The Ol Chiki script was invented by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in the first half of the 20th century . The meaning of Ol Chiki is “writing symbol” or “writing script”. This script is also known as “Ol Cemet”, “Ol script”, “Ol ciki Script” and also “Ol”. In Santali,“Ol” means “writing” and “Cemet” means “learning” . So, “Ol Cemet” means “The learning of writing”. “Ol Cemet” is the title of the book, written by Pandit Raghunath Murmu for teaching the Ol Chiki to the beginners. Santali is a language with its own special characteristics, and has a literature which dates back to the beginning of the 15th century( Murmu, 2002) and since then, it has been in various phases of its development in the subsequent centuries. Language is an instrument of group culture and identity. The script is a mechanism to propagate and preserve a language, which is necessary for the very survival of cultural communities. Naturally, he felt that Santals with their rich cultural heritage and tradition, also need a separate script to preserve and promote their language. Towards this goal, he wrote over 150 books covering wide spectrum of subjects such as grammar, novels, drama, poetry, and story in Ol Chiki as a part of his extensive programme for culturally upgrading the Santal community. “Darege Dhan”, “Sidhu-Kanhu”, "Bidu Chandan" and "Kherwal Bir" are among the most acclaimed of his works.

Ol Chiki is alphabetic, and does not share any of the syllabic properties of the other Indic scripts. It is used for writing Santali which belongs to the Munda group languages of the Austro-Asiatic family. One of the interesting feature of the Ol Chiki script is that it makes use of signs and symbols long familiar to the Santals. The very ingenuity in shaping the symbols of the letters and arranging the letters in the script has been greatly helpful in transmission of the script. A large number of words in the Santali language are derived from natural sounds. Letters of Ol Chiki script are also derived from the physical environment and what surrounds the people - hills, rivers, trees, birds, bees, plough, sickle - the list is endless. Norman Zide, one of linguist who studied Ol Chiki,  in his work(Zide, 1996) says, “The shapes of the letters are not arbitrary, but reflect the names for the letters, which are words, usually the names of objects or actions represented—in conventionalized form – in the pictorial shape of the characters. ” For example, the word “At ” means earth and the shape of letter  T (AT ) derived from the round shape of earth. Similarly “Ud ” means mushroom and so is the shape of the letter  D   (Ud') .

On commenting about Ol Chiki, Zide (1996)  observes, “One ingenious - “scientific” – and unique feature of Ol Cemet’ that certainly increases the efficiency of writing Santali is the deglottalizing “ohot”( x). This neatly preserves the morphophonemic relationship between the glottalized and the voiced equivalent: The former occurs in words at certain word-internal preconsonantal junctures, whereas the latter occurs prevocalically, but never morpheme-initially in these alterations. Thus ok’ is the name of a letter that represents both [k’]and [g]. Two further diacritics include a horizontal loop added at the top right of the character for aspiration of consonants, and a raised dot for vowel nasalization.”
“Santali” which literally means 'the language of the Santals’ is spoken by the Santals who are also one of the oldest ethnic group in South Asia. Anthropologists tend to identify the Santals in the racial category of proto-Australoid . They are numerically the largest ingenious group in India having homogeneous characteristics and a total population of over 10 million (according to recent figures). The Santals are mostly concentrated in the Indian state of Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Assam, but they are also spread over sparsely in the neighboring country of Bangladesh and Nepal. Presently, the Santals have a high degree of bilingualism as they also speak the language of the majority population (viz.., Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, and Oriya as the case may be) besides Santali.

In earlier times, all Santali writings were in Bengali, Devnagari, Oriya or Roman script. Although there have been impressive works by foreigners and non-Santal writers on dictionary, collection of folklore etc., their work is mostly confined to research. Meanwhile, Roman script was in extensive use for writing of Santali and several books in Santali have been published using Roman script. But most of the creative writings were written by the native speakers in Bengali, Devnagari or Oriya scripts. The use of different scripts for Santali has hindered the development and utilization of Santali language. This, in turn, has effectively mired the progress of Santali language in several fields such as philosophy, history, religion, drama, novels, songs and stories. The problem of using different scripts for the same language had necessitated the invention of new scripts for Santali, and it finally led to the invention of Ol Chiki by Pandit Raghunath Murmu.

Ol Chiki and its Status : Zide in his work(Zide, 1996) says, “When, thirty years ago, I asked knowledgeable people in Bihar and Orissa what they thought of the chances of a wide – if not pan-Santal – acceptance of Ol Cemet’, almost all were skeptical. The competition of Oriya, Devnagari, etc was too powerful. But, in fact, Ol Cemet’ has become more and more widely accepted. Official recognisations have been made. Pandit Raghunath Murmu has been honored by the Orissa Goverment......”
This indeed is an outstanding remark concerning the development of Ol Chiki. The level of penetration of Ol Chiki among the rural Santal community is unbelievable in spite of the fact that low level of literacy and poor living conditions are widespread. Private initiative of average Santals, co-operation and active support of various units of ASECA(Adivasi Socio-Educational and Cultural Association), a Santal organization, made amazing inroads into rural Santal community for Ol Chiki and made considerable place for it among them. The footprints of proliferation of Ol Chiki among the Santals can be observed even in the  remote village of Nepal, far away from Santal heartland (The Kathmandu Post, dated January, 15 2001, Kathmandu). New era for Ol Chiki started after getting early recognition from the Govt. of West Bengal way back in 1979. Recently, the Govt. of West Bengal in its extraordinary resolution published in the Calcutta Gazette dated 5th March 2001 has constituted a committee “to study the feasibility and possibility of teaching Santali language using Ol Chiki script and to introduce it in various syllabus/curriculum starting from the primary school level up to the university level”.  Based on the committee recommendation, West Bengal Govt, Introduced Santali in Ol Chiki Script as first language for Class IX and Class X.  Few days back, it is the Jharkhand Government which gave green signal for teaching all tribal languages in their own script(if any) as a separate subject starting from the primary school level up to the university level. Apart from these developments for Ol Chiki, the Govt. of Orissa also recognises it for teaching Santali language in Ol Chiki in certain selected schools at the primary level, and for providing financial help to the ASECAs for imparting primary level and adult education in Ol Chiki.
The status of Ol Chiki in higher education is also equally good. Bihar Secondary School Examination Board, Patna and Jharkhand Secondary School Examination Board, Ranchi have accepted Santali Language/Literature as optional paper at the Matriculation level. The Bihar Public Service Commission also offers Santali Language/Literature as optional paper for its competitive Examination. In West Bengal, the renowned Vishwa Bharati University, i.e., Shantiniketan has been imparting education in Santali language for the last 24 years or so. The Universities of Jharkhand and Bihar, viz., Ranchi University, Ranchi, Vinoba Bhave University, Hazaribagh, Sidu Kanhu University, Dumka, and Baba Tilka Majhi University, Bhagalpur offer courses in Santali language/literature at the Post-Graduate level, and also conduct examinations for the same.
Santals, in general, are very good writers. It is mostly due to their way of life. Archer (1974), who made an extensive use of the Santal sung-poetry to understand the life and culture of the Santals observes:

“Santhal poetry is Santhal life;
 Santhal life is Santhal poetry”

After the invention of Ol Chiki, a large number of books have been written by various authors in Santali using Ol Chiki script. Types of books include (i) novels and short stories, (ii) poetries, songs, and religious sermons, (iii) books on Santal society, (iv) primary books for learning Ol Chiki, (v) books for learning primary mathematics, (vi) books on Santali grammars and related topics, and (vii) books on great tribal persons. Santali magazines in Ol Chiki are also being published regularly.