December 27, 2025 07:45 AM IST First published on: Dec 27, 2025 at 07:45 AM ISTWhen President Droupadi Murmu released the Constitution of India in the Santhali language, written in Ol Chiki script, it marked a much-awaited moment of inclusion. It carried echoes of a mid-20th-century debate in socio-cultural theory, and its unselfconscious resolution in a diverse country. The debate was on whether language precedes thought. While Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky emphasised the relevance of language in cognitive development, Swiss scholar Jean Piaget framed it differently. Far away from this debate, culturally and geographically, the best political minds of India, in Constitution Hall, were discussing the trajectory of a new democracy in which everyday politics and culture is shaped by language hierarchy. One of the few Adivasi members of the Constituent Assembly, Jaipal Singh Munda, stood up and spoke in Mundari, and demanded recognition for tribal languages and identities.The Constitution in Santhali offers the Santhali people easier access to a document that enshrines the rights for which leaders like Munda fought. With a population of over 7 million, the Santhals are the third-largest tribe in the country. Yet, it was only in 2003 that the Santhali language was included in Schedule VIII. Notably, it was on Murmu’s insistence — as a minister in Odisha, she requested the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to give official status to Santhali — that the language got its long-due recognition.AdvertisementOn the centenary of the Ol Chiki script, invented in 1925 by Raghunath Murmu, this event is not merely symbolic. It underlines the promise of a more inclusive India where every community will be able to read, defend and celebrate their enshrined rights in their own languages. A person from the Ho community would read the Preamble aloud in the Varang Kshiti script, a Mundari woman would find the promises of gender equality written in Nag Mundari, an Oraon scholar would defend her doctoral thesis in the Kurukh language.