Tea-garden community

In the 19th century, the British found Assam suitable for tea cultivation and wanted to increase their revenue by planting tea plantations, so they brought labourers from different parts of the country to clear large tracts of forest and make tea gardens. Tea garden workers were brought to the tea plantations of Assam in several phases from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century from the tribal heartland of central-eastern India as indentured labourers. During the 1840s, tribal people throughout the Chota Nagpur Division were revolting against expanding British control, and the scarcity of cheap labour to work in the expanding tea industry of Assam led the British authorities to recruit primarily Tribals and some backward-class Hindus as indentured labourers to work in Assam's tea gardens. Thousands of people recruited as labourers died of diseases during the journey to Assam, and hundreds who tried to flee were killed by the British authorities as punishment for breaching their contracts. Recruitment {{Multiple image At the start of tea plantations in the province, the Assam company had brought in Chinese staff, around 70 at its peak, and paid them four to five times more wages compared to local labour. The former were dispensed with in 1843 and labourers from Assam were the only ones working in the plantations until 1859 which was around 10,000 vis-a-vis the requirement for 16,000-20,000 for existing cultivation. Most of these were then recruited from the Kachari tribe of the then Darrang district, and peasants from nearby villages during their agricultural slack season. In 1841 the first attempt was made by the Assam Company to recruit labourers from outside the province. In this attempt, 652 people were forcibly recruited, but due to an outbreak of cholera, most of them died. Those who survived fled. In 1859 the Workmen's Breach of Contract Act was passed, which instituted harsh penalties for indentured labourers who broke their contracts, including flogging. It alleviated the scarcity of labourers on the plantation by recruiting from outside Assam through contracts. "Arakattis," or brokers, were appointed to recruit labour from outside the area. In 1870, the "Sardari System" was introduced to recruit labourers. Majority of the labour force was recruited from areas such as Chota Nagpur, Santal Parganas, Bengal Presidency, Central Provinces, and Madras Presidency. Most came from the tribal communities of Chottanagpur and Santhal Parganas and constituted 59 and 50 percent of the total men and women respectively in 1878. These consisted of the Mundas, Oraons, Kharias, Kols, Bhumijs, Santhals, and castes such as Kurmis, and Murasis. This was followed by communities from Orissa, Central Provinces, Palamu district in then Bihar, and Madras Presidency. They consisted of those classified as semi-aboriginal castes such as the Ghasis, Bauris, Turis, and Goraits, A smaller number were recruited from low-caste Hindu communities like the Bhogtas, Rautias, Chamars, and Dusadhs.{{Multiple image Conditions of recruitment of labour from Bengal and Bihar were inhuman. Arakattis resorted to several fraudulent practices and physical force. From 15 December 1859 to 21 November 1861, the Assam Company brought the first batch of 2,272 recruits from outside. From of the total, 250 died on the way to Assam. From 2 April 1861 to 25 February 1862, 2,569 people were recruited and sent to Assam in two batches via the Brahmaputra river route. During the journey 135 died or got drowned, and 103 absconded. Between 1 May 1863 and 1 May 1866, 84,915 labourers were recruited, but 30,000 had died by June 1866. From 1877 to 1929, 419,841 recruits entered Assam as indentured labourers, including 162,188 males, 119,582 females and 138,071 children. From 1938 to 1947, 158,706 recruits came to Assam. They were brought to Assam through three riverine routes, two along the Brahmaputra and one via the Surma. Under the Workmen's Breach of Contract Act of 1859, Sections 490 and 492 of the Indian Penal Code (1860) and the Labour Act of 1863, as amended in 1865, 1870 and 1873, runaway workers could be punished by the Government alone. Yet the planters themselves generally disciplined such workers, inflicting upon them punitive tortures of all kinds. For labour was too precious to be sent out of their tea gardens to police and jail custody. Debarken Depots were used to carry the bonded labours. Some of the Debarken Depots in the Brahmaputra were Tezpur, Silghat, Kokilamukh, Dibrugarh, etc. Debarken Depots in Surma (Barak) were Silchar, Katigorah, Karimganj etc. Labourers were brought in ships, in conditions that were far lower than required for the transport of animals. Steamers were overcrowded with recruits and it was highly unhygienic. These conditions led to the spread of cholera among the labourers which led to the death of many among them in the journey. Under British colonial rule After the journey, their life in the tea gardens was also difficult. Planters made barracks known as the Coolie line for the labourers and these were overcrowded. "Coolie" was a term used by tea garden authorities to denote labourers, and is now considered to be a derogatory term by the community. In these barracks, each tea garden labourer had barely twenty-five square feet of area for their personal use. Many of the tea gardens insisted on a morning muster of the labours. They were not allowed to remain absent in their duty for a single day even when they were unwell. The labourers did not enjoy any personal freedom at all, and were even forbidden to meet labourers working at other tea gardens. Prior permission from the manager of the tea gardens was necessary for the marriage of the labourers. In addition to emigrant labourers, tea planters also forced labourers to increase the birth rate, so that each garden could garner enough labour force. Abortion was strictly prohibited. The wages paid to labourers were very low. This forced the whole of family members to work in the tea garden. From 1865–1881 men labourers were paid only ₹5 per month and women ₹4 per month. The situation remained the same up to 1900. It was only by an Act of 1901 that wages increased to ₹5.5 for men and ₹4.5 for women. Children's wages remained the same. These rates of pay compared extremely unfavourably with other manual work available: in the early 1880s an unskilled railway construction labourer earned ₹12 to 16 per month (3 times more than tea garden labour). The tea garden labourers suffered under legal bondage. Their lives were governed by the Workmen's Breach of Contract Act (Act 3 of 1859). Under this act employees were liable to prosecution, and even imprisonment, for breach of contract. Inertia, refusal to work and desertion were likewise punishable offenses for which the workers could be flogged, subjected to physical torture and imprisoned under the provisions of this act. Flogging was common practice in the tea gardens. The then Chief Commissioner Assam Fuller commented on the condition of labourers, "...They were deprived of all their freedom and their derogatory conditions and atrocities remind one of the slaves running in Africa and the global slave trade." In addition to this, the tea garden manager might abuse the workers physically. A tea garden manager in Darrang district caught a boy in an attempt at burglary, and he was beaten to death. His dead body was subsequently found with marks that showed that he had been cruelly beaten. In Cachar district, a boy was flogged to death because he did not salute the European manager. The most notorious incident was a shooting in which a tea garden labourer was killed by the European planter of the Kharial Tea Estate of Cachar in 1921 after refusing to provide his daughter as a concubine to the planter for a night. Facing such atrocities, many tea garden labourers often become insane. Many such sufferers were confined in the jail set up at Tezpur in 1876 for insane people. Health conditions during colonial times Thousands of labourers died annually due to the lack of availability of health care. The gardens did not appoint any doctors. Though the colonial government tried to make tea gardens appoint European medical officers and send health reports to the government regularly, tea gardens failed to comply. Most of the gardens didn't have hospitals to treat labourers in ill health. Most of the gardens appointed some trained physicians, called LMP (Learned Medical Practitioners), only after 1889, when Berry White Medical School was set up at Barbari, Dibrugarh. State of education during colonial rule A report published by a European DPI in 1917–18 stated that as many as 2 lakh children of school-going age were in the tea gardens of Assam, but not even 2% turned up for primary education. The numbers of the schools and students' enrolment were in papers and files only. In 1950 there were 5,00,416 of children who could attend the lower primary schools, but only 29,361 children attended. It was just meagre 6%. From 1946–50, there were only four college students from tea gardens. The number of students who attended high schools, including M. E. schools, during this period was Jorhat – 29, Dibrugarh – 15, Golaghat – 22, Titabor – 04, Nagaon – 10, Lakhimpur – 12, Tezpur – 41 and Mangaldai – 05. The tea planters never encouraged education to garden labourers as it would prevent them from physical labor or encourage protest against exploitation. Even after Indian independence, the amount spent on tea garden education in the first five-year plan was just 0.26 million (2.6 lakhs), i.e., not even ten paise per tea garden labourer. The medium of instruction had also created problems in the tea gardens. Different tribes and castes had their own language and literature in the school owing largely to their original places. In tea gardens, three languages were primarily spoken by the labours: Santhali, Kurukh, and Mundari. But commonly Sadri was used and outside the tea gardens the Assamese language was used as a medium of communication. Therefore Narayan Ghatowar, a prominent intellectual of the community, advocated that Assamese be imparted in the schools only by teachers who knew Sadri. Participation in Indian independence movement Though the community remained oppressed as plantation labourers, they still had the anti-colonial anti-British attitude alive in their mindset. Noted historian Amalendu Guha remarks, "Illiterate, ignorant, unorganised and isolated from their homes as they were, the plantation workers were weak and powerless against the planters." Still, several times they tried to protest against the atrocities of the planters and managers at their respective estates: for example, protest of 1884 in Bowalia T.E., and the strike of Halem T.E. in 1921. Numbers of people from the community actively participated in the Indian independence movement. Some of the names of the participants are Gajaram Kurmi, Pratap Gond, Shamburam Gond, Mohanchal Gond, Jagamohan Gond, Bidesh Kamar Lohar, Ansa Bhuyan, Radhu Munda, Gobin Tanti, Ramsai Turi, Bishnu Suku Majhi, Bongai Bauri, Durgi Bhumij, etc. Some of the freedom fighters who became martyrs are Christison Munda, Doyal Das Panika, Mongol Kurku,Sukhdew Chik Baraik, Bhedla Proja, Tehlu Saora and Bankuru Saora. Christison Munda ignited a revolt across the tea garden regions of Rangapara in 1915 and was publicly hanged at Phulbari T.E (near Rangapara) by colonial authorities in 1916. Malati Mem, alias "Mangri" Oraon of Tezpur Ghogara TE (near Tezpur), became the first ever woman martyr of Assam in 1921. She was killed by colonial police while participating in the non-cooperation movement. The names of these tea garden labourers never got any importance in the histography, but as Guha quoted, "It must be admitted that these Adivasis joined in the Indian Independence movement, not because of the Assamese middle class, the Congress or the Assamese non-state organizations, but in spite of them." ==Demographics==