Inner frontiers: Santal responses to acculturation

The Santals who constitute one of the largest communities in India, belong to the austro-asiatic linguistic group. They have managed to keep their language and their traditional system of values as well. Nevertheless, their attempt to forge a new identity has been expressed by developing new attitudes to medicine, politics and religion. In the four articles collected in this essay, I am dealing with the relationship of the Santals to some other tribal communities and the surrounding Hindu society.