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| Total population | |
|---|---|
| c. 359,000 (2011) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Population inIndia andBhutan | |
| Assam | 296,189[1] |
| Meghalaya | 32,662[2] |
| West Bengal | 27,820[3] |
| Bhutan | 1,600[4] |
| Languages | |
| Assamese,Rabha[5] | |
| Religion | |
 Hinduism (40%)Animism (30%)  Christianity (15.34%) Islam (0.43%)[citation needed] | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Bodo-Kachari | |
TheRabha people are aTibeto-Burmeseethnic group who live mostly in theNortheast Indian state ofAssam, with a lesser population in the adjacent state ofWest Bengal.[6] They primarily inhabit the plains ofLower Assam and theDooars, while some are found in theGaro Hills. Outside of India, they have a presence inBhutan, with communities in nine districts.[7] Most of the Rabhas of Dooars refer to themselves as Rabha, but some of them often declare themselves as Kocha.[8]
The Rabha community is divided into several subgroups or clans, each with distinct dialects, traditions, and cultural practices. According to linguistic and ethnographic studies, there are eleven dialectal groups of Rabhas: Rongdani, Maituri, Pati, Dahori, Dotla, Halua, Betolia, Hanna, Sunga, Modahi, and Kocha.[9]
Among these, theRongdani,Maituri, andKocha Rabha dialects are still actively spoken, while others have become endangered or have completely died out.[10]
Some groups in theBodoland Territorial Region (BTR) identify themselves asKoch-Rabha. Historically, they were originally Koch people, but as the Koch community in Assam was not recognized under the Scheduled Tribe category, some adopted Rabha identity to obtain Scheduled Tribe (ST) benefits from the state. Since then, this group has been known asKoch-Rabha.[11]
These groups share close linguistic and cultural similarities with other members of the Bodo-Kachari ethnolinguistic family, including the Garo, Kachari, Mech, and Hajong communities.[12]
The Rabhas belong to the Indo-Mongoloid group of people and are among the nine plains tribes and fourteen hill tribes of Assam.[13][14]
Linguistically, Rabha has been classified in the following way: Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, JingphoKonyak-Bodo, Konyak-Rabha, Rabha-, 2009). Members of each of the nine groups of Rabha are thought to speak their own dialect. However, except Rongdani, Maituri and Kocha the rest of the Rabha groups have abandoned their mother tongue for Assamese. In their day-to-day conversation they speak a variety of Assamese mixed with some Rabha words and expressions, and it has been called by a few researchers “Rabhamese." (Tibeto-Burman speeches and their studies, n.d., 22). The language of the Kocha-Rabhas is much more similar to that of the Koch rather than Rabha. A sociolinguistic survey conducted among the Koch (Kondakov 2010) establishes the evidence for this. According to U.V. Jose, the dialectic variations between Rongdani and Maituri are minimal. They are mutually intelligible, and the one merges almost imperceptibly into the other around the Goalpara Baida-Rongsai region. The Rongdani-Maituri dialectical differences become gradually more marked as one moves further west (Jose 2000). Rabha in many cases shows points of resemblance with Atong which is a variety traditionally considered a dialect of Garo.[15][16]