00:00How do languages die? Sometimes it's due to the death of the speakers of that language.
00:13But sometimes it's also due to the death of opportunities of livelihood and survival
00:18that the language provides to its speakers. That is the case of the Raji tribe, a remote
00:24tribe which lives in Uttarakhand. Once known as the kings of the forest, the remote and
00:29ethnically unique Raji tribe has become one of the most endangered tribes in India.
00:36Tulsi Rajbar, a 31-year-old Raji, is probably one of the first Rajis to have written songs
01:04and poems in her native tongue, Raji, spoken by a small community of tribals found in the
01:09remote hills of Uttarakhand. Her ancestors had moved downward from hills in waves and
01:15finally settled in the foothills of Champawat, hoping for a better life.
01:20With the help of local NGOs and linguists like Kavita Rastogi, Rajbar learned to read
01:37and write in Raji and in 2022 started teaching Raji to local children under the Wiki Tongues
01:43Language Revitalization Fellowship Programme 2022. As funds of the project ran out in a
01:49year, Rajbar was forced to return to labour work. This year, her house was flooded after
02:06excessive rains and all her books and diary have been swept away in the floods, along
02:12with her dreams of becoming a singer. With nearly 600 Indian languages facing extinction,
02:21India is facing imminent loss of indigenous culture and heritage that is expressed and
02:25preserved through this cornucopia of tongues and dialects. When looked at closely, the
02:31trajectory of languages reflects the socio-economic and political trajectory of the community
02:36itself. Activist Renu Thakur has devoted most of her
02:40life to the preservation of PVTG communities like the Rajis, whose vulnerability gets compounded
02:46by several socio-economic and political factors.
03:31My eldest son heard something in the jungle and shot an arrow. He was killed by a cow.
03:43He was told that he did not return. He felt bad that he was killed by a cow and did not
03:50return. My younger brother came back, but he was found in the jungle because he could not
03:58eat. It is said that his family were the sons of a great king and they remained in the jungle.
04:08First of all, there is livelihood. Everyone talks about education, but we say that it
04:13is a complete circle. Everyone is interlinked with each other. But when there is no food
04:18to eat, when I do not have anything to eat, when there are no options for my livelihood,
04:24I live in the jungle. You banned the jungle due to stringent laws. You banned the wood
04:30cutting, you banned hunting, and you did not give alternatives. So one is that livelihood
04:34is very crucial. Second is definitely education. For this, there should have been school buildings
04:40in their villages. There should have been primary schools and good teachers. Even today,
04:46Even today, high school and inter-school girls and boys study till 8th standard.
04:53Where will they go after that?
04:55They have to cross the entire jungle to reach the main city to do their 10th and 12th.
05:01So this is the responsibility of the government, education.
05:04And the third, which is very important, is health.
05:07As I told you, their own medical system is ending.
05:11Their dependency is on English medicine.
05:14And they are very anemic.
05:17So these are the issues that we feel the government should have taken care of.
05:21And it should be taken care of. It is their responsibility.
05:24Despite government efforts to alleviate the status of such tribes in theory,
05:28reality on ground remains complex.
05:31In Bhasa, we have medicines and herbs.
05:35If we don't tell our children about those medicines and Bhasa,
05:41what will they say? They will say, I don't know anything about the jungle.
05:45The work of wood has come to an end.
05:48The forest department troubles us here.
05:51They don't let us cut the trees.
05:53So the work of wood has come to an end.
05:55Now we are in the mountains.
05:57There used to be wood there.
06:01Now there is no wood there.
06:05Podaraji's development has come at the cost of their language and their past.
06:09Reducing these erstwhile kings of the forest to mere bystanders on the margins of development.
06:15While some like Tulsi and other empowered locals have been working to preserve their mother tongue,
06:20many Rajis today refuse to speak their language in public because of stigma.
06:25Lack of work also means that many are not interested in teaching their children their mother tongue anymore.
06:34With just 1100 Rajis left in India today,
06:37their language faces imminent death and along with it, their unique history, distinct culture and ways of life.
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