Cultural Changes and Identity Transformation among the Santhal Tribe of Jharkhand in the Age of Social Media

Abstract

A tribe is simply a community of people who have lived in their own traditional ways for a number of generations, often different from the current mainstream society. Many such tribal communities are to be found not only in the different parts of India but also in different parts of the world as well. Jharkhand being one of the foremost predominant tribal dominated states. The state has high proportion of tribal communities as compared to the national average. Based on D. N. Majumdar, a tribe is a socially cohesive and endogamous group, having one common language or dialect, having its own leadership system, and having a distinct social distance from other tribes or castes. During the early years of the 20th century, there was considerable increase in Santhal population in these districts. They kept on asserting their resounding cultural identity in their songs, music, art, and traditional worship practices. The paper applies theories of Media Ecology and Cultural Hybridization to explore this dual-impact on social media. The main object of the paper is to emphasize on the condition of Indian tribal communities with special reference to the Santhal of Santhal Pargana (SP). It delves into their rich cultural traditions - such as their oral traditions as told through stories, music, dance, rituals to take place, and their unique linguistic history expressed through their unique Santhali language, written in the Ol Chiki script (OCS) created by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in the 20th century. Social change has a significant role to play in the development of the community, developing and adjusting the way of surviving. As mentioned by L.M. Lewis, tribal societies are typically small and bounded in geographical as well as social terms. Because of this, they have social, legal and political systems that function at a much smaller level. Their beliefs and religious traditions and worldview also embody this led close knit self contained way of life.