The Santal Rebellion 1855-1856: The Call of Thakur

The book presents a new interpretation of the Santal Rebellion, the Hul 1855-1856, drawing on the colonial sources as well as Santal memories. It offers a critique of postcolonial approaches that overlook specifically tribal perspectives and see the Hul as a class-based peasant rebellion.

The author analyses the Hul and its participants--the Santals and their opponents, both the colonial administration and the Bengalis. He also looks at the attempts of the Hul’s leaders, Sido and Kạnhu to reform the Santal religion. Offering a new, respectful reading of the Hul’s religious legitimation, the book argues that changes in Santal religion and ethics were responses to the colonial regime’s new and aggressive economic order. The Hul’s leaders, Sido and Kạnhu, demanded the introduction of just laws based on the universal principle of equality. This historical approach leads to a call for the inclusion of the voice of tribal and Adivasi minorities when formulating politics for their development in the 21st century.

The book is relevant for researchers and students of social history, social reform, tribal and indigenous studies, postcolonial studies and South Asian studies.

Peter Birkelund Andersen is a sociologist of religion and an associate professor in the Centre for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His main areas of interest are modernity and the changes in religion in the modern period up to the present. His early work focused on the transmission of Hindu and Buddhist practices and beliefs into Santal religious practices, and on the change from oral to print transmission of knowledge among the Santals. In India, he has worked in Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu, among the Bodos in Assam, and among the Santals in several eastern Indian states. His Dr Ambedkar Memorial Lecture at NISWASS was published as Santals: Glimpses of Culture and Identity (2005). He co-authored From Fire-Rain to Rebellion: Reasserting Identity through Narratives (with M. Carrin and S.K. Soren, 2011) and edited The Bodo of Assam: Revisiting a Classical Study from 1950/ Halfdan Siiger (with S.K. Soren, 2015), And, most recently, Re-Interrogating Civil Society in South Asia: Critical Perspectives from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (with Rubya Mehdi and Amit Prakash, 2021). Several articles, including collaborations with with Kumkum and Ranjit Bhattacharya, and with and Boro Baski, address literature in minority languages. In Denmark, he has helped to design and conduct a number of surveys and is a member of the European Values Study working group. In 2021, findings from his independent survey on the Covid-19 crisis in Denmark: ＂Covid-19 - Religion and Existential Wellbeing,＂ were published as a thematic issue of the Danish Journal Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift.