Firstly, I should admit I know very little bhangra, but I am a bit of a fan of Aziz Ibrahim, former Stone Roses II guitarist, and people like the Dholl Foundation.
I wonder if the chants you're referring to aren't the same as the ones that Aziz's tabla player Dalbir Singh does. These are phenomenally fast little rhythmic chants, with a lot of 'clicking' and syncopation. In the case of these chants, they are literally an oral version of the drum beats. Before Tabla players are allowed to pick up their drums, they spend years learning how to speak the drum patterns. To my ears these sound (phonetic attempt at best) similar to 'rikka-ta-tikkata tikkata tik' etc - very percussive sounds. Each sound is representative of a different drum beat. If the tabla players cannot speak the beats, they cannot graduate to actually playing their drums.
May not be that, of course! :-)