Ol Chiki Script | 17 Feb 2026

Source: PIB 

The President of India inaugurated the Centenary Celebration of the Ol Chiki script in New Delhi, organized by the Ministry of Culture, marking 100 years of the script's existence and its pivotal role in preserving Santal identity. 

• A commemorative coin and postage stamp were released to mark the completion of 100 years of the script. 
• Invention & History: The Ol Chiki script was invented by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in 1925 to provide a distinct script for the Santhali language, which was previously written in Roman, Devanagari, Oriya, or Bengali scripts. 
  • Pandit Raghunath Murmu of Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district authored High Serena (1936), the first book in Ol Chiki, and works like Bidu-Chandan that reflect Santhali culture.  
• Linguistic Structure: The script consists of 30 letters and is designed to be entirely phonetic, meaning each symbol corresponds directly to a specific sound. 
  • The Ol Chiki script accurately represents glottal stops and specific vowel patterns inherent to Santhali, which belongs to the Austroasiatic language family. 
• Geographic Reach: It is the primary medium for Santhali speakers across Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, and Assam. 
• Constitutional Status: The Santhali language, written in Ol Chiki, was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India through the 92nd Constitutional Amendment Act in 2003. 
• Democratic Accessibility: In a landmark move for linguistic justice, the Constitution of India was translated into Santhali using the Ol Chiki script in December 2025.