Santo Tanti’s songs of sadness, work and hope

By Dilip -

Santo Tanti is an Adivasi – but you can’t pin him down to a specific tribe within that category. For perhaps a century and a half, Assam’s tea garden areas have seen Adivasis from Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh arrive here as migrant labourers. Many descendants of these groups came to intermingle within Adivasi communities and with other social groups.

These communities as a whole are often called the ‘Tea Tribes’. Over six million of them live in Assam, and while recognised as Scheduled Tribes in their states of origin, are denied that status here. Some 12 lakhs of them work in the state’s 1,000-odd tea gardens.

PARI Archive on Adivasis

Rana Behal: One Hundred Years of Servitude: Political Economy of Tea Plantations in Colonial Assam

Daily hardships of life and intensive labour often seem to crush the aspirations of many among them. But not Santo’s. He sings jhumur songs that express the sufferings around him. He sings of people who toil in the sun and rain in the tea gardens, and the hard labour behind every cup of refreshing tea.

This youngster in Jorhat performs songs of jhumur – a folk art form in several states of eastern India. Those he sings, though, have evolved across generations in the tea garden communities of Assam. He keeps uploading his songs on social media, hoping that someday people will appreciate his talent. ‘’I want to release an album someday,’’ says 24-year-old Santo Tanti, who is from the Dhekiajuli division of the Sycotta Tea estate in Jorhat district of Assam.

Santo grew up dreaming, more than anything else, of being a singer. But the realities of his world turned out to be quite different – and he earns a livelihood helping out at a small cycle repair shop that his father owns….

https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/santo-tantis-songs-of-sadness-work-and-hope/


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