Rabha

Rabha (Assamese: ৰাভা) (Bengali: রাভা) (also Rava) is a Scheduled Tribe community of Assam, Meghalaya and West Bengal. The language/dialect spoken by the Rabha people is also of the same name. In Assam, the Rabhas live mostly in Goalpara and Kamrup districts. In Meghalaya, Rabhas are mostly found in Garo Hills districts. In West Bengal, Rabha people mainly live in Jalpaiguri district and Cooch Behar district. Moreover, almost, 70 per cent of them live in Jalpaiguri district. The whole area of Eastern and Western Dooars, may be termed as the cradle land of the Rabhas. The Rabhas refer to themselves as Koch and assert a connection to the historical Koch Kingdom.

The Rabhas belong to the Indo Mongoloid group of people and have similarities with other members of Koch group such as Garos, Kachari, Mech, Koch, Hajong and others. Most of the Rabhas of Dooars refer to themselves as Rabha, but some of them often declare themselves as Kocha. According to Dr. Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, the aspects of socio-religious and material life of the Rabhas have similarities with those of the Pani-Koch. E. Dalton on the other hand, argues that the Rabhas and the Hajongs are the branches of Kachari race and connected with the Garo. According to B.H. Hodgson the Rabhas belong to the Great Koch or Mech ft Pani-Koch and the Rabhas have the same lineage and the latter has their connection with the Garo. A. Playfair (1909) also has pointed out some linguistic and cultural similarities between the Rabhas and the Garos. He also remarks that there exists a striking linguistic affinity between the A'Tong language and the Rangdania (Rabha) dialects. This led him to think that, at some point of time they lived in contact with each other.

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