Tea garden workers present Nijbhume Porobashi

An enthusiastiuc audience enjoyed a theatrical performance from tea garden workers from Habiganj on Sunday, at Sindurkhan tea garden at Srimangal Upazila of Moulvibazar. The play, "Nijbhume Porobashi", was staged at a programme marking the 43th death anniversary of martyred singer Bosonto Bunarjee.

The performers were all members of Habiganj-based troupe Protik Theatre.

Sunil Biswas's adaptation of "Nijbhume Porobasi" commemorates the deaths of hundreds of tea garden workers in the hands of British colonial rulers in 1921 during a revolt.

At the beginning of tea cultivation in the region, tea labourers were brought here from different areas of the subcontinent, such as Orissa, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh (India), who had to work under inhuman conditions in the tea gardens.

On May 20, 1921, thousands of tea labourers left their work and gathered in the Chandpur River Port to go back to their homelands.

But the-then British owners of the gardens, with the help of the then Assam law-enforcing agency, resisted the labourers and at one stage fired indiscriminately on them, resulting in hundreds of deaths.

Tea workers, who played different characters, seemed well-absorbed in what they were doing. Although the dialogue delivery and body language were not of the most polished kind, it was coherent to the theme and setting of the play. Despite their small lapses and mistakes, such an effort demands hearty praise.