Tusu was a beauty of the Kurmi (tiller) community, goes the legend. She was intelligent and good-natured, strong-willed but compassionate.
As word of her sweet attributes spread, a villainous landowner (zamindar) took a fancy to her. When Tusu refused, he arm-twisted the poor farmers by doubling tax amounts and penalties amid a severe famine.
The month-long Tusu Festival is a rejoicing of the strength of womanhood, and single women take the spotlight in all the rituals, including making their deity’s idols.
The brave Tusu mobilised the farmers into an open revolt but they were no match for the mighty zamindar’s forces. When the end seemed nigh, Tusu decided to kill herself rather than give herself to the landlord, and drowned herself.
Women celebrate the spirit of Tusu annually in a festival named in her honour. The month-long Tusu Festival is as much a rejoicing of the strength of womanhood as it is part of the ceremony to mark the end of harvest.
Unmarried women generally make the Tusu deity idols on Agrahan Sankranti, which usually falls on December 15. Rituals continue at home till Makar Sankranti, January 14, with the immersion beginning the next day. Tusu coincides with Makar, Lohri and Pongal celebrations.
“Tusu is perhaps the only festival in Jharkhand when everyone wears new clothes and every house is stuffed with foodgrain,” asserts Raja Ram Mahto, chairman, Kurmali Bhasha Parishad.
Celebrations stretch across rural West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha, as well as among the tea estate workers of Assam. Large fairs are organised at different immersion ghats, particularly in the Panchpargania area, and cock fights (baudi) usually steal the show.
Delicacies intrinsic to the event include maans peetha (rolls of rice flour stuffed with minced meat), lai (jaggery laddus made with ramdana, khoi, muri, til and sev), tilkut (til seeds rolled in jaggery, aerated and baked) and gud peetha (a sweetened version of the non-vegetarian dish).
“After Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar, we have regularly been organising Tusu mela at Morhabadi Ground in Ranchi,” says Mahto. “However, the mela was suspended for the past two years due to the pandemic.”
The Tusu Festival also sees parades with singing, dancing and small handheld or carted floats called ‘chaudal.’ Villages, puja committees and clubs compete with great creativity to make these. The best chaudals are awarded at the immersion ghats, which is why there is intense rivalry among the groups and winning is a matter of prestige.
Noted anthropologist Dr Satya Narayan Munda feels Tusu Festival is a binding force — between the cultures of Jharkhand and Bengal, the tribal and the sadan. Dr Munda is a former vice-chancellor of Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee University, Ranchi.
