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Journalism of Courage
A drive through the lush Assam Valley or North Bengal often reveals a familiar yet striking sight: women, their baskets expertly balanced on their heads, deftly plucking tea leaves across sprawling plantations. Just as prevalent is the image of children, small hands mimicking their mothers, shadowing them through the fields.
Women have always been at the heart of India’s love for chai (tea). Across the country, millions of cups are brewed every day. But long before chai became a household staple, it was these very women who nurtured its origins in Assam’s tea gardens in the eighteenth century.
Who were these women? How vital was their labour to the rise of the tea industry? And perhaps most importantly, could chai have evolved into the national symbol it is today without them?
In the early nineteenth century, the East India Company’s trade was closely tied to the tea industry. When it lost its monopoly on Chinese tea, the Company turned to India for a new source. Until then, scientists believed tea could only thrive in China. In her journal article ‘Lazy’ Natives, Coolie Labour, and the Assam Tea Industry (2008), historian Jayeeta Sharma writes about the pivotal discovery made by botanists: the tea plant, Camellia Sinensis, was actually native to Upper Assam. In 1834, a committee was formed to investigate this, and by 1836, the East India Company’s Tea Committee confirmed the discovery. By 1838, Indian tea made its first appearance in the London market.
The Assam Tea Company was founded the following year, and by 1855, the first tea garden was established in Cachar, Assam. Another garden soon followed in Sylhet, now part of Bangladesh. But, according to Sharma, British tea experts initially believed only the cultivated China tea could succeed. They saw the pure Assam variety as too new and untested, prompting the hiring of Chinese workers in the early years of the plantation.
But the challenges of working in Assam’s climate quickly became apparent. Chinese workers often fell ill with malaria and other tropical diseases, and by the 1860s, most had left Assam. The local population was also small and unwilling to take on the grueling task of clearing swamps and jungles. Faced with these obstacles, planters became increasingly dependent on ‘foreign’ labour. As the tea boom took off in 1859, planters realised they needed cheap, reliable workers. However, the high costs associated with recruiting and transporting labour to the remote gardens were a significant concern.
In response, the British government passed the Workmen’s Breach of Contract Act (XIII) of 1859, which introduced harsh penal contracts. Historian Samita Sen, in Questions of Consent: Women’s Recruitment for Assam Tea Gardens, 1859-1900 (2002), describes it as “a draconian labour regime” in the isolated gardens. This law gave planters complete control over workers, enabling them to impose severe punishments on those who attempted to escape. Sharma adds, “[The tea industry] allowed participation, albeit in subordinate and dependent roles, by local peasants and gentry, though mainly based on the labour of migrant ‘coolies’ recruited on indentured contracts.”
To address recurring labour issues, planters encouraged family migration and actively recruited from communities where migrating as family units was more common, such as the tribes of South Bihar, Bengal, Orissa, and the Central Provinces. By creating conditions of village life, planters aimed to secure the workforce and maximise productivity. To promote procreation, Sen argues, “single” migrants, both men and women, were often coerced into “depot marriages,” where agents paired off workers regardless of caste or choice. The planters also adopted a pro-natal policy, offering basic maternity benefits and other incentives for bearing children.
However, women were not dependent. They were made to participate in the labour-intensive task of plucking tea leaves. As Sen writes, “The nimble and tender fingers of women and children were considered suited to the delicate task of picking leaves.”
Historian Andrew B Liu, in his book Tea War: A History Of Capitalism In China And India (2020), further highlights that “the workforce was nearly 50 percent women in the nineteenth century,” a ratio he notes was higher than that in the Chinese trade, and other industries in India.
According to academic Srijita Chakravarty, in her article Children Employed in the Tea Plantations of Assam 1880-1930 (2014), children as young as five were also employed. The need for inexpensive female and child labour, combined with the necessity to establish a stable workforce through generational reproduction, drove the high demand for women migrants in Assam’s tea industry. Chakravarty’s research reveals that by 1877, children comprised one-third of the labour force, a proportion that steadily increased to nearly half by 1930.
Recruiting and transporting women in large numbers quickly became the responsibility of middlemen, who played a central role in the Assam labour system. Planters, recognising their crucial function, paid these contractors a premium for the workforce they brought to the gardens. According to Sen, this amount ranged from Rs 120-150 per worker, a significant sum in the late nineteenth century. However, as Chakravarty observes, while some women signed contracts with a clear understanding of their commitments, many did so without fully grasping the terms. These women often relied on the middlemen, or arkati, to explain the details of the recruitment process, which sometimes led to misunderstandings or exploitation.
The idea of women migrating for work without their families was foreign in colonial India. When married women moved to Assam, whether alone or with their children, they often did so in defiance of familial authority — either without their husbands’ knowledge or in opposition to their wishes. In this sense, argues Sen, the migration of married women represented a challenge to familial control and its claims over women’s productive and reproductive labour.
There was discussion that emigration facilitated by middlemen, and without the consent of a woman’s parent, husband, or guardian, effectively amounted to kidnapping. In this context, Chakravarty recalls historian Emma Alexander-Mudaliar’s theory, which emphasised that employers often made no distinction between women and children. “In colonial labour formulations women and children were bracketed together as if their vulnerabilities and capabilities were identical,” remarks Chakravarty.
In the 1870s and 1880s, both official opinion and the emerging nationalist “Native Press” raised an outcry against the abuse of women being recruited and transported to Assam. A key issue was whether married women’s migration could truly be considered ‘voluntary,’ and if so, whether their decision to abandon husbands and families was acceptable. However, there were no clear legal means to prohibit the registration of married women.
Sen examines the varying opinions on the free recruitment system, alongside reported incidents of the forcible kidnapping and enticement of women and minors — many of whom lacked a husband or guardian to intervene. Referencing the Chief Commissioner’s statements, Sen highlights that these cases frequently involved “the female waif or stray” — women abandoned by their husbands, those who left due to domestic disputes, first wives displaced by second wives, and women from lower castes. Often, these women, driven by desperation, were willing to go anywhere and do anything, rendering them highly susceptible to exploitation.
The labour system in Assam was based on the principle of paying a premium for labour, which was then tightly bound through penal contracts — typically lasting five years. These penal contracts were developed, enforced, and sustained with active support from the colonial state. In addition to the oppressive nature of the contracts, plantation workers were granted little to no contact with local villagers, further isolating them from any potential support.
In an interview with indianexpress.com, Sharma said, “Between the 1860s and 1900, what prevailed in Assam was a ‘Planters’ Raj,’ where planters held virtually unchecked power, backed by penal provisions. If you attempted to elope, you would likely be caught and face severe penalties.” According to Sharma, death rates among newly hired labourers reached as high as 30%, with no access to hospitals or medical care. “I would argue that while indentured labour did evolve over time, it essentially became a new form of servitude.”
Amid these harsh conditions, female workers got no respite from domestic chores and often faced sexual exploitation. Assam thus became a place of no return, marked by long contracts, low wages, poor living conditions, and high mortality rates during both the journey to and while working on the plantations. By the early twentieth century, low birth and infant survival rates, along with high abortion rates among female labourers, raised alarm.
Speaking with indianexpress.com, Liu emphasised that women sought abortions to avoid the double burden of garden work and child-rearing, a responsibility from which men were exempt. His study cites a report that recommended extending maternal benefits, along with a policy of “weekly parading of pregnant women” and prosecution for those who had abortions. Dr. Meredith, Protector of Labourers in Upper Assam, as cited by Chakravarty, concluded that many deaths were preventable, attributing the high mortality rates to the gardens’ unhealthy conditions and poor housing.
Women were also paid lesser, and considered less skilled. As per Liu, women were paid 20 percent less than men on the justification that their work was lighter and easier. “A feedback loop created the appearance that plucking tea was a natural and innate talent found within women themselves,” he writes.
Until the 1920s, educational opportunities in the tea gardens were also nonexistent. It was only between 1919 and 1922 that organisations such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) began advocating for welfare programmes, including child care and schooling.
In this context, historian Nitin Verma’s concept of Garden Time (GT), discussed in his interview with indianexpress.com, offers further insight into the working conditions of Assam’s tea plantations. GT refers to the practice of setting plantation clocks an hour ahead of Indian Standard Time (IST), a system devised by plantation managers in the late nineteenth century to maximise daylight hours and, in effect, extend the working day.
Sharma also mentions reports of women who attempted to flee being captured, stripped, and flogged. The pervasive suffering was such that, even after penal provisions were removed in 1926, many plantation workers remained unaware of their rights and continued to fear arrest upon elopement.
This repression, however, was not without protest. Academic Rana Pratap Behal’s study, Forms of Labour Protest in Assam Valley Tea Plantations, 1900-1930 (1985), reveals that between 1900 and 1930, there were approximately 272 cases of ‘unlawful assembly’ and ‘rioting’. A central issue in these uprisings, he notes, “was the indignities forced on them [labouring men] and their womenfolk.”
“While tea plantations elsewhere in India also operated exploitative systems,” Sharma explains, “the indentured system, with its penal provisions, was specific to Assam.” Though the system officially ended in 1917, it wasn’t until decades later that the government legalised tea cultivation outside of plantations in Assam. Before that, local farmers couldn’t legally grow tea on their farms. “Unfortunately,” she sighed, “tea, unlike other crops, must be processed quickly or it dries up and loses moisture. This was always an advantage for the large plantation owners, who had factories and machines for processing. When small tea growers were allowed to enter the industry in the 1980s, most couldn’t afford the necessary machinery.”
Liu also highlighted ongoing structural issues, stating, “Isolation, paternalism, and the power hierarchy between management and labor persist.” He emphasised that the labour-intensive nature of plucking, which is difficult to mechanise, keeps women at the core of the industry. Most interviewees concurred that, to this day, the industry continues to employ more women than men and remains heavily reliant on them for plucking.
Behal, in his telephonic interview, noted that while most plantation ownership has shifted from the British to Indian corporations, new legislative reforms have yet to significantly improve conditions for the workforce. Despite the presence of labour unions, with leaders from tribal communities, health and education remain in a dire state. “Governments have always been indifferent to the labour force, whether colonial or post-colonial,” he said.
Sharma concludes with a somber reflection: “Tea is a very sad case where, although we no longer have the colonial tea enterprise, what has replaced it still colonises the workers without benefiting the consumers. Essentially, the brown sahibs (officials) have succeeded the white sahibs.”
