Tiwa community

Why in news?

• Almost 250 members of two ethnicity-based extremist organisations in Assam laid down their arms before Chief Minister at a formal programme in Guwahati.
• The organisations are the Tiwa Liberation Army (TLA) and the United Gorkha People’s Organisation (UGPO).

About Tiwa community:

• Tiwa (Lalung) is an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the states of Assam and Meghalaya in north-eastern India.
• They are also found in some areas of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland.
• They are recognized as a Scheduled Tribe within the State of Assam.
• They were known as Lalungs in the Assamese Buranjis and in Colonial literature and in the Constitution of India, though members of the group prefer to call themselves Tiwa (meaning “the people who were lifted from below”)
• Most important classification of the Tiwa is their division into two sub-groups, Hill Tiwa and Plains Tiwa, displaying similar cultural features.
• They practice Jhum or shifting cultivation
• The major festivals of the Tiwa tribes are Borot utsav, Sogra puja and Wanshuwa.

PRACTICE QUESTION

Tiwa or Lalung community, sometimes discussed in news, are inhabitants of

(a) Jharkhand

(b) Ladakh

(c) Assam

(d) Gujarat

Answer