Tea Tribes and Dooars: A Geographical Perspective

The book “Tea Tribes and Dooars: A Geographical Perspective” is the description of tribal people living in Dooars region of the Himalayan foothills of North Bengal. Dooars is the term applied as gateway into Bhutan from India and vice-versa. The region was sparsely inhabited by indigenous Indo-mongoloid communities e.g. Koch-Rajbanshis Mech Garo Toto Rabha etc. The British imperial power took initiatives to establish tea gardens in the Dooars in the second half of the 19th century but local people were reluctant to work as tea garden workers as a consequence different tribal community people were brought from the Chhotonagpur plateau e.g. Oraons Santal Malpaharia Kharia Munda Lohars Mahali etc. Continuous pressure of population and assimilation of several groups i.e. two distinct group of tribal communities Rajbanshis Bengalis Nepalese and others creates several problems to the livelihood of tribal communities who are gradually facing challenges of economic sustainability and socio-cultural identity crisis. The chapters of this book are dealt with the present socio-economic challenges of the tribal communities and other related aspects of their miseries.