Where Santhal Wisdom Shelters

Suddenly in the forest there are faces...

A sal tree in Nawabganj National Park.

Perhaps it’s generally true that shade follows sunshine. Beyond Sitakot in Dinajpur’s Nawabganj the sal trees gather. Though geographically unlikely locals believe Nawabganj National Park might be the last remnants of the forest where Sita of the Hindu epic Ramayana lived in exile.

From field and farmhouse, the cycle van winds along the track into this darker but not-less-beautiful world. Beyond is Ashurer Beel, a picturesque waterhole favoured for picnics and famed for migratory birds.

Into the forest...

And suddenly in the forest are faces… not the middle-class motorcycle-riding ones of picnickers but curious, distinctly non-Bengali faces…

The national park keeps another history. Under its canopy, at its edges, the culture and wisdom of the Santhals finds shelter.

Alekutia village is home to 40 Santhal families.

Peeling jungle potatoes.

In Gabriel Hemrom’s leafy yard a little beyond the park boundary, in Alekuti village along the same track, women sit on the ground preparing date leaves for weaving. Another is busy with jungle potatoes, which are soaked in water for several days and eaten with molasses-like jaggery, known in Bangla as ‘gur’.

A well-constructed mud brick Santhal home.

Alekuti is home to forty Santhal families, Hemrom estimates. “Our ancestors are from a place called Dumka,” says the forty-year-old father of three sons. “But we were all born here.”

House detail.

As in Bangladesh, Santhals are one of the most populous minority peoples in India. Mainly they live in Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Jharkhand. Dumka is a district in the last of these states. There are also a small number in Nepal.

Nearby Ashurer Beel with boat and fish traps.

By tradition Santhals engage in hunting, forest clearing and farming.

The village’s forested location reflects the Santhali tradition of forest clearing and subsistence farming. They are also famed hunters, with bow and arrow. But in Alekuti, along with some small-scale farming, most earn as they can through cycle-van riding or day labour. It isn’t much of a living.

House painting. Santhals capture their history and daily lives in design.

“For the poor, food is always a problem,” says Hemrom.

In contrast to the dire economic reality of Alekuti, in India it’s not uncommon for Santhals to be living in cities and working in areas as diverse as medicine, engineering and the public service.

In Alekuti meanwhile, are traces of the well-developed, unique culture of which any Santhal can be proud. Most visibly it’s in the painted designs on the walls of their well-constructed mud-brick homes. By tradition Santhals present history and daily life in wall paintings, although the Alekuti examples are modest.

“Those who can paint do so,” says Hemrom.

Painting around an internal doorway. 50 - 70% of the villagers in Alekuti are Christian these days.

The forest nearby.

The Austroasiatic Santhali language, of the Munda languages and distantly related to Khasi, Khmer and Vietnamese, is sophisticated and well-studied. Its unique script, called Ol Chiki and invented in 1925 by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in response to deficiencies in representing the range of Santhali sounds in Roman or other Indic alphabets, has thirty letters.

Santhals are famed hunters with bow and arrow.

In general, the Santhals have preserved their language well; but in Alekuti it’s facing difficulties. “Our children used to study Santhali at the mission schools in Dhanjuri and Patarghat,” says Hemrom, “but now they only learn at home. We use our own alphabet but it’s explained in English.” Including Bangla, Alekuti relies on three languages.

The church in Alekuti.

Hemrom estimates that like his family, 50 – 70% of the families in Alekuti converted to Christianity some thirty years ago. The village features a small church attended by visiting clergy.

The remainder observe the old religion, which worships Marang buru or Bonga as supreme deity. It features a court of spirits to regulate aspects of the world, from whom blessings are sought through prayer and offering. There are also evil spirits to be protected from.

An old mango tree on the forest road.

Traditionally, Santhal villages feature a sacred grove on the edge of the settlement where spirits live and sacred festivals occur. In Alekuti neighbours participate in the rituals of both religions.

“We dance and sing in Santhali and in Bangla,” says Hemrom, “The children enjoy the festivals the most.”

In their political history Santhals can also take some pride. In response to land grabbing and enslavement, on 30 June 1855 leaders Sidhu Murmu and Kanu Murmu mobilised 30,000 Santhals to fight the British.

Sal tree trunk.

Caught by surprise, initially the Santhal Rebellion met with some success, but ultimately bows and arrows proved no match for British guns. Battles were akin to massacres. Many Santhals, including the two celebrated leaders, were killed; and subsequently the Nawab of Murshidabad used elephants to trample Santhal huts.

More recently, the Santhal community was instrumental in successfully advocating the creation of Jharkhand state in India, which was carved from southern Bihar in 2000. It was hoped that statehood for Jharkhand would allow better representation for the various minority peoples who account for about 28% of the state population. Santhals are the largest group.

Yet Gabriel Hemrom speaks of his heritage humbly. “Everybody likes his own culture,” he says.

Despite the current hardships of life in Alekuti, it’s not possible to be entirely pessimistic. Santhali culture has survived great hardship before. And, as when leaving the forest, perhaps it’s generally true that sunshine will inevitably come to replace the shade.

Gabriel Hemrom, 40, with his son Remechus Hemrom, 10.

Work and Prayer

There are about 100 Oraon families in Borobila Village.

In the comfortable, spacious afternoon in the courtyard of Badol Minji’s house in Borobila village of Dinajpur’s Ghoraghat they’ve hastily arranged a table and chairs. Silver-haired Minji is a respected ex-local-member and renowned ex-president of the local indigenous association. Borobila is an Oraon village of one hundred families. Easily he takes his place near the table head. His daughter floats about showcasing the latest henna design to adorn her youthful hands.

Badol Minji with his daughter.

Minji’s presence carries natural dignity but it doesn’t radiate far. Nearby his wife Dulali Khalko is too animated to sit. She’s engaged in narrating the story of two brothers, her storytelling seeming to feed upon itself like a merrily boiling kettle. Her facial expressions tread the boards, spanning the spectrum of seriousness as she tries to recall each detail to ensure its safe delivery to its exact belonging-place in the sacred story. It’s mesmerising.

Beware: afternoons like the one at Badol Minji’s house carry risk. Bright and welcoming, they’re all too easy to get lost in.

According to the 1991 national census there were 11,296 Oraons scattered across Bangladesh’s northern districts. In Ghoraghat today there are up to 500.

Daram-Karam they call the story about the one brother who prayed while the other spent his days working. Life was good: the working brother’s toil produced more than enough food. With the other brother’s prayer the food was wholesome.

There are around 500 Oraons in Dinjapur's Ghoraghat.

But there came one day, Khalko narrates – the kettle sings – when the working brother noticed his brother performing puja around a branch of sacred kadam tree that he’d pushed into the ground. It must’ve been like any other day except that on that day it seemed the easier option. The working brother suddenly angered.

“I’m working the whole day in the field!” he complained, Khalko says, “You’re only doing puja!” With rage he took the kadam branch and threw it into the nearby river.

Dulali Khalko narrates the sacred story of two brothers.

While there is suggestion the Oraon are the Kurukh people whose origins lie along the Konkan Coast of Maharashtra and Goa – famed wanderers whose geographic distribution was enhanced with the railway expansion during the British era, such origins are far from certain. In Borobila they say the Oraon language has two main forms: Kurukh which is rarely spoken in Bangladesh, and Saddari, which is common. 

From the day he discarded the kadam branch the working brother faced difficulties, says Khalko. In his food he found insects and worms. He soon understood his error and left to search for the branch in the river, hoping to set things right.

Badol Minji’s house of mud brick is unusually two-storey and rather grand for the village. It’d be easy to see in it the traditional dormitory-style housing of the Oraons, which used to allow boys and girls daily contact, ideal for finding a life a partner. But the houses of the past were low in height. Later they became taller. The mud of Minji’s house may be traditional. The tin is new.

Badol Minji's house.

By custom guests at Oraon houses were served rice and date-palm-juice wine of the pachai or rarer mahua variety, in small bowl-like cups made from leaves. In Borobila the brew comes in glasses. There wasn’t any available at Badol Minji’s but the neighbours were obliging. It’s unquestionably delicious.

Gradually the house takes on a less traditional aspect. It starts to look like the modest manor of a small-scale forgotten vineyard in a remote French village. A crackly Edith Piaf record and a few bread sticks: that afternoon at Badol Minji’s surely would’ve engulfed us.

Dulali Khalko never noticed the change. Her facial expressions continued to stir into the afternoon even greater brightness. The kettle-boil narration has lost no steam.

The working brother walked far in search of the branch. Becoming thirsty he stopped on the riverbank to take a drink; but in his cupped hands he saw inside not water but insects.

He found a kul tree. He knew the fruit would be a little sour, but at least they had liquid to refresh him. “Maybe the water inside will help,” he thought, Khalko narrates. But inside the fruit he found only insects.

“And after many struggles,” says Khalko – finally the straw in the clay stove seems to be running low – “he found the branch. He started to perform puja and water became water, food became wholesome.”

Her face relaxes. The afternoon grows more potent.

In the courtyard of Badol Minji's house.

In the courtyard of Badol Minji’s house we learn that the Oraon religion long ago mixed with Hinduism. But Dal puja or Karam festival – at the time of Saraswati puja and very similar to the Hindu Bhadu festival – is the calendar’s highlight, when a kadam branch is planted in the ground, when they sing and dance to drums and sacrifice chickens. 

We learn too that about half the Bangladeshi Oraon already converted to Christianity. We hear concerns in Borobila about the promise of a Christian INGO to establish a school there – the lure of education is tempting; but in Borobila as yet there are no Christians.

Badol Minji is expressing regrets that the Oraon often face discrimination in dealing with broader Bangladeshi society. “If society met with us,” he says, “what’s the problem? We are often neglected but as far as I know Oraons are no less brilliant than others.”

And then he flips the coin. “Our problem is our people are shy. They do not like to meet with Muslims but it would promote harmony.”

Decoration inside an Oraon home.

Meanwhile the French afternoon, incongruous with the talk of problems, seems as if it might stretch on to Spain, and who could wish that it wouldn’t?

They’re talking about Christianity again: they could still wear bangles and the chandan after marriage wouldn’t be a problem, the Father says.

“One thing,” says Badol Minji, “We are still united. A thief in the village is really rare. It’s peaceful here.”

It’s true that it’s not easy to consider life’s challenges on an afternoon at Badol Minji’s house. There’s only us. There’s only now. No disquieting memories to faze us. No regrets: just a very Bangladeshi afternoon that might just reach to Spain if we let it.

With research from “Life and Land of Adibashis” by Abul Barkat, Mozammel Hoque, Sadeka Halim and Asmar Osman, Pathak Shamabesh, 2009.

At the time of puja in Borobila.

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: Work and Prayer

The Oraons of Borobila.

My Islam

Hatiya, Noakhali. The village that made my Bangladesh.

It used to be that of a village Eid morning in Hatiya I’d get ready along with my Bengali brothers. After bathing in the pond we’d dress and walk the short distance to the mosque. What I wore varied. In later years I had fashionable Dhanmondi-style panjabis to choose from. Earlier I used to wear the greenish kabliwala set that my friend and brother Situ gave me. It was the only design readily understood by the local tailors.

The mosque is small and not old, and those who attend are family, friends and neighbours. There’d be a few personal prayers for Abba, who I never met but whose grave is there. We’d wash our hands and feet and I confess I often got a bit of stabilisation assistance from the others while dipping toes into the mosque pond so as not to fall over... Then we’d go inside.

Kids playing in the monsoon wonderland. Eid arrives in the monsoon months this year.

I like that mosque. The weekday Imam is youthful and friendly, and there’s no denying the distinctive qualities of his adhan call to prayer. It may not be of the sort that’s striking for its mystical, high beauty – such as an adhan I once heard while passing through Seremban, Malaysia, which seemed so intrinsic and harmonious that it may as well have been welded into the dawn.

No, our Imam’s adhan has a, shall-we-say, personal quality. When his voice wavers and the notes take on a more creative fluctuation – he’s doing his best, he’s really doing his best... When there’s the added flare of a high-pitched squeal from the PA system – being as it is... With the general muffled ambience familiar to current village-mosque technology... we love it all the more.

He is our Imam. It is his adhan – the one which by tradition at the Fajr dawn hour comes as finale to all the adhans in the area. It’s well-understood that not everybody can be a morning person. Although on Fridays and at Eid he bows to experience our Imam is always there.

My Eid mosque-going tradition arose naturally. Nobody told or encouraged me. Hatiyalas are too polite. It simply seemed strange that on a special day like Eid I would not share in the customs of the neighbourhood – in the same way we sometimes attend kirtan with our Hindu friends. It was my heart that took me to the mosque.

Hatiya's monsoon sky.

Inside, I used to find a place at the back so as not to get in anybody’s way. While we were sitting my legs would descend into pins and needles, eventually falling asleep such that at the end of the service I’d have trouble standing. While they were actually performing the namaz prayer I’d – rightly or wrongly, I could never decide which – add a little silent Christian-style prayer of my own. It was what I knew how to do – a way of showing respect for their beliefs and for them.

Afterwards there’d be the usual congregating on the road with those heart-to-heart salaams reserved for special days, a tradition in which I was entirely included. I was more than included because while I would have wished to say, “Thank you so much for not minding my attendance,” it was rather them who said, “We are so honoured that you shared our Eid.”

It’s a far cry from common perceptions of Islam in Australia, unfortunately.

The main road in Hatiya that became so overflowing with respectful greetings...

But I suppose the first meaningful contact I had with Islam was in Rajasthan, before Bangladesh. What I recall from those initial curious visits to various desert and semi-desert mosques was the strong sense of peace to be imbibed within, while sitting on the floor inside. It was easy to find a spiritual quality in that space. Incidentally I’ve known Iranian Muslims to admit as much about Sydney’s cathedrals.

Then there was the hospitality tradition. I came to expect it whenever visiting any Muslim majority country, and while culture also plays a role I have never been disappointed. Probably more than any other religion, Islam respects the stranger, the traveller, the guest...

A third early impression arose when it came to be that moving along the road in Hatiya meant encountering numerous salaams from villagers. It was quite a while before I genuinely appreciated it was not simply a ‘hello, hi’ but respect they were giving – the islanders are sincere in it. When it was explained, when it sunk in that it was more than a ‘hello’, I was really touched. Later – I was a little slow in adapting – I became better at salaam-giving also.

Meanwhile in Sydney where I used to speak of such experiences freely I don’t think I ever came to grips with the overwhelming but thankfully not entirely universal response to my chat: the sense of fear. It was so easy to underestimate and overlook the prejudices that characterise that society’s view of Islam, since the true complexity and diversity of Muslim communities was so blatantly clear to me. My Islam had become as our Imam’s adhan – original and personalised.

Monsoon road. Hatiya, Noakhali.

But I suppose not accepting that differences must divide us runs in my Australian family. My father’s clan were Presbyterian while mother was raised as a Catholic. One Catholic grandmother married a Lutheran grandfather and in those days due to denominational differences he was not allowed to walk in the front door of the Catholic Church – when they eloped he came in via the unceremonious side door. Sometimes in response to the protestant-catholic question I used to say I was Cathlotestant... and it’s surprising that some otherwise educated Australians had difficulty in accepting even that answer. Sometimes people are like buildings. They take their structure from walls. But I don’t believe God cares for petty categories.

And on 11 September 2001 after I knew that my Australian brother in New York was okay, my main concern was for the inevitable anti-Muslim backlash. I made a personal vow: whatever happens, nothing will come between me and the Hatiyalas. That tiny but rather wonderful history we made together was more important than ever.

And yet it is sadly true that Australians can have no confidence in mature, moderate governance, especially in the country’s security sector. It is sadly true that hysteria reigned and division still does. Somehow I kept my Hatiyan Islam anyway...

Monsoon landscape. Hatiya, Noakhali.

The church in Aizawl, Mizoram.

On the other side of the coin, a few years ago came the first convenient opportunity for Situ to experience a church service – just to see how it is. We were in Aizawl, Mizoram and the Presbyterian evening service was in Mizo. We sat up the back so as not to get in anybody’s way. While one lady down the front became so moved when the music played that she started an animated dance and sang a loud lively solo, we did our best to simply follow the song book, singing in unknown Mizo language which is written with familiar European script, without knowing the tune. It must’ve made our Imam’s adhan seem as traditionally beautiful as that Malaysian adhan I once heard.

With the difficulties of transport to Hatiya I will share Eid in Dhaka this time. For the past eighteen years Islam has been a part of the mix of religious influences that make me. It’s something for which I am grateful. I’ve always felt it was life-enriching. But perhaps it’s simply Bengali: differences shall not divide us! So from a non-Muslim to Muslims and non-Muslims all, I wish you a happy and joyous Eid!

After the rain comes the sun.

Me in modern Dhaka panjabi.

This article published in Star Magazine, here: My Islam.

An Afternoon with Father Alex

Father Alex.

We meet him at the St. Andrew’s Parish Mission in Diglakona village of Jamalpur’s Bakshiganj. It’s occasional-wild-elephant country up that way, in the dreamy lower hills adjacent to the Meghalayan border. The villagers are harvesting cassava. It’s a sunny afternoon.

There’s a shady sitting place in the grounds and we wait. After a few minutes Alejandro Rabanal, better known as Father Alex, wanders down. He’s sporting a bright orange t-shirt and casual trousers – formal attire is hardly a daily affair in Diglakona. His hair is grey yet his face looks surprisingly fresh and untroubled by time. It’s only as he starts to speak of his experiences that it truly becomes apparent that his age – well, it’s not nice to ask – is a fair bit closer to requiring three digits than it is to needing only one.

Getting there along the narrow country roads in from Bakshiganj town has been a pleasant journey, but not altogether short. Still, Father Alex’s Bangladeshi journey was a great deal longer: from his home in Pangasinan of north Luzon in the Philippines he first arrived in Barisal in the then East Pakistan, in 1959.

“I was surprised,” he says of his first impression, “by how much water there was. There were rivers, water... everywhere.”

Mandi students at the Diglakona mission school.

The church and school at Diglakona cater to the scattered twelve villages of the ethnic minority Mandi, who are commonly called Garos by outsiders. Communications between the villages isn’t easy so there’s a girls’ hostel and a boys’ hostel where the 49 young students board while completing their primary years under the guidance of three teachers. The school is called Sal Gital, meaning “New Light” in Mandi.

“We have two of our former students in Dhaka University,” Father Alex says proudly, “but it’s only a small percentage of students who can pursue higher education, mostly due to money problems.” He is passionate about education.

Father Alex conducts morning and evening prayers in the chapel, and confession. The students and local community have taken to calling him Acchu, which means grandfather.

Of course the Mandi community is itself no stranger to long journeys. According to oral tradition it was around 400 BCE when their ancestors under the leadership of Jappa Jalimpa, having left Tibet first crossed the Brahmaputra River to settle in Meghalaya’s Garo Hills. From there the civilisation spread to include villages in the lower hills and southern plains, in areas that are now Bangladesh.

The rivers and hills of both history and geography conspired to bring divergence to that civilisation. For one thing, several dialects developed in the common language. The term Mandi comes from the southern A’beng form of the language found in the plains and means ‘human being.’ Nowadays it describes the ethnic group throughout Bangladesh, be it in Tangail’s Modhupur, Netrakona, Mymensingh or Jamalpur. The northerners in Meghalaya are meanwhile described as A’chik mande, literally ‘hill people’ in the A’chik dialect, by Bangladeshi Mandi.

A local Mandi villager taking a break outside the mission gate.

Father Alex’s journey didn’t start with the Mandi – he first met them in 1972 when he accepted a position in Galchatra village of Tangail’s Modhupur, where he would stay for the following twenty-two years. Yet the Mandi have been a great influence. It is due to them he decided to join the priesthood in 1988.

Speaking of his arrival in this part of the world, Father Alex recalls, “I came to serve. It was my main aim. I came to help the poor, which I could not do as a university professor in the Philippines.”

The opportunity arose from a Canadian Catholic Brother who had been a prisoner of war in the Philippines in World War Two. From that time he had established connections with the president of the university where Father Alex had commenced his career. The Canadian Brother was supposed to take a position in Barisal to teach improved agricultural methods to primary and high school students, with the view that many would later run their family farms. However, the Canadian Brother found he couldn’t adjust to Barisal’s climate and he approached his friend, the university president, to find a volunteer to take his salary and go in his place. Father Alex raised his hand.

“The students were very receptive,” he says of his initial three years in Barisal. “We were able to help them improve their farming methods.” At the end of his term and the project’s funding, Father Alex returned to the Philippines. But he must have been popular because just three months later he was asked to return.

“Bangladesh has changed a lot since those days,” Father Alex says, “For one thing, the population has doubled.” Asked why he committed to stay in Barisal into the 1970s he says, “They wanted me to stay. They loved me. We succeeded in that way. In any case what I liked and didn’t like was never the focus. I came to serve.”

To this day Father Alex admires the devoutness of Bengali Muslims. “I appreciate how regular they are in their prayers.” Likewise he thinks highly of the Muslim attributes of politeness and respect. “Even the children always greet you with an assalamu alaikum.”

Yet in 1972 providence led him to accept a position in Modhupur. “I felt at home soon after I arrived,” he recalls, “I found that Mandi culture is not far from Filipino culture. Men and women mix freely. There is no malice. They joke with each other. I like how they work together including in the field when sowing or harvesting rice. Segregation is not there.”

Mandi villagers outside the mission gate.

He was impressed by Mandi hospitality. “No matter how poor a family is, they will treat guests with a big reception. They can borrow at least two days’ labour wages to buy chicken and other food.” 

“And especially if they offer rice wine,” he adds with a laugh, “Then the hospitality is even better!” What he’s not so keen on, however, is the pungent shutki-like dried fish dish called nakam.

Father Alex also points to the Mandis’ strong sense of community. “One family I know,” he narrates, “Has eight children and they took in one more because that child’s family was struggling. It’s the maternal uncle’s duty to help out if the family is poor.”

Father Alex’s description is a far cry from how the Mandi have been described in the past. Both invading Mughal armies and the British were fearful. From around 1800 accounts describe them as ‘bloodthirsty savages’ and they had a reputation as headhunters, with a Mandi man’s status determined by the number of heads he owned. But of course the narratives of conquerors often serve their own purpose. It is likely much of the Mandis’ reputation arose as a result of their willingness to vigorously defend their lands from the invaders.

Indeed the Mandi have inherited a sophisticated matrilineal culture and had a well-developed religion which is sometimes underestimated as a form of animism, called Songsarek. Unlike many of the minority religious beliefs of India, Songsarek developed separately from Hinduism. Traditionally the Mandi believed in reincarnation but not caste.

From the 1860s however, the Mandis’ journey brought to them Christianity. “The Baptists were the pioneers,” says Father Alex. By the 1970s belief in Songsarek in Bangladesh had begun to dramatically decline. Nowadays nearly all Mandis profess Christianity, with Catholics comprising the largest denomination.

Father Alex believes the biggest contribution the Catholic Church has been able to make, for the Mandi and in Bangladesh, is in the provision of education. “It’s the best thing we have done,” he says. Another milestone in the Mandis’ journey was the Vatican II changes approved in Rome in 1965. These changes allowed for mass to be given in local languages rather than Latin, and led to a new approach to local cultures which had previously been discouraged.

“The people were very receptive,” Father Alex says of the implementation, “When we started to use local language in songs, when they understood what they were saying...” In Diglakona he gives the mass in Mandi.

Another change he has witnessed has been a decline in the Mandis’ penchant for a semi-nomadic lifestyle. “Since the forests became occupied and available land was less they stopped moving so often. Still they will move within the community, but not to new areas like before.”

By the late 1980s the funding for his position in Madhopur had dried up. “But I could see that they still needed me,” he said. “I decided to do more.” With this in mind, to facilitate his continued goal of service, he joined the priesthood. It was the decision that would bring him, ultimately, to Diglakona.

Asked what has been most difficult about living in Bangladesh he says, “The languages are very hard – Bengali more so than Mandi. It’s so difficult to find a proper teacher. I was always asking children and studying myself. And don’t ask me to write Bangla!”

Asked what he misses about the Philippines his answer is simple: the beer! And with a good Spanish name like Alejandro he certainly shares something in common with the delicious and world renowned Filipino national brew, San Miguel.

Mandi villagers making bamboo fence for the mission.

The author with Father Alex and mission staff members.

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: An Afternoon with Father Alex