transcribe Santali; Eastern Brahmi is also used in post-independence India. Scattered through the length of eastern India, Santals write in the scripts used by the dominant languages of the different states in which they live such as Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar. Ol-Chiki, officially recognised as the script for the Santali language, serves to unify disparate Santali communities, thereby enabling the expression of identity and autonomy beyond the politics of state formation.
Apart from the introductory chapters that detail the history of script formation, the ethnographic chapters in the book describe the Jhilimili marketplace, Santali literary culture in the region, print news and digital media, the pluri-scriptorial sign boards, magazines and newspapers in Devanagari, Eastern Brahmi, Roman and Ol-Chiki that enable Santali speakers to carry out the multiscalar project of autonomy at the local, regional and national level. They also tell us something about the dynamics of inter-caste relations in Jhilimili whose multilingual markets serve as places where different castes and occupational groups interact, though not always on equal terms. Santals, often marginalised in a marketplace that is dominated by caste-Hindu traders and shopkeepers, are able to assert their presence through the inclusion of Santali words and Ol-Chiki in the signage on shop fronts and offices. Similarly, in the hostel reserved for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students in the government school in Jhilimili where instruction was carried out in Bangla, Bengali bhadralok values were often subverted through the use of Santali, particularly in Ol-Chiki script, in contrast to the official space of the school that tried to impart such values in speech and demeanour. Nishaant Choksi’s fieldwork is fascinating, conducted in multiple sites that reveal aspects of linguistics and language politics that are not often addressed in anthropology. Choksi, following Derrida, demonstrates how a focus on writing and script, often considered to be a secondary and less fundamental aspect of language and linguistic development than grammar and phonic substance, opens language up to the politics of communication and to the understanding of social phenomena more generally. The book is a valuable contribution to linguistic anthropology and to the politics of Adivasi identity.