The Santal Rebellion 1855–1856

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.

List of Figures. Preface. Glossary. 1. Introduction 2. A brief note on existing research related to the Santal rebellion 3. Sources of information related to the Santal rebellion and Santal religion 4. The Santals and the Damin-i-Koh 5. Changes of religious mood in the run-up to the Santal rebellion 6. The course of the Santal rebellion 7. Transformation of religion and ritual legitimation 8. Purity and atrocities 9. Aftermath and amends? 10. The Santal rebellion on the background of Indian religion in the 19th century 11. Identities and rebellions – tribal or peasant 12. Logics, ethics and existence 13. Summary and conclusions. Appendix I Place names. References. Appendix II Bengal Judicial Proceedings.