Power structure, discipline, and labour in Assam tea plantations under colonial rule

International Review of Social History

Volumn 51, Issue SUPPL. 14, 2006, Pages 143-172

  Behal, Rana P ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33751360097     PISSN: 00208590     EISSN: 1469512X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0020859006002641     Document Type: Review

References (165)

1. Rana Partap Behal, "Some Aspects of the Growth of the Tea Plantation Labour Force and Labour Movements in Assam Valley Districts (Lakhimpur, Sibsagar and Darrang) 1900-1947" (Ph.D., Centre for Historical Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 1983), p. 34.
2. Report of the Assam Labour Enquiry Committee, 1906 [hereafter, RALEC] (Calcutta, 1906), p. 12.
3. Behal, "Some Aspects", ch. 2.
4. Assam Directory and Tea Areas Handbook, 1942 (Calcutta, 1942).
5. Report of the Plantation Inquiry Commission 1956: Part 1: Tea (Delhi, 1956), p. 23.
6. Behal, "Some Aspects", pp. 84-85.
7. Sir Percival Griffiths, The History of the Indian Tea Industry (London, 1967), pp. 61-99;
8. Radhey Shyam Rungta, The Rise of Business Corporations in India 1851-1900 (London, 1970), pp. 97, 103, 279-280.
9. The wasteland settlement policy, adopted by the government during the 1850s and 1860s, was to facilitate the grant of large acreages for tea cultivation to European planters. The terms were further liberalized in 1861 under Lord Canning's "fee-simple rules" under which land was sold for 2.8 to 5 rupees per acre without any clearance conditions attached. Instead of giving a lease the land was put up for sale at auction. This encouraged large-scale land grabbing. See Behal, "Some Aspects", pp. 17-19.
10. These managing agency houses also controlled most of the other industrial, financial, banking, and shipping enterprises in eastern India and enjoyed tremendous political influence with the British government and its bureaucracy, both in India as well as in the UK; A.K. Bagchi, Private Investment in India (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 161-162;
11. D.H. Buchanan, The Development of Capitalistic Enterprise in India (New Delhi, 1966).
12. A. Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj: Freedom Struggle and Electoral Politics in Assam 1826-1947 (New Delhi, 1977), pp. 30-31.
13. A. Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj: Freedom Struggle and Electoral Politics in Assam 1826-1947 (Ibid., p. 75.
14. The Report of the General Committee of the Indian Tea Association, 1909 [hereafter, ITA Report] (Calcutta, 1909), pp. 144-146.
15. Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj, p. 82;
16. ITA Report, 1912 (Calcutta, 1912), p. 6.
17. Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj, p. 220.
18. Griffiths, History of the Indian Tea Industry, pp. 527-528.
19. Behal, "Some Aspects", p. 166;
20. National Archives of India, New Delhi [hereafter, NAI], Government of India, Department of Revenue and Agriculture, Emigration, A Proceedings, nos 6-8, file no. 90 of 1901, pp. 122-136.
21. After the withdrawal of penal clauses from the Immigration Labour Act in 1908 the ITA submitted a memorial to the government asking for new legislation to counter the "enticement" of labour in the tea gardens in Assam. The Secretary of State for India rejected the bill on the grounds that it involved "principles" which could not be accepted. It was a reference to the strong anti-slavery sentiments prevailing in Britain. For details see Behal, "Some Aspects", pp. 158, 166; for more details of Act XIII see below.
22. ITA Report, 1921 (Calcutta, 1921), p. 5.
23. Assam State Archives, Guwahati [hereafter, ASA], Government of Assam, Financial Department, Immigration Branch B, nos 20-112, March 1922, pp. 105-107.
24. Annual Report on Labour Immigration into Assam [hereafter, Assam Labour Report], 1920-21 (Shillong, 1921), p. 2. In Sonaguli and Kacharigaon tea estates thirteen and twenty-six labourers respectively were convicted and sentenced to various terms of rigorous imprisonment. In Dhandai, Bamgaon, and Khairabri tea estates, sixty-five, six, and twelve labourers respectively were arrested, out of whom forty-nine were sentenced to rigorous imprisonment. In Barkathani tea estate two labourers were convicted - one ran away and the other was sentenced to two years' rigorous imprisonment on the charge of assaulting a manager. The ringleaders in the Amguri and Borsilla tea estates were prosecuted and directed to execute bonds of 50 rupees each, with two sureties to keep the peace for six months, in default of which they were to undergo six months' simple imprisonment.
25. In Suffry tea estate, the Sub-Divisional Officer came with the Assam Rifles and forced the workers to disperse; Assam Labour Report, 1921-22 (Shillong, 1922).
26. ITA Report, 1932 (Calcutta, 1932), p. 10. The tea industry constantly complained about restrictions and government control over its recruitment and transport of immigrant labour and lobbied for the legislation to be amended. Following the recommendations of the Royal Commission and the ITA, the Government of India passed the Tea Districts Emigrant Labour Act XXII of 1932 and repealed Act VI of 1901. Under the Act, the government appointed a Controller of Emigrant Labour whose main job was to supervise recruitment and to ensure that the manner in which labourers were transported to the Assam tea gardens complied with government regulations.
27. Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj, pp. 216-236;
28. Basudev Chatterji (ed.), Towards Freedom, 1938 (New Delhi, 1998), chapter on the Assam Ministry.
29. India Office Library, London [hereafter, IOL], Indian Tea Association Papers [hereafter, ITA Papers], circular C. 159, 20 November 1939, mss Eur F 174, Bay/H.
30. IOL, ITA Papers, mss Eur F 174, bay/H circular no. 239, 17 November 1939; circular no. 159, 29 November 1939.
31. Annual Report on the Working of the Tea Districts Emigrant Labour Act XXII of 1932 [hereafter, RTDEL] (Shillong, 1939), p. 386.
32. D.V. Rege, Report on an Enquiry into Conditions of Labour in Plantations in India (Delhi, 1946), p. 72.
33. NAI, Fortnightly Reports, Assam, Home Political Department, 1939;
34. Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj, pp. 236-263.
35. ASA, Government of Assam, General and Judicial Department, Immigration Branch B, file no. Imm 118, GIM. 49/47, 1939, p. 167.
36. ITA Report, 1939 (Calcutta, 1939), p. 26.
37. The Committee's terms of reference were: (1) to determine what is the root cause of recent strikes and other manifestations of discontent on tea gardens in Assam, and particularly whether there are economic grievances either generally in the district concerned or in the affected estates; (2) what measures are required in order to remove the root cause or causes or the said strikes; and (3) whether and if so what forms of organization are desirable for enabling labourers on tea gardens to communicate their grievances to the management in such effective manner as will remove any doubt that their interests are secure, and to procure settlement of such grievances, if any, by negotiation; ASA, AICC Papers, file no. P1-12, TL No. 1020, 1939, p. 3;
38. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 29 May 1939; ASA, Government of Assam, General and Judicial Department, Immigration Branch B, file no. Imm. 118-GIM-49/47, 1939, p. 167.
39. IOL, ITA Circulars 92 and 115, ITA Papers, mss Eur F/174/bay/H, 1939.
40. ASA, Government of Assam, General and Judicial Department, Immigration Branch B, file no. Imm. 118-GIM 49/47, 1939, p. 137.
41. Ibid.; ITA Report, 1939, p. 28.
42. Rana P. Behal, "Forms of Labour Protest in the Assam Valley Tea Plantations 1900-1947", The Calcutta Historical Journal, 9 (1984), pp. 30-78.
43. IOL, ITA circular no. 87, 12 June 1939, ITA Papers, mss Eur F 174/Bay/H, pp. 1-5.
44. A copy of the typescript entitled "Note on the General Plan of Mohanta's Education", private collection of Mohanta family papers, Jorhat, Assam. I am grateful to Jayraj Mohanta, son of the late R.C. Mohanta, for allowing access to this collection.
45. IOL, ITA circular no. 87, 12 June 1939, ITA Papers, mss Eur F 174/bay/H, pp. 1-5. The Mohanta episode lies buried as an unnoticed piece of archival material. For the Mohanta family, however, it acquired a folklorist aura, of a narratival tradition recounting the adventures of R.C. Mohanta, who joined the British Indian Army in Lord Mountbatten's commando unit, which was trained and operated in South-East Asian jungles during World War II. Mohanta later earned the reputation of being one of the toughest tea planters in Assam.
46. ITA Report, 1937 (Calcutta, 1937), p. 37.
47. IOL, ITA circular no. 917, 11 April 1939, ITA Papers, mss Eur F 174/bay 2 (C). The intention behind the new policy was "that Managers having done their best to prevent a Union being formed, would perforce change their attitude once such a Union had been established, and would in fact as far as possible become the guide of those running the Union in the hope that, by so doing, undesirable influences would be kept out of the Union".
48. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi [hereafter, NMML], All India Trade Union Congress Papers [hereafter, AITUC Papers], file no. 45, 1942-1944, p. 25.
49. Report of Secretary Assam Provincial Trade Union Congress (APTUC) at its 3rd Annual Session held on 14 and 15 December 1945 in Dibrugarh, reproduced in ASA, Government of Assam, General and Judicial Department, file no. GIM 7, 1943-1947.
50. IOL, Post War Planning: Notes by the Political Advisor, Circular No. 164, 21 July 1945, ITA Papers, mss Eur F/174, bay 2 (G) 2.
51. Post War Planning: Notes by the Political Advisor, 1945, Ibid.
52. Griffiths, History of the Indian Tea Industry, p. 391;
53. Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj, p. 293.
54. ITA Report, 1946 (Calcutta, 1946), p. xiv.
55. IOL, ITA circular no. 271, 2 December 1946, ITA Papers, mss F 174/bay 2 (G).
56. Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj, p. 296.
57. NMML, AITUC Papers, TL No. 4, file no. 47, 1947-1948.
58. ITA Report, 1947 (Calcutta, 1947), p. 41.
59. ITA circular to garden managers, no. L.D. 600, dated Dibrugarh 21 July 1947, cited in Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj, p. 297.
60. Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj, Ibid., p. 296.
61. Guildhall Library, London [hereafter, GL], Assam Company Papers, ms 9925, vol. 1, Proceedings of Committee in Bengal, 15 February, 13 March, May and June 1840, pp. 87-144.
62. GL, Assam Company Papers, ms 9925, vol. 2, August 1841-July 1844, pp. 350-454.
63. Assam Company Papers, Ibid., p. 112.
64. Griffiths, History of the Indian Tea Industry, p. 96; J.W. Edgar attributed this to the government's wasteland policy: "There can be no doubt that the reckless speculation was very much encouraged by the way in which waste lands were dealt with by Government";
65. Government of Bengal, Paper Regarding the Tea Industry in Bengal (Calcutta, 1873), p. xv.
66. Often a speculator started forming a company while the land was barely scratched. The company was to "start by buying the lands he had scarcely finished clearing as accomplished tea garden, and what still remained of undeniable waste, at a cost out of all proportion [...] to what it was worth"; Friend of India, 9 June 1874,
67. cited in Radhe Shyam Rungta, The Rise of Business Corporations in India, 1851-1900 (Cambridge, 1970), p. 280.
68. A contemporary, Edward Money, reported that a small garden of 30 to 40 acres was often sold to a company as 150 or 200 acres. "It was done over and over again. The price paid, moreover, was quite out of proportion even to the supposed area. Two or three lakhs (£20,000 or £30,000) have often been paid for such gardens, when not more than two years old, and forty per cent of the existing area, vacancies. The original cultivator 'retired' and the company carried on." Government of Bengal, Papers Regarding the Tea Industry, p. ix.
69. Behal, "Some Aspects", pp. 22-25;
70. Rana P. Behal and Prabhu P. Mohapatra, "'Tea and Money versus Human Life': The Rise and Fall of Indenture System in Assam Valley Tea Plantations", in E. Valentine Daniel, Henry Bernstein, and Tom Brass (eds), Plantations, Proletarians and Peasants in Colonial Asia (London, 1992).
71. 'The excessive mortality in the Assam tea gardens was attributed to sickness, bad housing conditions, overcrowding in houses, insufficient food, impure water, and want of proper medical attention'; Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Enquire into the State and Prospects of Tea Cultivation in Assam, Cachar and Sylhet (Calcutta, 1868), p. 49.
72. Government of Bengal, Papers Regarding the Tea Industry, p. xix.
73. Papers Regarding the Tea Industry, p. Ibid., p. xxi.
74. Papers Regarding the Tea Industry, p. Ibid., p. 44.
75. Papers Regarding the Tea Industry, p. Ibid., p. xxi.
76. Papers Regarding the Tea Industry, p. p. xxi.Ibid.
77. The sun rises much earlier in eastern India compared with other parts of the Indian subcontinent. The garden-time device made it possible to utilize the extra daytime available to lengthen the working day. A uniform work regime enforced and strictly regulated short durations of water and lunch breaks in the tea gardens. Under the supervision of a hierarchical power apparatus headed by the managers and established during the indenture period, this work regime has sustained its rigour in the tea gardens even to this day. Daylight saving time applied only to the gardens.
78. Prices and Wages in India (Calcutta, 1901).
79. Proceedings of the Central Legislative Council, 1901, vol. 40 (Calcutta, 1901), p. 94.
80. Behal, "Some Aspects", ch. 5.
81. Glasgow University Archives, Glasgow, James Finlay & Company Papers, UGD 91/139, 27 September 1900.
82. Government of Bengal, Papers Regarding the Tea Industry, p. xxii;
83. S.M. Akhtar, Emigrant Labour for Assam Tea Gardens (Lahore, 1939), p. 42.
84. Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Enquire into the State and Prospects of Tea Cultivation in Assam, Cachar and Sylhet, p. 54.
85. Assam Labour Reports for relevant years; RALEC, p. 81.
86. Assam Labour Report, 1884 (Shillong, 1884), p. 26.
87. Barker, Tea Planter's Life, p. 134;
88. Rege, Report on an Enquiry into Conditions of Labour, p. 13.
89. Behal and Mohapatra, "'Tea and Money versus Human Life"', pp. 161-163;
90. Behal, "Some Aspects", ch. 4.
91. Sir Bampfylde Fuller, Some Personal Experiences (London, 1930), p. 118.
92. Bampfylde Fuller, Some Personal Experiences (1930), p. 118.Ibid.
93. Henry Cotton, Fuller's predecessor as Chief Commissioner of Assam, also reported the case of a woman labourer who was flogged for trying to escape from the garden. Another woman was also flogged on suspicion of helping the others to escape. He also came across a case in which labourers were confined for a number of days in a "prison-house" in the tea garden and were mercilessly beaten up. Arms of three of the labourers were broken as a result of the beating; Henry Cotton, Indian and Home Memories (London, 1911), p. 266.
94. A.A. Purcell and J. Hallsworth, Report on Labour Conditions in India (London, 1928), p. 35.
95. NAI, Government of India, Department of Revenue and Agriculture, Emigration, B Proceedings, nos 1-3, September 1893.
96. Barker, Tea Planter's Life, p. 171.
97. NAI, Government of India, Department of Revenue and Agriculture, Emigration, A Proceedings, nos 2-9, February 1889. The time-expired labourers were those who had completed their contract of five years under the Immigrant Labour Act.
98. Griffiths, History of the Indian Tea Industry, p. 297.
99. Rana P. Behal, Wage Structure and Labour: Assam Valley Tea Plantations, 1900-1947 (NLI Research Studies Series, no. 043/2003) (Noida, 2003).
100. Griffiths, History of the Indian Tea Industry, p. 302;
101. Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India (London, 1931), p. 384.
102. Report of the Royal Commission, p. 384.
103. RTDEL, 1937 (Shillong, 1937), p. 135.
104. RALEC, 1921-22 (Shillong, 1922), p. 24.
105. Behal, "Some Aspects", pp. 186-188.
106. RALEC, 1921-22, p. 24.
107. Griffiths, History of the Indian Tea Industry, p. 281.
108. RALEC, 1921-22, p. 74.
109. Similar methods used by employers to bind and control the labour force through the system of advances were also used in the Ceylon tea plantations. For details see Vijya Samaraweera, "Masters and Servants in Sri Lankan Plantations: Labour Laws and Labour Control in an Emergent Export Economy", Indian Economic and Social History Review, 18 (1981), pp. 123-155.
110. Report of the Royal Commission, Written Evidence, p. 22.
111. RALEC, 1906, Appendix, p. 136.
112. Behal and Mohapatra, "'Tea and Money versus Human Life'", pp. 155-161.
113. In 1887 D.N. Ganguly, the Assistant Secretary of the Indian Association, published a series of articles in The Bengalee highlighting the abysmally low wages and the appalling conditions in which labour was made to work and live in Assam gardens, a situation which he compared to slavery. Dwarkanath Ganguly, Slavery in British Dominion (edited by S.K. Kunda, reprint of thirteen articles published in the newspaper The Bengalee between September 1886 and April 1887) (Calcutta, 1972);
114. Charles Dowding, Tea Garden Coolies in Assam (London, 1894).
115. See the Assam Labour Reports for the relevant years.
116. Assam Labour Report, 1902-03 (Shillong, 1903), p. 12.
117. Assam Labour Report, 1902-03 (Ibid. p. 10. In the same year sixteen other such cases of "rioting", "violence", etc., were reported.
118. Assam Labour Report, 1904-05 (Shillong, 1905), p. 8;
119. Eastern Bengal and Assam Era, 21 February 1906, p. 4.
120. Assam Labour Report, 1900 (Shillong, 1900), p. 22.
121. Assam Labour Report, 1900 (1900), p. 22.Ibid.
122. Assam Labour Report, 1900 (Ibid., p. 13.
123. Assam Labour Report, 1900 (p. 13.Ibid.
124. Assam Labour Report, 1900 (Ibid., p. 23.
125. Behal and Mohapatra, "'Tea and Money versus Human Life'", pp. 165-167.
126. NAI, Government of India, Revenue and Agriculture, Emigration A, nos 12-14, December 1904.
127. See the section on recruiting districts in Proceedings of the Assam Labour Enquiry Committee in the Recruiting and Labour Districts (Calcutta, 1906). The committee reported that out of thirty-one witnesses in the recruiting districts, twenty-eight held the view that the penal contract with its accompanying want of freedom deterred labour from going to Assam.
128. R.K. Das, History of Indian Labour Legislation (Calcutta, 1941), p. 23.
129. R.K. Das, History of Indian Labour Legislation (1941), p. 23.Ibid.;
130. R.K. Das, idem, Plantation Labour in India (Calcutta, 1931), p. 37.
131. Das, History of Indian Labour Legislation, p. 26.
132. RALEC, 1906, p. 75.
133. Griffiths, History of the Indian Tea Industry, p. 281.
134. Under Act VI of 1901 it was illegal to place minors below the age of sixteen years under contract. The ITA defined as "minor" those who were below twelve years of age. See RALEC, 1921-22, pp. 86-87.
135. RALEC, 1921-22, pp. 86-87.Ibid.
136. RALEC, 1921-22, pp. 86-87.Ibid.
137. RALEC, 1921-22, pp. Ibid., p. 92.
138. RALEC, 1921-22, p. 1;
139. The Bengalee, 29 June 1921.
140. During the same period equally serious and more well-known cases of exodus and strikes occurred in the Surma Valley (the famous case for instance of the Chargola Exodus, May 1921). For our purposes we are concentrating only on the incidents which occurred in the Assam Valley; Assam Labour Report, 1920-21, p. 3;
141. RALEC, 1921-22, pp. 6-7.
142. RALEC, 1921-22, pp. 6-7.Ibid.
143. RALEC, 1921-22, pp. 6-7.Ibid.
144. ITA Report, 1921, p. 8.
145. ITA Report, Ibid., p. 90.
146. Central Legislative Assembly Debates, 20 February 1923 and 2 February 1925 (Calcutta, 1923 and 1925).
147. IOL, ITA Circular no. 35, 16 October 1929, ITA Papers, mss Eur 174/bay 1/shelf 2.
148. ITA Circular no. 35, 1929, Ibid.
149. ITA Circular no. 35, 1929, Ibid.
150. Rege, Report on an Enquiry into Conditions of Labour, p. 28.
151. Rege, Report on an Enquiry into Conditions of Labour, p. 28.Ibid.
152. Government of India, Special Report on the Working of Act I of 1882 (Indian Emigration Act) in the Province of Assam During the Years 1886-1889 (Calcutta, 1890), p. 240. Over a decade later the Chief Commissioner, J.B. Fuller, noted in 1903 that among the coolies the whole plantation system was commonly regarded as a phatak;
153. NAI, Government of India, Department of Revenue and Agriculture, Emigration A, nos 12-14, December 1904.
154. ITA Report, 1909, p. 49.
155. Assam Legislative Council Proceedings, 1927, vol. 7, no. 5 (Shillong, 1927), pp. 40-103.
156. Report of the Royal Commission, p. 378.
157. Planters in the Ceylon tea gardens adopted similar methods to isolate their labour force from the "mainstream of political and trade-union developments in the rest of the country. A strict surveillance was maintained on plantations and trespass laws prevented 'outside agitators' from having access to the labour force at its place of work." Samaraweera concludes from this that "these restrictive features of plantation life inhibited the rise of trade unions or any form of independent organizational activity among the workers". See Samaraweera, "Masters and Servants in Sri Lankan Plantations", p. 22.
158. ASA, Government of Assam, General and Judicial Department, Immigration B, nos 34-63, September 1939, pp. 48-49.
159. Immigration B, nos Ibid., p. 81.
160. Immigration B, nos Ibid., p. 79.
161. ASA, Government of Assam, General and Judicial Department, Immigration B, nos 34-63, September 1939, p. 49;
162. Assam Administrative Report, 1938-39 (Shillong, 1939), p. ii;
163. Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj, p. 243;
164. ASA, Assam Legislative Assembly Debates, 1938, vol. 2, pp. 820-821.
165. Rege, Report on an Enquiry into Conditions of Labour, p. 28.