Tea will be declared India''s national drink in 2013 to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of a tea planter hanged by British colonial rulers for taking part in a rebellion, news reports said Sunday. The decision was announced by Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia Saturday at a function of a tea planters'' association in Jorhat in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam, the Asian Age newspaper reported.
India is second only to China in both the production and consumption of tea. The country''s largest tea gardens are in the north-eastern states.
Ahluwali said tea would be accorded the special status by April 17 2013 to coincide with the 212th anniversary of Assam''s first tea planter, Maniram Dutta Barua, known as Maniram Dewan.
Dewan was hanged by the British in Jorhat after he joined the rebellion of 1857 led by some Indian soldiers in the British army.