Jhumoir Binandini Program 2025

Why in the news?

• Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the Jhumoir Binandini 2025 program organized at Sarusajai Stadium in Guwahati, Assam.

Key points:

• Assam has completed 200 years of tea industry.
• On this occasion, traditional Jhumoir or Jhumar dance was organized.
• About 8000 artists participated in it.

Jhumoir Dance:

• It is a traditional dance style of Assam.
• Jhumoir (Jhumur) is a folk dance of the Sadan ethnolinguistic group who trace their origin to the Chotanagpur region.
• In this dance, women are the main dancers and singers while men play traditional instruments like Madal, Dhol, or Dhak (drum), Cymbals, Flute and Shehnai.
• Women wear special red and white saris during this time.
• The dancers stand shoulder to shoulder and move in a coordinated pattern while singing couplets in their native languages ​​- Nagpuri, Khortha and Kurmali.

Tea Plantation Tribes/Communities

• The term ‘Tea Tribes’ refers to the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic community of tea garden workers and their descendants.
• These people migrated mainly from present-day Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal and settled in Assam in the 19th century to work in the tea gardens being established by the British.
• These migrants were forced to work in the tea gardens for very low wages and in extremely poor conditions.
• Currently, they have the status of Other Backward Class (OBC) in the state. However, they have been struggling to get the status of Scheduled Tribe (ST) for a long time.
• Tribes like Munda or Santhal, who mainly form the large tea plantation community in Assam, have ST status in their native states.