Context:
Recently, the PM of India attended the Jhumoir Binandini (Mega Jhumoir) 2025, a grand cultural event to mark the 200th anniversary of Assam’s tea industry at Sarusajai Stadium in Guwahati, Assam.
About the Dance:
Jhumoir Binandini, also called Jhumur, is a traditional folk dance of the Sadan ethnolinguistic group, who trace their origins to the Chotanagpur region.
Today it is celebrated as “tea garden festivals” or festivals celebrated by tea garden workers in Assam.
It is performed to celebrate special occasions such as harvest festivals, weddings, and community gatherings. The most important ones are the Tushu Puja and Karam Puja, which celebrate the oncoming harvest.
Both men and women take part in the dance, performing in a circle while holding each other’s waists.
- Women are the main dancers and singers.
- Men play traditional instruments such as madal, dhol, or dhak (drums), cymbals, flutes, and shehnai.
- Women wear colorful sarees, while men wear dhotis and kurtas.
The dance includes rhythmic footwork, swaying movements, and lively music while singing couplets in their native languages — Nagpuri, Khortha and Kurmali. These have evolved in Assam to borrow heavily from Assamese.
Jhumoir Binandini represents unity, cultural pride, and inclusiveness.
It reflects the rich cultural blend of Assam and serves as a way for people to bond and express their traditions.
The term “tea tribe” loosely refers to a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic community of tea garden workers and their descendants.
These people came from Central India — mostly from present-day Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and West Bengal — and settled in Assam in the 19th century to work in the tea gardens that the British were setting up.