Limbu Language Rights: Interview with Dr. Tumbahang

During my last few weeks in Kathmandu, I sought out people that I thought had interesting opinions on language rights and language education in Nepal, and sat down with them for informal interviews. Here is the first of these interviews, with Dr. Govinda Bahadur Tumbahang, Associate Professor in Linguistics at the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies at Tribhuvan University. In this blog post I mentioned Process of Democratization and Linguistic (Human) Rights in Nepal, which was written by Dr. Tumbahang.

Here is my interview:

I enjoyed your article about Linguistic Human Rights.

I left some interesting things out of that. It began with the annexation of the Limbu Kingdom by Prithvi Narayan Shah. He and his heirs gradually put barriers on Limbu language and culture. Limbus used to sacrifice cows, but they were prohibited to do this by the regime. They were forced to lie to God, to say "We sacrifice this cow unto You" when in fact it was a buffalo or a he-goat that they were sacrificing. This is the Hinduization of culture. At the beginning, Limbu was the language of business dealings and notes, but this was restricted under Prime Minister Chandra Shumsher especially. Then there was the Panchayat policy of one nation, one language, one culture.

Why did the Ranas oppress language?

A ruler wants his own language to prosper. If you put yourself into their shoes, you see that using many languages in official capacity can be very expensive. Also, with many languages come many secret things that the Ranas have difficulty finding out about. The Ranas must bring many nationalities into the mainstream and unify them. 

Which was most targeted by the regime - ethnic languages, religions, or cultures?

First they attacked culture, then language later. The Limbus were forced to celebrate Dashain, and were compelled to sacrifice goats. They had to put their fingertips in goat blood and smear it on the walls of their house. Then spies of the government, disguised as yogis [ascetic holy men], would go around the villages to make sure that this was done. The Athpahariya Rai of Dhankuta refused to celebrate Dashain, even after two of the protesters were hanged. Later on, they began to require that Nepali be used in office places and schools. 

What has been the situation since the People's Revolution of 1990?

Many people have started seeking their identity through speaking out about their language and culture. The situation is congenial. 

The constitution provides the right for people to learn in their mother tongue. In Kathmandu people tried to use Newari in an official capacity, as people in a few other districts did with Maithili, but then this was quashed by the Supreme Court of Nepal. This raised suspicions about the government's dedication to linguistic rights. 

Has the situation changed since the Second People's Revolution?

So far only tall talks untranslated into action. The government has made 15 mother tongue education textbooks, but at the primary level mother tongue language is only taught as a separate subject and not a medium of instruction. There are also not enough mother language teachers.

What is the role of different entities like activists, bureaucrats, and schools in language preservation?

Ethnic organizations are trying to mobilize people to contribute to the cause, to use politics to preserve language and culture. Also some other individuals are doing work.

For example, some organizations like Kumar Lingden's Sanghiya Loktantrik and the Kirat Yaktung Chumlung are fighting for an autonomous Limbu land with the right to self determination. If this happens, Limbu will be the official language and our culture will be preserved. Limbuwan is an issue of identity. I support the Limbuwan state.

What is your research background?

I study the Kiranti languages. I did my PHD on Chhatthare Limbu, and I have written on Athpahariya Rai and Standard Limbu, which is Panthare Limbu.

How did Panthare become the standard? 

This is a very good question. The Limbu Panthare were rulers and scholars, and they wrote literature in Panthare. When radio stations started to broadcast in other languages after 1990, Panthares became radio newscasters. So Panthare has come to occupy a central role whether we like it or not. 

This shows how language and dialect is always a matter of power. The Gorkha rulers had to appease the Limbus in Nepal because there were many Limbus across the Nepalese border in Sikkim that might band against them. So they gave some Rai and Limbu the title of hereditary ruler. They had their own law code for their villages, and they could officiate in all but 5 of the worst crimes.

There are four Limbu dialects, which are all very similar except for Chhatthare, which is my dialect. Chhatthare is quite different, but it is not accepted as a different language because there is strong pressure to keep all Limbus unified. I even did PHD research to show that Chhatthare should be considered a separate language, and when I gave a talk at Arjun's Yaktung Chumlung I was nearly chased out the door. That office is dominated by Panthare speakers, and there is pressure to keep Panthare as a standard.

This actually creates a big problem for mother tongue education, because Limbu classes are all taught in Panthare dialect, which is very difficult for Chhatthare children to understand. This is a major difficulty of mother language education. Although by adulthood most Limbus understand Panthare because it is used as a lingua franca in Limbu communities, it is very difficult for children, who say in the classroom, "this is not our language."

The Rai communities are a very different situation. When they start to talk about a Rai state, they break down on the issues of language and culture. They are in fact many different languages and cultures and tribes - like Bantawa - that are lumped together into the single caste name Rai.

The Squirrels are Exhausted

Taken by my uncle in Dallas.

I arrived in the United States exactly 365 days after I left. I spent a great week with friends in Washington DC, and then flew back to Austin, Texas. This summer has been a brutally hot one in Texas, with strings of 110+ degree days and wildfires destroying large tracts of land and homes around Austin. These days the grass and trees are still dead and brown, but it has started to get a little bit cooler. Like the heat exhaustion-inflicted squirrels, for the past couple weeks I have been lying around listlessly for much of the day. Reverse culture shock took me by surprise - maybe I should call it familiarity shock; it is the uncomfortable feeling that time is out of place, that I have suddenly woken up and all of the last year has been a dream. But my friends have slowly been drawing me out of that feeling.

Floating Villages of Tonle Sap Lake

The most interesting places I visited in Cambodia were the floating villages of Kompong Luong and Kompong Phluk, two of several such villages located on the Tonle Sap lake. Floating Villages of Tonle Sap Lake is a short youtube video I shot from boats and the guest house where I stayed. Kompong Luong is a village of several thousand people that live together on pontoons and boats. I found it fascinating that the whole town was organized with a main water road through the town. During the wet season much of the town moves to a different location on the lake. 

I hired a boat driver for a tour from the shore. I was told that many of the residents of Kompong Luong were Vietnamese immigrants, but the entire time I was there I never encountered anyway who could speak English, so I was able to find out very little about how the village developed.

From a distance I saw this church moving to a different location in the village one morning.

A floating gas pontoon.

A party hall where there was a all-day wedding celebration. As I slept in my guesthouse, the sounds of such traditional songs as 'Play that Funky Music White Boy' came drifting into my bedroom from the party pontoon. Enigmatically almost every raft had a sign that labelled it as a 'Mobile Phone Shop.' By the signs, there must have been several dozen of these mobile phone shops.

Pool tables at the guesthouse. The guesthouse/homestay consisted of two immense pontoons and contained six rooms, pool tables, a restaurant and a general store. There was light and electricity, although the plumbing emptied into the lake. At the guesthouse I met the only two tourists that I saw for the whole day, and a lovely family that operated the guest house, restaurant, and store. I found it a very comfortable place to stay. There was a slight rocking from the water, but it was not enough to disturb a pool game. I slept very well, in spite of my driver's warnings that I would be seasick the whole night.

In the morning I saw the villagers fishing in the lake, people cooking and beginning their work. Above, a device that cuts up coconut flesh. Below, village life. I saw people on boats selling breakfast soup, vegetables ice, batteries, and boats full of schoolchildren in uniform. 

Humans were not the only raft dwellers: there were geckos on the rafters, and pets everywhere: the guesthouse had five dogs, and elsewhere I saw a pet monkey.

Later on, I visited another village on the Tonle Sap. This one had more regulated tours because it was close to Siem Reap. There was a constant flow of goggling tourists like myself. Most of the dwellings in this village were not floating. They were on stilts over the water, and presumably the water level is very low during the dry season.

The village bordered upon a sunken forest. In this village I saw many floating wooden cages that I was told were miniature fish farms.

There was also an island temple.