In Chhindwara: Bhariati language declining fast

It all began with a piece of paper and a question from a stranger.

The stranger was taking a fair chance – here in Patalkot valley of Tamia block, there are many members of the Bharia community, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) in Madhya Pradesh. Kamlesh is a Bharia and was fluent in Bhariati – the language of his community.

The young child read the paper with confidence at first. It contained general information about his community. Since it was in Devanagari script, “it felt easy.” In the second section which consisted of the names of objects, Kamlesh started to stumble. “The words were surely in Bhariati,” he recalls, “Those sounds were so familiar, but those words were strangers.”

He pauses for a minute while trying hard to recollect something. “There was one word in particular. It was a type of junglee jadibutti [medicinal plant]. I wish I had written it down,” he says, shaking his head in disappointment. “Now I can’t even recall the word or its meaning.”

Kamlesh’s distress left him thinking: “I wondered how many more words in Bhariati I didn’t know.” He did know that he was fluent – he grew up speaking Bhariati to his grandparents who had brought him up. “It was the only language I spoke until my teenage years. I still struggle to speak fluent Hindi,” he adds laughing.

There are almost two lakh members of the Bharia community in Madhya Pradesh (Statistical Profile of Scheduled Tribes, 2013), but only 381 people returned Bhariati as their mother tongue. Although this information is from 2001 consolidated data published by the Indian language census, there is no further update as Bhariati has not been listed separately in the 2011 census. It remains hidden in the unnamed mother tongues category that often overlooks tongues with less than 10,000 reported speakers.

The community were once porters to the kings of Maharashtra, says this government released video. After Mudhoji II of Nagpur (also known as Appa Saheb) faced a defeat in the 1818 battle during the Third Anglo-Maratha War and had to flee, many Bharias followed suit and resettled in the forests of Madhya Pradesh’s Chhindwara, Betul, and Pachmarhi.

Today the community identifies themselves as Bharia (or Bharti). Their traditional occupation was shifting cultivation. They also had wide knowledge of medicinal plants and herbs – a reason people continue to visit the village through the year. “They come here to buy the jadibutti from us. Many elders now have license and can go anywhere to sell these medicinal plants,” says Kamlesh.

But just like language, even the knowledge of these plants, “is now known only to the elders in the village,” he adds.  

The community’s access to roads is still poor, even though popular tourist destinations like the Mahadev Temple and Raja Khoh Gufa are in their valley. They live largely in the Patalkot region, across 12 villages scattered at the foothills of the Satpura mountain range. The children of the community often live in residential schools in nearby cities like Indore to pursue their education.

Ten years later, an older Kamlesh was grazing his cows and goats in the hills of central India, when once again he met with a stranger. His smile reaches his ears as he recalls his déjà vu moment. When the stranger stopped his car to ask Kamlesh a question, he thought to himself, “probably he too will pull out a kagat [paper] for me to read!”

Kamlesh had dropped out of Class 12 to help on the family’s land; there was little money for college and school fees for him and his seven siblings. The village had a primary school till Class 5. After that, boys went on to a residential school in Tamia and nearby cities, while girls dropped out.

The stranger asked the now 22-year-old Kamlesh whether he would like to preserve his mother tongue so that the next generation could remember how Bhariati was spoken. The question struck a chord and he instantly agreed.

The stranger was language researcher Pavan Kumar from the Dehradun-based Institute of Languages and Linguistics who had come to the village to document Bhariati. He had already travelled to several other villages where he could not find any fluent speakers. Pavan Kumar stayed on in the area for three-four years and “we digitally published many stories and even a kitap [book] in Bhariati,” Kamlesh recalls.

Once Kamlesh agreed, one of the first tasks was to find a place where he could work without any disturbance. “Yahan bahut shor-sharaba hota tha kyunki touristo ka aana jaana laga rehta tha [Here it was very noisy as many tourists would keep coming and going].” He decided to move to another village to form a Bharia Language Development Team.

Within a month Kamlesh and his team successfully developed the Bhariati alphabet chart, “I drew all the images against each letter.” Elders helped select words. But he did not stop here. With the help of the researcher, their team managed to digitally print more than 500 copies of the alphabet chart. Divided into two groups, they would travel on motorbikes to distribute these charts to the primary schools and anganwadis in different cities including Narsinghpur, Seoni, Chhindwara and Hoshangabad (now known as Narmadapuram). “I alone might have covered more than 250 primary schools and aaganwadis in Tamia, Harrai and even Junnardeo,” Kamlesh tells PARI.

Even though the distances were far, sometimes as much as 85 kilometers, “hum teen-char din gharpe nahi aate the. Hum kisi ke bhi ghar rukh jaate the raat mai aur subah wapas chart baatne lagte.” [We would not return home for three-four days. We would seek shelter at someone’s house for the night and by morning we would be up again distributing charts].”

Most of the primary school teachers they met didn’t know much about their community, Kamlesh says, “but they were very appreciative of our efforts, which helped us reach villages where Bhariati was not spoken anymore.”

Within a year Kamlesh and his language development team authored several books including a language spelling guide, three health stories and three moral stories in Bhariati. “We wrote everything on paper first,” he says while fishing out a few colourful chart papers buried in a trunk at this house. The efforts of the community led to the creation of a website in Bhariati.

“We were excited for the second phase of the website,” he says, talking to us at his house in Rathed, “I was ready to share the digital copies of the pocket books, folk songs, riddles, word games for kids and many more…but the pandemic hit.”  The team’s efforts stalled. Worse followed: Kamlesh lost the data on his phone overnight when his phone got reset. “Sab chale gaya,” he says sadly. “We couldn’t even secure the handwritten copy.” He did not have a smartphone; only this year he has figured out how to email.

What little remained he handed it over to his team members of the other village. He says he is no longer in touch with them, “I am not sure if they still have it.”

But it wasn’t just the pandemic that pushed Kamlesh to pause his documentation. The lack of interest from both the young and old in his community he says is one of the biggest hurdles in documenting Bhariati. “Bujurgo ko likhna nahi hai aur bachho ko bolna nahi hai [the elders don’t want to write and the children don’t want to speak],” he adds. “Slowly I started losing hope and then I stopped.”

Kamlesh’s team had consisted of fellow farmers who spent their days working in the fields. After a long, tiring day, they would return home to eat and sleep early, he explains. But after a point they too stopped engaging.

I could not do this alone,” says Kamlesh. “This is not one-person job.”

As he walks through the village, Kamlesh stops outside a house. “When I meet my friends, we often talk about Divlu bhaiya.

Divlu Bagdariya is a 48-year-old folk dancer and singer and often represents the Bharia community at cultural programs organised by the Madhya Pradesh government. “He is the only one who really understands how important our language is to our culture,” says Kamlesh.

PARI met Divlu outside his home in Rathed. He was singing a song in Bhariati to his grandchildren who were awaiting their mother’s return from the forest where she had gone to collect firewood.

“Writing and speaking are both important,” says Divlu as he leans toward Kamlesh. “Maybe just like how English and Hindi are taught as subjects, Bhariati and other Adivasi mother tongues can be taught as an optional [subject]?” He begins to show Kamlesh’s alphabet chart to his youngest chava (grandson).

His grandson points at the dhadus (monkey) in the chart and giggles, “He will soon learn Bharia,” Divlu says.

Kamlesh is not so easily convinced, having seen the challenges he faced while working with his community. “If he starts going to residential schools, he will never speak Bhariati. Only if he lives with us [here] will he be able to speak,” says the language archiver.

“Waise toh 100 mai se 75 pratishat toh vilupth hi ho chuki meri bhasha [Almost 75 per cent of my language has been lost],” says Kamlesh. “We forgot the original names of objects in Bhariati. Everything slowly mixed with Hindi.” 

As people began to travel more, and children started going to school, they brought back Hindi words and expressions, teaching their parents. Even the older generation started speaking like their children, and the use of Bhariati began to decline.

“I also started speaking less Bhariati once school started, spending more time with friends who spoke Hindi. It became a habit, even for me,” says Kamlesh. He speaks both Hindi and Bhariati, but interestingly, he never speaks them together. “I can’t mix them as easily as others do because I grew up with my Bhariati-speaking grandmother.”

Kamlesh’s grandmother Suktibai almost 80 years old, still doesn’t speak Hindi. He says she understands it now but can’t respond to it. His siblings don’t speak much as “they feel embarrassed. They prefer speaking Hindi.” His wife Anita doesn’t speak the mother tongue either but he does encourage her.

“What is the use of Bhariati? Does it give us rojgaar [employment]? Sirf apni bhasha bolne se ghar chalta hai? [Can we run our house by just speaking our mother tongue?],” is a question that bothers both language enthusiasts.

“We can’t avoid Hindi,” says a practical Divlu. “But we have to keep our own language alive.”

Kamlesh retorts saying, “these days, you can prove your identity with your Aadhaar or driving license.”

Not to be outdone, Divlu leans in toward him and asks, “if someone asks you to prove your identity without these documents, how will you do it?”

Kamlesh laughs and responds, “I’ll speak in Bhariati.”

“Exactly. Language is also your identity,” Divlu affirms.

The linguistic classification of Bhariati remains uncertain due to its complex history. Once possibly Dravidian, the language now exhibits strong Indo-Aryan traits, particularly in vocabulary and phonetics, reflecting its central Indian location and ties to both language families. This ambiguity in its classification highlights the intricate blending of Indic and Dravidian influences over time, making a clear-cut categorisation elusive for linguists.

The reporter would like to thank Manjiri Chande and Ramdas Nagare from the Pararth Samiti, and Pallavi Chaturvedi. Anagha Menon, researcher and lecturer at Khalsa College and Dr. Chinmay Dharurkar, linguist and Assistant Professor, at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Kanpur generously shared their knowledge.

PARI's Endangered Languages Project (ELP), is part of an initiative supported by Azim Premji University.  It aims to document the vulnerable languages of India through the voices and lived experiences of people who speak them.