Jonbeel Mela

Widely described as the only fair in India where barter survives as a functioning practice — and reporters on the ground in January 2025 confirmed the exchange was real, not staged.

It was convened by the Tiwa community, by tradition no later than the fifteenth century, as an occasion for the hill and plains communities of the Gobha kingdom to meet, trade and settle matters. The purpose was as much diplomatic as commercial.

It opens with an Agni Puja, after which the Gobha Raja and his courtiers formally inaugurate proceedings and a community fishing session follows. The centrepiece is the barter ground: hill communities bring ginger, turmeric, pepper and roots down and exchange them directly for rice cakes, laru and dried fish from the plains. No money changes hands in that exchange.

Agni Puja to open, the Raja's inauguration, a community fishing session, and the barter exchange itself.

Bringing hill and valley people onto one ground each year is understood to keep the peace between them.

The fair belongs to the Tiwa community and its customary royal court rather than to the state, and it has outlived the Gobha kingdom that created it. The Assam government sanctioned annual allowances to nineteen such customary kings in 2009.