Roshni Chattopadhyay

ROSHNI CHATTOPADHYAY, then a graduate student at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, was approved funding in April 2024 to aid research on “Gender and Generation in Santhal’s Manjhi-Haram: Changing Landscapes of an Adivasi Court at the margins of Hindu Rashtra in India,” supervised by Dr. Bruce Knauft. This project examines how Santhal customary courts (manjhi-haram) mediate disputes and transform under conditions of extractive capitalism in Birbhum, West Bengal. The fieldwork was conducted between July and December 2024 and focused on the shifting role of manjhi-haram amid state plans to extract Asia’s second-largest coal reserves lying below the long-standing basalt quarries. These changes have drawn younger Santhal men into political and economic leadership, reshaping generational authority and customary governance. Through ethnographic engagement with village councils, anti-mining protestors, Santhali organizations, and quarry workers, mine owners, ordinary villages especially women — the research traces how manjhi-haram adapts to new political economies while retaining legitimacy in local life. The fieldwork revealed the presence of customary mediators along with emergent “shadow mediators” who wield authority within the villages given their association with modern democratic institutions. Far from eroding Santhal identity, participation in capitalist enterprise repurposed customary authority. The findings illuminate how gender, generation, and legality intersect at the margins of the state, where Adivasi institutions are neither traditional remnants nor fully subsumed by the state, but evolving actors in governance and development. The study contributes to debates on law, indigeneity, and the anthropology of resource frontiers in South Asia.