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.