At the weekly village haats of Jharkhand’s Latehar and Gumla districts, a catchy jingle crackles through the public address system: “Dahan dahan turrrrrr, dhak dhina din turrrrr.” For most listeners, it is a familiar cue to sing and dance. But here, the broadcast is followed by local news, traditional stories, discussions on agriculture, and updates on weather patterns.
Welcome to Asur Adivasi Radio, a community-led initiative working to preserve Asuri, an endangered tribal language spoken by fewer than 10,000 members of the Asur community, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group spread across Gumla, Lohardaga, Palamu, and Latehar districts of Jharkhand. The radio is crowd-funded and also depends on donations.
Run by the Asur Adivasi Wisdom Akhra in collaboration with the Jharkhandi Bhasha Sahitya Sanskriti Akhra (JBSSA), the radio is operated by a team of around 15 people, including farmers, labourers, homemakers, storytellers, singers, and schoolchildren. “There are very few efforts to preserve the languages of smaller tribal communities,” says Vandana Tete, General Secretary, JBSSA. “We started this radio through crowdfunding. There were elderly Asur speakers who carried the knowledge of the language, rituals, and customs. We wanted to preserve that knowledge, and the radio emerged from that effort.”
The origins of the project lie in a practical challenge. Many Asur settlements are located in forested and mining regions where communication infrastructure has historically been weak. Even today, the radio reaches most listeners through loudspeakers installed in haats. “We upload many of our episodes on SoundCloud for better access” says Tete.
Each half-hour programme, broadcast twice a month, combines news with discussions on language, culture and Indigenous rights. Much of the content is rooted in everyday Asur life. “In many tribal communities, histories are not preserved in books but in stories, songs, and collective memory,” says Tete. “So, we also run discussion programmes focusing on how Asur people live.”
The recordings themselves often carry the sounds of village life. Goats bleat in the background, children interrupt conversations, and birdsong drifts through interviews. The radio has also become a platform for younger speakers. “Young people send us poems, jokes, songs, and everyday gossip on WhatsApp,” says Tete.
Financial constraints have often forced the radio into brief periods of inactivity. Yet volunteers continue to sustain the project. The radio’s role extends beyond cultural preservation. It also serves as a forum for discussing practical issues. Tete points to the bureaucratic challenges faced by many Indigenous people, whose names are frequently misspelt or altered in official documents, creating difficulties in accessing welfare schemes. “We discuss these issues in our programmes and organise public discussions,” she says. “Awareness is an important part of what we do.”
The challenge of language loss remains equally urgent. Formal education is conducted largely in Hindi, creating pressure on younger generations to abandon Asuri. Yet Tete believes the radio has helped change attitudes. “Earlier, many people thought there was no value in learning Asuri,” she says. “Today, they understand that their language is part of who they are. Preserving it means preserving their identity.”