What are the factors that decide whether and where tribal language publications flourish? Some of the answers are surprising. | To read the full article, click here >>
Tribal languages have received insufficient attention in our country. Only a small number of them have managed to register their presence in the world of print media. This article analyses registered tribal language newspapers and examines the conditions that support the growth of tribal languages in print media. Key findings are:
Between 1957 and 2015, 340 newspapers were registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI) in 34 tribal languages and 48 districts in 13 states.
Registered tribal language newspapers accounted for only 0.25 per cent of all newspaper registrations, whereas tribal communities have over the years accounted for at least seven and a half per cent of the country’s population.
About 90 per cent of tribal language newspapers were registered in 27 languages of seven North Eastern states.
[…]
A large population size does not necessarily support the growth of tribal language newspapers. The central and eastern states where the bulk of India’s tribes live have very few tribal language newspapers.
Only 16 tribal newspapers including nine in Assam, two each in Nagaland and West Bengal and one newspaper each in Chhattisgarh, Tripura and Jharkhand filed annual statements in 2014-15.
About 66 tribal newspapers are in circulation at present.
The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution lists 22 languages, including two tribal languages, Bodo and Santhali, that were added in 2004. In 2001, the Census reported 93 tribal languages, including Bodo and Santhali, spoken by more than 10,000 people each. Other sources that do not restrict themselves to languages spoken by more than 10,000 people also show that there are many more tribal languages in India than non-tribal languages. However, the tribal languages are barely represented in the print media. […]
Since 1957, when RNI began registering newspapers, at least one tribal language newspaper was registered in every year, except in 2002, and ten or more tribal language newspapers were registered in 11 years (Figure 1).The period after the Emergency (1978-91) witnessed the most robust growth in tribal language newspapers, with the annual rate of registration being almost twice that of the 1957-77 and 1992-2002 periods. There has been a revival of growth after 2002. […]
Santhali newspapers were registered in four states – Jharkhand (6 registrations), Maharashtra (2), Odisha (6) and West Bengal (8). One newspaper each was registered in 12 other tribal languages including Nagamese and Sadri, which are link languages spoken by tribes. Together the Kuki Chin languages spoken in Mizoram and south Manipur accounted for 64 per cent of all tribal language newspaper registrations in India, even though they constitute less than two per cent of the country’s tribal population (Census, 2011). […]
Periodicity – monthlies have been growing
About 25.6 per cent of all newspapers registered between 1957 and 2015 were dailies. Until 2005 tribal language monthlies accounted for only 29 per cent of newspaper registrations in comparison to 25 per cent of weeklies. But, in recent times (2006-15) the share of monthlies increased to 45.9 per cent compared to 9.4 per cent of weeklies and 29.4 per cent dailies (Figure 7). The resurgence of monthlies suggests that it is difficult to sustain dailies in tribal languages.
Ownership is predominantly private persons Almost two-thirds of all the tribal newspapers were owned by individuals. Only seven individual owners – one each in West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Nagaland, and Tripura and two in Meghalaya – belonged to non-tribal communities. Private publishing companies owned only three per cent of the newspapers (Figure 8).Youth, students’ organisations and political parties owned ten per cent of the registered newspapers. […]
Bi-/Multi-lingual newspapers
A few states have also seen registrations of bi-/multi-lingual tribal newspapers. Unfortunately, RNI does not identify the languages involved in such publications and this has to be inferred from the name of publication and the name and location of the publisher. About 58 bilingual and 16 multilingual newspapers have been registered in the North East. […]
Concluding remarks
Generally tribes do not get sufficient recognition in the mainstream media. The development of media in tribal languages is a step in the direction of developing an environment to nourish the language, culture and heritage. Political autonomy and recognition in a state as one of the primary official languages support the growth of tribal newspapers. […]
Large population size does not necessarily support the growth of tribal language newspapers. The Central and Eastern Indian states where the bulk of India’s tribes live, have very few tribal language newspapers. […]
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