VI DEMOGRAPHY

A. Number of Speakers

The total number of Santali Speakers in India according to 2001 census is 6,469,600 in which 3,273,651 are males and 3,195,949 are females.

The Table below shows Mother tongues grouped under Santali Language

1. Main Habitat:

The main places of habitat of the Santali speech community are Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Assam etc.

a. Male/Female

The following table shows the Male-Female distribution of Santali speakers in the states and Union Territories of India as per 2001 census

b. Rural/Urban

The following list gives the Rural/Urban distribution of population in the States and Union Territories of India as per 2001 census

2. Decennial Growth

The table below shows the decennial growth of Santali speakers in 4 consecutive census reports.

B. Settlement Pattern

The table below shows the male-female and rural-urban distribution of Santali speakers according to 2001 census.

C. Literacy and Education

1. Literacy

The condition of the santal is not satisfactory in the sphere of literacy and education. More than three-fourth of their working population are engaged in agriculture sector, as cultivators ( owner / share cropper ) and agricultural labourers. A considerable section of the workers are also engaged as unskilled labourers in plantations, collieries, mines and quarries, heavy industries, orchards, constructions, brick field etc. Few persons who receive formal education to certain extent are mainly engaged in different type of services leaving aside their traditional occupations.

2. Education

The basic of the Indian constitution envisioned “establishment of an egalitarian society with equality for all section of society”. Also there is promise of universalization of primary Education in the constitution. Along with these the other protective discrimination should have been adequate for establishment of equitable system. But every thing said and done has so far not been able to bring about significant change in the socio- economic condition of the Adivasis and Dalits.

The literacy levels of both the Adivasis and the Dalits are far below than that of the upper caste communities. “Operation Black Board” under National Education policy (NEP) 1986 and Mass campaigns for non-formal education were launched under National Literacy Mission (NIM) with a focus on rural areas, woman, girl, children and persons belonging to Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste and ostentatious declaration of important rule of voluntary agencies in realizing the objective of total literacy of the weaker sections, could not bring about desired results.

Again in the 8th plan, Education including social Development has been given the highest priority. But every time scarce resources are expended on establishment of new infrastructures and recruitment of manpower.

The emphasis of Education planning and policy lies in the physical spread of education in increasing the number of schools, teachers and other facilities to tackle the problem of low level of literacy in the primitive tribal communities. The norm fixed by the government of establishing schools on the basis of area and physical distance will not work here. Even according to these norms, there are 8703 villages in this sub-plea without a primary school. The position is very bad in santal parganas where about two third of the villages have no primary school , the number of middle schools is only 1516 in the area which work out to be one middle school for every 5.6 primary school, though the norm is to have at least one middle school for every 3 primary schools. The teachers drawn from non-tribal areas do not like to work in the distant and inaccessible tribal areas with poor amenities. Thus the physical availability of a school and the figures of enrolment do not give a reliable picture of the spread of education. Out of 8547 primary schools, only 4568 have buildings of their own, the rest 3979 are located in rented houses or in open Varandah/ field. In respect of school, which have a building of their own, the repairs have not been attended and the buildings are in dilapidated condition. Many schools do not have even such elementary facilities as a blackboard, a duster, chalk facilities as blackboard, duster, chalk pieces and drinking water well, not to speak of text books, stationary, etc. The number of drop outs among the tribal students is high which is partly on account of the way schools function and it is also because the tribal children of poorer families accompany their parents at work site.