This article has been published in partnership with Samvaad – Enabled by Tata Steel Foundation

In the past 50 years, India has lost over 250 languages, as reported by UNESCO. This loss not only affects languages but also various fields like history, biology, and anthropology.

But, there’s good news. Lately, there’s been a growing effort to preserve cultural identities throughout India, and the Samvaad Fellowship programme stands as a significant contributor to this movement.

Started in 2017 to empower the tribal communities, the fellowship encourages their youth to document their history, culture, ecology, traditions, art and more.

“The purpose of the fellowship is to get tribal communities to deep dive into their culture and help them shape their ideas in collaboration with various experts. The idea behind documenting different cultures is to create a repository of information and make it accessible to the rest of the world. At Samvaad, being a tribal is a source of pride. The community answers the toughest questions about their identity and tries to address them,” Sourav Roy, TSF CEO, told The Better India.

The fellowship is part of Samvaad, one of India’s biggest tribal conclaves in the country, enabled by Tata Steel Foundation (TSF). It takes place from 15 to 19 November every year to commemorate the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, a tribal independence activist and leader from Jharkhand’s Munda tribe.

Samvaad stepped into a decadal journey in 2023 and the recent edition’s theme was ‘Walk with Me’. The theme recognised the journey of ideas, dialogues, individuals, and collectives within and among the tribes of India, aiming to address future challenges through shared wisdom, idea exchange, and self-learning. The five-day conclave spotlighted various solution-driven dialogues and initiatives that have emerged from past conclaves. 

It was hosted at five locations — TSF Community Hall (RD Bhatta), Jamshedpur Nature Trail, Tribal Cultural Centre, Gopal Maidan, and Johar Haat. Gopal Maidan and Tribal Culture Centre served as the main activity hubs while Johar Haat housed a cloud kitchen facility for preparing food for home delivery in collaboration with Zomato.

Over the years, the conclave has celebrated and united over 40,000 people from over 200 tribes in India and 17 other countries. The Better India spoke to past fellows — Banwang Losu and Amabel Susngi — about their tremendous action towards preserving their culture.

Preserving lullabies and languages

For centuries, people across the world have followed the nightly ritual of singing lullabies to infants for a peaceful sleep. Closer home, we have thousands of lullabies in different languages. However, this tradition has faded over the years.

Ask yourself whether you remember a lullaby from your childhood!

When 28-year-old Amabel Susngi from Meghalaya observed that the lullabies in her native language Khasi were becoming a thing of the past, she decided to document them. As part of the Samvaad Fellowship, she gathered various lullabies and published them in a book.

A PhD researcher and a singer, she travelled across Meghalaya for over a year to collect these lullabies. She has documented 25 of them in her book ‘Ha Yupiam Ka Bei’ (On Mother’s Lap), which was published in both Khasi and English this year at Samvaad. It also comes with musical notations, and each piece has a QR code leading the reader to its YouTube version.

“While researching the folk music of the Pnar community, I realised that not many people remembered lullabies. That was a shock. Lullabies have been passed down through generations. Whether traditional or something made up by parents, it has been an important fabric of one’s culture,” Amabel told The Better India.

The road to publishing had its challenges, she adds, the biggest being research.

“Parents don’t sing anymore, and elderly people do not quite remember all the lullabies. Some knew only one line or two, and some remembered only the tune or lyrics. Scheduling meetings was not an option, so I had to work around their availability. Samvaad solved the critical funding problem, and it helped me connect with other fellows around the country,” she added.

Meanwhile, Banwang Losu from Arunachal Pradesh developed a script to preserve Wancho — a Tibetan-Burman language spoken in the Longding region of the state and some parts of Myanmar, Nagaland, and Assam.

Banwang first felt the need to have a Wancho script when he was asked to collect data about his community as part of his socio-economic study in college. He was unable to find the right English words to convey subtle tones. He tried to do some research and even started pursuing a master’s in linguistics at Deccan College Post Graduation and Research Institute in Pune.

While developing the script, he took inspiration from nature and Wancho cultural symbols, practices, and gestures. He developed a script with 44 letters (15 vowels and 29 consonants), each letter representing a distinct tone.

Banwang was the first fellow at Samvaad. “While working on the Wancho script, I heard about Samvaad and came here in 2017 without any proposal. However, the jury was delighted to see my work. Being a fellow here was eye-opening as it is the only programme for tribals at this scale. Using the grant, I made textbooks on the Wancho language,” he told The Better India.

Banwang taught the language to 2,000 people, and 20 of them are now teachers. Thanks to his work, over 6,000 students can read and write in Wancho. He also got the script approved for online use by the US-based Unicode Consortium.

“Every language is equally important irrespective of how big or small. We have to look at other minority languages with the same status and build scripts to preserve them. Loss of language is a loss of our own,” he added.

Reviving traditions and unveiling wisdom

Development, which was responsible for the decline in tribal populations, is now being used to preserve culture. Amabel and Banwang are using digital media to document their language and lullabies. A simple act of writing and recording is doing wonders for the community.

Of the 35 applications, 10 received the fellowship after rigorous rounds of interviews and pitches this year. And in between the process, all the applicants went through skill upgradation sessions.

“Most applicants have great ideas but are not savvy enough to write a proposal or give a presentation. When we think of diversity, we often forget about the tribals. We think they are primitive and live in jungles. But when you read the proposals, you learn their diverse wisdom, culture and history. Through this fellowship, we are trying to preserve that,” said Oinam Doren, a jury member this year.

Some of the Samvaad fellows 2023 include — Saka Mashangva, a folk artist who wants to document Tingteila, a traditional musical instrument of the Tangkhul tribe of Manipur which is almost extinct; Santosh Pawar, a social activist who wants to preserve and promote the folklore of the Bhil tribe; Madhavi Meravi, who wants to document the folk tales of Gond tribal communities as part of children’s literature; Pansy Jami, who wants to document the benefits of fermented food from the Lotha Naga tribe of Nagaland.

The applicants who get rejected are encouraged to apply again, shared Oinam. The jury members and Samvaad team continue to provide support by staying in touch to help participants enhance their ideas or pitches for a stronger comeback.

(Edited by Pranita Bhat; All photos courtesy: Samvaad by Tata Steel Foundation)