Tea Plantation Labour in India per cent. In 1991 the strength of the tea garden working force stood at 698,185 of which 677,685 were workers 6626 artisans and 13,874 clerical staff members. Of the workers 578,885 were adults, 9202 adolescents and 89,598 children. Within Assam, for reasons stated above, thereisa far greater concentration of labour in the upper Assam districts. These districts cover nearly 85 per cent of the total workers engaged in the State’s tea industry. TABLE 1, District-wise Distribution of Tea Gardens z one No. of Gardens No of Gardens Total Workforce Filed Returns %fi;fifi?rh Jorhat Golaghat gfi?,fs?}:u Tezpur Dhubri Si i l l c c h h a a y r 133 116 s : 23 10 9‘; 100 123 115,638 90 137,474 167 122,075 67 45,315 21 21,787 10 7,406 92 169,732 7t 9 ‘J,,_J;—U' 1, T 8 fi 28 _ ) Total e ol O T 654 SOUR R C C E E : ; Govt, o_ans_mrn! Annual-Administration Report, p. 27. 691,426 socTiha]exf::;?:s}fi};:t cha;acterls. e the tea garden labour force have their ¢ ory. Tea plantations in Assam, as clsewhere, were ace ed d from the very outset wi . th an acute A shortage of labour. Not only wAtaslthoecalcalsaboutrimes,eanty¥i it was also diissinncclliined to work in the plantations. planters were on the lookout for a labour force that wase A . from Z?;frci):z:: rfiza­gil awea,Xplfmt, The result was.tohat labour was recruited recruited from various y irom the plantation sites. They were also Broadl . cultural, linguiati » inguistic and . ethnic backgrounds. groups?:n};zwf:er’­the labour came from three different lflg‘uistic Kharia, Ho thiii}j(a;tE};? (Igdarian spealsing group (Santal, Munda, Khond, Gond, Mal];.);(b) the Dravidian speaking group(Oraon, (Oriya, Bengale and haria, etc.), and (c) the Aryan speaking group and Hindi spealing caste groups). Over the years TR Living Conditions of :F(za Estate Labourers in Assam these groups have preserved their distinct lifestyles. Tribal groups stand in sharp contrast to castes but are themselves considerably differentiated. The other important aspect of tea garden labour force in Assam was that a major segment of it was essentially unfree. ' Itis important to note here that the foundation of plantation economy was envisaged on cheap exploitation of labour. In fact, it was stated in 1834 that the low price of labour in India would facilitate this enterprise and at the same time would be able to provide occupation for many thousands of Indian weavers who had been ruined by the import of clothes and muslin from Manchester. Paradoxically enough, however, it was not the displaced artisans of the villages of India but the tribal population of the Chotanagpur plateau that turned out to be the main source of labour supply to plantation estates in northeast India. But their recruitment and transportation came to constitute a major bottleneck. The Imperial Government was, of course, concerned with this problem and it was on its suggestion that the Tea Planters Association was formed with the objective of undertaking an organized system of recruitment. Nevertheless, the actual recruitment and transportation were left to the private contractors from Calcutta who, working for the agency houses, began deporting group after group of labourers to the plantation estates in Assam. The general practice to procure labour by them was abduction, enticement and other similar practices and their transportation was so inhuman that it brought to mind the slave trafficin the Atlantic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Indeed, the mortality on the journey and at arrival was s0 high that the Government had to appoint a commission to enquire into the problem as early as 1861, The enquiry led to the enactment of an Act in 1863 which ensured that mortality rate of labourers was reduced and that labourers understood their undertaking. To this end, contractors, recruiters, steamers, boats, etc. were licensed and labourers were produced and a contract signed before the judicial or civil authorities. Yet, in the absence of any effective measure for its implementation, the Act was a failure. Moreaver, the Act did not provide any safety, after their arrival on the estate; they were faced with inadequate housing, unhygienic living condition, food shortage, hard work, etc., all of which, told heavily on 17