The Mising Community is the second largest Scheduled Tribe (ST) in Assam, next to the Bodos. Earlier they were known as Miris They are an Indo-Mongoloid Tribe and have major population in the districts of Dhemaji, Lakhimpur and Jorhat.
Leisure is in fact the free time, the time when one do not have to work and by social development it implies improving the well-being of every individual in the society in order to reach their full potential. In this paper, we will focus mainly on the leisure activities of Misings of Dhemaji district on the north bank of river Brahmaputra which is vulnerable to floods. The main objective is to highlight how leisure and social development can be visualized among the Mising communities of Dhemaji district. The analysis is based on primary and secondary sources of information along with personal observation. We have interviewed 60 villagers of Mechaki Tongani, Ngomukhjan and Sechu Dighali villages, 20 scholars of the locality and Headmen of the villages by purposive sampling method.
It was found that Mising Tribe have several leisure activities which vary with gender, status, age, sect and religion. Also, in their society we have noticed that leisure itself has been coming across with different processes of de-skilling and re-skilling, as for instance several traditional leisure activities are not that popular and new kind of leisure activities like playing mobile games, internet etc are getting popular which require new skills. This symbolizes post-modernism and celebrates consumerism as a vehicle for creative cultural activity. All these are bringing social development to the Mising Communities of Dhemaji district, Assam, India.
