ABSTRACT
The chapter introduces the book’s two themes. The first is the use of the call of the godhead Ṭhạkur to legitimise the Santal rebellion of 1855–1856, against the Government of the East India Company. This theme is investigated using a performative approach inspired by Clemens Six. The approach enables an interpretation of millenarian aspects of the rebellion from the perspectives of the different actors. The other theme concerns how marginal groups attempt to develop strategies, including discursive strategies, to improve their cultural and economic situation, and when and why such these are taken seriously by the dominant groups they live among. In the course of developing this theme, Marxist and Gramscian materialist interpretations of the rebellion as a class-based peasant rebellion (as forwarded by Ranajit Guha and others) are shown to have limited explanatory power in the Santal context. Throughout these discussions, it is demonstrated that the rebellion was carried out by an isolated tribal people outside the ritual order of society, and that it is untenable to interpret the Santal rebellion as a general peasant rising. The chapter also introduces the frame of reference used to analyse the aims of Sido and Kạnhu’s attempted reform of Santal religion.
