SOURCE- INDIAN EXPRESS

An assistant professor in the Santali language at the Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University in Purulia, West Bengal, Sripati Tudu started this initiative because he wanted the document to be more accessible and available for a wider group that may not necessarily be familiar with languages in which a translation of the Constitution is available.

Translating the Constitution of India in Santali had been on Professor Sripati Tudu’s mind for a few years before he actually got down to starting the mammoth task: that of translating the longest written constitution of any country in the world—235 pages—in the Ol Chiki script.

An assistant professor in the Santali language at the Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University in Purulia, West Bengal, Tudu started this initiative because he wanted the document to be more accessible and available for a wider group that may not necessarily be familiar with languages in which a translation of the Constitution is available. “The nation runs on the basis of the Constitution. But the community has been historically deprived and so people in the community need to read it to understand what their rights are, the provisions and what is written inside,” Tudu told indianexpress.com.

In 2003, the 92nd Constitutional Amendment Act added Santali to Schedule VIII to the Constitution of India, which lists the official languages of India, along with the Bodo, Dogri and Maithili languages. This addition meant that 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 jobs to use the language.

According to the 2011 Census of India, there are over 70 lakh (seven million) people who speak Santali across the country, and the community is the third-largest tribe in India, concentrated in seven states in large numbers, including in West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand. But their geographic distribution is not limited to India—the community is also spread across Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal.

While the demands for the use of the language had been in the works for over a decade, the addition of Santali to the Constitution’s Schedule VIII gave the language and the community an opportunity that had previously not been available. “At that time, the demand and scope for this language really increased. It started getting taught in government schools. In West Bengal, we also got a Santali academy,” said Tudu. In 2005, India’s Sahitya Akademi started handing out awards every year for outstanding literary works in Santali, a move that helped preserve and give more visibility to the community’s literature.

For months before the chips fell into place, Tudu faced difficulties in finding a publisher for his book. “A large part of publishing Santali books involves self-publishing, where the author has to put together funds. There are just five to six publications that publish Santali books and they have a lot of conditions. They take a huge portion of the earnings, the copyright belongs to them etc.,” said Tudu.

Sometime in 2019 when Tudu met with Taurean Publications, a Kolkata-based publisher that had published its first Santali language book only months prior, he found that it was eager and willing to publish his translation of the Constitution. “When the Covid-19 lockdown started (in March 2020), I began the work of translating it in earnest. I asked around, but the Constitution had never been translated in Santali before. There were some who had translated parts of it, but it had never been done in its entirety this way,” Tudu said.

The book was published last year, and is available on Amazon and on the website of the publisher. Last week, at the Kolkata Book Fair, the Santali version of the Constitution was also available for purchase at a stall run by the Paschim Banga Santali Academy.

Vinod Kumar Sandlesh, the joint director of the Central Translation Bureau, Department of Official Languages under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, told indianexpress.com that “any Indian national can translate the Constitution in their own language”. The department oversees the implementation of the provisions of the Constitution relating to official languages and the provisions of the Official Languages Act, 1963. “They have every right to do so. They do not need permission for translations. The individual also has the right to generate income by selling their translation of the Constitution,” said Sandlesh.

Although finding publishers for Santali language books is hugely difficult, in Tudu’s case, the challenges began only once he started the translation, because of the complexity of the terminology. The process involved multiple readings of the Constitution in English and Bengali to understand the nearest approximation of the terms in Santali.  “The words of the Preamble are so difficult to translate. So many terms didn’t have a Santali word for them. I finished reading an entire Santali dictionary but I couldn’t find the right terms,” Tudu recalled.

Tudu points to words like “dual citizenship” for which he struggled to find a Santali equivalent; these eventually had to be explained in short phrases, with the original term in English typed next to it. “I couldn’t really ask others for help because there were very few people who had read the Constitution and were also fluent in Santali. There are a few Santali professors of political science whom I spoke with to understand concepts before translating, but there were times when they did not know the right Santali term for a word. They were able to explain it to me in Bengali, but they did not know the specific term for it in Santali,” said Tudu.

Two months ago, 27-year-old Balika Hembram, an MPhil student at Vidyasagar University in Midnapore, purchased a copy of the Constitution of India translated in Santali. “There is a lot of demand for the Constitution in Santali among students in the higher secondary level,” Hembram said. She hopes to teach political science in schools to Santali students and the translation is indispensable for aspiring educators like her.

The Constitution of India has special provisions for the development of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and the translation has been useful in providing a deeper understanding of laws, powers and the community’s fundamental rights for readers like Hembram.

Adivasi scholars often point to Article 21 under Schedules V and VI of the Constitution that set out the rights of tribal peoples to development in ways that affirm their autonomy and dignity, and are considered by many to be the foundation of Adivasi rights.

For a community, the Constitution’s availability in Ol Chiki script is giving a chance to more people to read it for themselves.