Chota Nagpur Plateau · Central Highlands & Forest Belt

People

Name	Years	Field	Known for
Sido Murmu and Kanhu Murmu	Active 1855	Rebellion	Brothers from Bhognadih who called the Santal Hul on 30 June 1855, mobilising tens of thousands of Santals across the Damin-i-Koh. Their brothers Chand and Bhairav and their sisters Phulo and Jhano are named in the same accounts. The rising was suppressed by 1856, and the Santhal Parganas were constituted as a separate administrative district in its aftermath.
Birsa Munda	1875–1900	Religious reformer and rebellion	Born at Ulihatu in the Ranchi plateau. Preached a reformed practice among the Munda, was recognised by followers as Dharti Aba, and led the Ulgulan of 1899–1900 in defence of khuntkatti land tenure. He died in Ranchi jail on 9 June 1900 at twenty-five. The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908, which still governs land transfer on the plateau, followed from the movement.
Raghunath Murmu	1905–1982	Script and language	Devised Ol Chiki, a thirty-letter alphabet for Santali, in 1925, and spent his life writing primers, grammars, plays and poetry in it and teaching it village by village. It is one of very few purpose-built scripts anywhere that its intended community actually adopted; Santali entered the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution in 2003.
Lako Bodra	1919–1986	Script and language	Devised Warang Chiti for the Ho language and campaigned for its use, a generation after Raghunath Murmu did the same for Santali. Ho is now taught in Warang Chiti in parts of Kolhan and Odisha.
Jaipal Singh Munda	1903–1970	Sport and public life	From Khunti; captained India's hockey team to the Olympic gold medal at Amsterdam in 1928, and later sat in the Constituent Assembly, where he argued the Adivasi case during the drafting of the Constitution.
Ram Dayal Munda	1939–2011	Linguistics and music	Mundari linguist, ethnomusicologist and Vice-Chancellor of Ranchi University; worked on Munda language documentation in India and the United States, and did as much as anyone to bring Nagpuri and Mundari song onto a public stage as music rather than as folklore.
Bulu Imam	Born 1942	Documentation and conservation	Recorded the Sohrai and Khovar painting of the Hazaribagh villages from 1991 onward, connected its motifs to the painted rock shelters of the same valley, and set up the Sanskriti museum at Hazaribagh. The geographical indication registered in 2020 rests on that documentation.
Mukund Nayak	—	Music	A Nagpuri singer and jhumair exponent from the Ranchi plateau who carried Sadri song from the akhra to the recording studio and the concert stage, and trained a generation of performers.

People from Chota Nagpur Plateau who shaped its history, arts, science, sport and public life. (8)