How to release a Nepali song in India: Spotify, JioSaavn, Tihar and caller tunes

Nepali, also called Gorkhali or Khaskura, is spoken by about 29 lakh people in India (Census 2011) and has been in the Eighth Schedule since 1992. West Bengal has the most speakers, about 11.6 lakh, mainly in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong, where the state recognised the language in 1961. Assam follows with about 6 lakh, then Sikkim with about 3.8 lakh, where Nepali is an official language.

There are Nepali-speaking communities in Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and across the Northeast too. Beyond India, Nepali is the official language of Nepal, and about a quarter of Bhutan's people speak it.

Deusi and Bhailo are sung house to house during Tihar, and Lok Dohori is a genre name listeners use in their own playlist titles. One SUF release takes your song to Spotify, JioSaavn, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Gaana, Instagram and more than 150 stores worldwide, and caller tunes on Jio, Airtel, Vi and BSNL are part of every plan.

The three languages sit in different parts of the language picker, but the release is otherwise the same. If you sing in Lepcha or Sikkimese but would rather be listed under another store language, choose that language instead.

1. Make your SUF Digitals account and choose a plan. Plans start at Rs 999 a year before GST, and you keep 100% of your copyright on every plan.
2. Add your artist name and your Spotify and Apple Music profile links. On your first release, mark yourself as new to the stores, and your artist pages are created with the release.
3. Create the release and set the language for it and for every track. Nepali sits under All languages and is listed on the stores as Nepali. Lepcha and Sikkimese sit under More Indian languages; the stores have no category for them yet, so they list the song under Nepali, and the release keeps your language with us.
4. Upload a WAV or FLAC master (16 or 24 bit, 44.1 to 96 kHz) and a square 3000 x 3000 pixel cover (JPG or PNG). The free cover art checker runs the same checks before you submit.
5. Credit the singers, composers, lyricists and producers, declare the rights in every song and set the release date. On the Rising plan and above you choose it; on Debut it is set 7 days after you submit.
6. Submit, and SUF checks the release against the stores' rules before it goes out. On release day, share your free smart link: it opens the song straight in each fan's own music app.

As of October 2026 we found no store-run playlist just for Nepali songs on Spotify, JioSaavn or Apple Music, and none for Lepcha or Sikkimese. Nepali is not in JioSaavn's language menu or among the languages Gaana names, though the stores still take it as a song's language.

On the Pro plan or higher, SUF pitches the release to editors at six stores, Spotify, Apple Music, JioSaavn, Gaana, Amazon Music and YouTube Music, and can pitch an EP or album as one. Without a Nepali list to target, the pitch puts the song in front of the editors who pick wider Indian, folk and devotional playlists.

Give the pitch time: lock everything at least 14 days before release day, because Spotify does not consider songs pitched less than 7 days ahead. Placement is the editors' decision and never guaranteed, and SUF does not buy streams or playlist spots. Your fans' plays also feed Release Radar, Daily Mix and Discover Weekly. See playlist pitching.

Nepali is written in Devanagari. On the stores, write the title in Roman letters the way your listeners type it into a phone, and put the Devanagari title in the release description and in your YouTube and Instagram captions.

Lepcha has its own syllabic script, called Róng, and was written in the Tibetan script before it. Sikkimese is written in the Tibetan script, and sometimes in the Zhang Yeshe De script. The advice holds for both: a Roman-letter title for search, and the language's own script in your description and captions.

Use English letters for your artist name; the form accepts letters, numbers, spaces and . ' & ( ) - only. Keep one spelling across every release, since each new spelling starts a new artist page, and make the cover words match the title and artist name. Leave emoji, ALL CAPS, feat. and promo words such as Latest or Trending out of titles.

Tihar is the big season for festival songs. It lasts five days in Kartik, between October and November (early November in 2026; the exact days vary by calendar), and Deusi and Bhailo are sung especially on Lakshmi Puja night. Nepali-origin communities in Sikkim, Darjeeling and across the Northeast observe it widely.

Dashain, the biggest Nepali festival, is the other one to plan for, so check its dates for the year you release. For either festival, aim for a release day three to four weeks before the first day, which means locking the release about five to six weeks ahead.

Traditional Deusi and Bhailo verses belong to everyone. If you record them, choose Traditional or public domain in the rights step, and make sure the recording itself is yours.

New words of your own in the Deusi style make an original song. A song someone else wrote is a cover and needs its owner's licence, and a remix needs the original recording owner's permission. See cover songs and devotional music.

Original songs with no samples or non-exclusive beats can go on YouTube Content ID. Traditional verses and other public domain songs stay off it.

Lepcha is spoken by 47,331 people in India (Census 2011), 38,313 of them in Sikkim, where it is an official language, and in Kalimpong, Kurseong and Mirik in West Bengal. It is also spoken in Nepal's Ilam district and south-west Bhutan, and it is an endangered language.

Sikkimese, also called Bhutia or Drenjongké, is one of Sikkim's official languages and is spoken in eastern Nepal and Bhutan too. The census has no separate count for it: it falls inside a broad Bhotia group that covers other languages as well.

Nepali, Lepcha and Sikkimese are all on our list of every Indian language we release in. Compare the plans, or read the guides for Bengali and Assamese songs.