Rumour and gossip in a time of crisis: Resistance and accommodation in a South Indian plantation frontier

Abstract

This article examines rumour and gossip among the tea workers in the south Indian state of Kerala in the context of recent economic crisis in the Indian tea industry. It argues that gossip and rumour may have distinct effects with regard to resistance and accommodation in the crisis-ridden plantations. The analysis of the gossip shows that the workers are critical of the plantation management, trade unions and the Kerala state for failing to ensure their means of livelihood during the crisis period. In this context, gossip functions as a form and agent of resistance which further shows that the workers were conscious of their exploitation. On the other hand, the ethnographic data presented in this article suggest that rumour is an effective instrument for the control and disciplining of workers in the crisis context.

Keywords

Gossip rumour plantation resistance India

By the early 1990s, the tea plantations in India plunged into a serious economic crisis that led to the closure of many plantations. This crisis shattered the lives of thousands of tea workers and their families who relied on the plantation economy for more than four generations. In the crisis context, a significant number of workers left the closed plantations while others stayed back in partially working plantations where only plucking of tea leaves was carried out and the factories remained closed. This article examines rumours and gossip within the plantation society in the context of this economic crisis that the workers faced. In the crisis situation, those who stayed back often engaged in conversations about the troubled times they were going through and about the callous attitude of the plantation company, trade union leaders and state authorities towards their plight. The particular rumours and the related gossip discussed below were collected in such a context from Green Valley tea estate¹ located in the Peermade tea belt of Kerala in South India.

Green Valley estate was one of the nine estates owned by Kolkata-based Hill Top Company in the Peermade tea belt. There were around 200 Tamil-speaking Dalit families in the estate who predominantly belonged to Pallar, Paraiyar and Arunthathiyar communities. Their ancestors were brought as indentured workers from the Tamil-speaking region of South India to the newly developed colonial plantations in Kerala in the 1860s. This migration was part of the larger colonial indentured system and the larger Tamil migration associated with it (Guilmoto, 1993). The outcaste social status allied with the identity of Tamil coolie – a stigmatised category of manual labour – perpetuated their economic underdevelopment and social marginality. Although in many contexts there have been reforms addressing marginalized populations – Kerala is an outstanding example in this regard (Franke and Chasin, 1989; Sen, 2001) – those who entered within the indentured plantation labour system continue to be a socially excluded and marginalized category. The economic crisis in the tea industry exacerbated their alienated condition which is further evident from the gossip.

Rumours and gossip in the crisis context capture social processes that might not be explicitly visible in social relations of everyday life in the plantation. The explicit and easily accessible social actions of front-stage performance (in Goffman’s terms, 1959) are in contrast to the back-stage performance, where the plantation workers are able to communicate their opinions or circulate rumours mainly through gossip. Rumours and gossip have real consequences for the workers’ life situation, and it is irrelevant whether the content is accurate or not. Rumours about the crisis here refer to those about changes in the control and management of the plantations under crisis. In the Green valley estate, gossip in the crisis context was targeted against the plantation management and trade unions who were considered as a rival quasi-group (Mayer, 1963) whose interests seem to have been in conflict with that of the workers. Accordingly, this article examines the varied forms and function of both rumours and gossip during the crisis and their consequences for the resistance against, or accommodation of, their exploitation and dispossession (Goffman, 1967; Handelman, 1973).

Anthropologists have for long stressed the significance of rumour and gossip for social relations, but they have mostly been studied from a structural-functional point of view.² Max Gluckman, for instance, considers gossip as a most important cultural form to examine because it is an integral part of maintaining the social system. For him, ‘gossip is the blood and tissue of community life’ (Gluckman, 1963: 308). In a similar vein, Ann Stoler captures the significance and functional aspect of rumour. For Stoler, rumour is a ‘key form of cultural knowledge that … shaped what people thought they knew, blurring the boundaries between events witnessed and those envisioned, between performed brutality and the potentiality for it’ (Stoler, 1992: 154). This resonates with Raymond Firth’s statement that ‘rumour is reporting of unverified events’ (Firth, 1967: 142).

Rumour was studied mostly in relation to anthropological analysis of past events (e.g. Guha, 1983; Lefebvre, 1973; Stoler, 1992; Tambiah, 1996; Thompson, 1963). Anthropological studies on rumour have focused on its potential to instigate political violence (Kirsch, 2002; Stewart and Strathern, 2004; Stoler, 1992; Tambiah, 1996) or rebellion and subaltern resistance (Guha, 1983; Thompson, 1963). Similarly, the studies on the functional aspect of gossip have largely discussed it as an instrument of everyday resistance (Scott, 1976, 1990) or local politics (Besnier, 2009) or realizing self-interests (Brison, 1992; Campbell, 1964; Colson, 1953; Paine, 1967). Some have also seen it variously as an agent of moral disciplining to maintain social order (Gluckman, 1963; Herskovits, 1937; Ong, 1987) or to control deviant behaviour (Goffman, 1967). Anthropologists were able to capture gossip in its ethnographic present (Besnier, 2009; Brison, 1992; Haviland, 1977), sometimes with a focus on its interactive aspects (Brenneis, 1984; Goodwin, 1990) or its performative aspects (Abrahams, 1970; Bergmann, 1993). Despite the fact that they are produced and transmitted in face-to-face interactions, very few studies focused simultaneously on both rumour and gossip (Goffman, 1967; Handelman, 1973; Paine, 1967; Scott, 1990; Stewart and Strathern, 2004).

The major challenge for these studies was to distinguish between rumour and gossip, as also evident in the case of plantation society discussed here. For analytical purposes, one could argue that rumour may be a form of unsigned gossip (Paine, 1970). Stewart and Strathern (2004: 38–39) observes that ‘gossip takes place mutually among people in networks or groups. Rumour is unsubstantiated information, true or untrue, that passes by word of mouth, often in wider networks than gossip’. While rumour and gossip are often used interchangeably in the Green Valley estate, there is a distinction between the two in their use and function. In the Peermade tea belt, gossip (Kicukicu/veen-pechu) refers to talking (often negatively) about certain individuals with another individual or a group of individuals, while rumour (vadhanthi) refers to spreading of unverified information about persons, events and social processes. In the crisis context, gossip by the workers and the spread of rumours (by managerial staff/union leaders) appear in conflict with each other. They in fact enter into a dialectical relation which could be seen in the conversation among the workers and union conveners discussed below. This article contributes to the literature that attempts to capture the simultaneous existence of gossip and rumour. However, this article emphasis that the function of gossip and rumour (e.g. with regard to resistance and accommodation) could be contrary to each other in critical moments.

James Scott and Max Gluckman offer insights on the ways through which rumour and gossip effect the resistance against, or accommodation of, the exploitation and subordination in various ethnographic contexts. Both Gluckman and Scott approached gossip and rumour from a class analysis perspective, but with the major difference that Gluckman focused on gossip within a group while Scott focused on gossip by one group about the other which is hierarchically superior. James Scott (1990) argues that both gossip and rumour are processes, like others such as slander and backbiting, that the powerless employ to critique the powerful. He emphasizes the potential of rumour and gossip for subaltern resistance that is hidden from the powerful, and therefore constitutive of what he calls the ‘hidden transcripts’ of resistance. According to Scott, ‘gossip is perhaps the most familiar and elementary form of disguised popular aggression. Though its use is hardly confined to attacks by subordinates on their superiors, it represents a relatively safe social sanction’ (Scott, 1990: 142). With regard to rumour, Scott argues, in line with EP Thompson (1963) and Ranajit Guha (1983), that it has the capacity to unleash revolt and powerful resistance from the weaker sections of society. He provides examples of rumour’s role in the history of subaltern resistance against the exploitation of industrial working class in England, slavery in the Caribbean and the caste system in South Asia.

In contrast to James Scott’s analysis, Max Gluckman (1963) views rumour and gossip as system-maintaining processes (in line with his general framework of structural functionalism which he developed earlier in writings such as Custom and Conflict in Africa published in 1955). He argues that gossip (and rumour)³ are employed by those who are in power to put the weaker sections back in their place, something he refers to as the ‘social weapon’ of the dominant (Gluckman, 1963: 309). It might appear that Gluckman focuses on the functional aspect of gossip for the benefit of dominant individuals, and Scott turns his focus to its use by the powerless. However, Gluckman also discusses the gossip of the powerless against the domination of those who claim higher status within their group. Gluckman emphasizes on how such gossip of the powerless brings solidarity and cohesiveness to the group, thus reproducing the group itself.⁴ In a similar vein, James Scott also examines the kind of gossip that facilitates solidarity within working class against the domination of the powerful bourgeoisie. The major difference, however, between Scott and Gluckman is that Scott stresses on the rupture of social relations and therefore social transformations generated by gossip and rumour, not its reproductions as Gluckman argued. The ethnographic material I present here suggests that rumour and gossip could lead to contrasting outcomes within a social context.

I observe that rumours and gossip in the crisis context have distinct consequences with regard to resistance and accommodation in the plantations. The analysis of the gossip shows that the workers are critical of the plantation management, unions and the Kerala state for failing to ensure their means of livelihood during the crisis period. In this context, gossip functions as a form and agent of resistance which further shows that the workers were conscious of their exploitation. Gossip, as will be seen below, often served to sustain criticism of the situation and worked to unify the workers against management. It is part of the resistive potential of the plantation workforce but also very integral to processes of ordering and reordering in the plantation society. In other words, Gossip here is born within the ongoing texture of social relations in the plantations and it tracks the fissures and problematics born of ongoing social existence in the plantation under the crisis.

On the other hand, the ethnographic data presented here suggest that rumour is an effective instrument for the control and disciplining of workers in the crisis context. The rumours of the possible take-over of the plantations by new companies indicated that the workers would receive work throughout the year, in addition to the deferred wages and retirement benefits. Such rumours project the potential for the future in situations of uncertainty and a chronic lack of information. The spread of such rumours, I argue, partly appeased the workers’ resistant voice and their expression of hostility towards the management. It soothed the resentment they felt at their increasing sense of displacement and marginalization. I also suspect that this spread of rumours was one of the reasons why there were no significant street protests organized against the negligence and callous attitude of the state authorities and company management in failing to reopen the closed plantations or to steps to ensure the workers’ livelihood.

In the Green Valley estate, rumours discussed here tend to be controlled and disseminated by the plantation management. These rumours reflect their authority and they function as a controlling mechanism for the growing anger of the working population. Accordingly, differing from the nature and function of gossip, the spread of rumours on the crisis generated hope. It was antithetical to gossip in the sense that it contributed to the sustaining of the workers in the liminal situation that was an effect of the crisis. Nonetheless, rumour and gossip are intermeshed as will be shown in the conversational encounters that I present. However, contexts of rumours and gossip are separately presented here for analytical purposes. First, I concentrate on the spread of rumour concerning the possible take-over of the plantations by new companies. Secondly, I focus on that particular gossip in which the plantation management, unions and the Kerala state were blamed for the depressed condition of the plantation workers.

Major rumours between 2009 and 2012

Throughout my fieldwork, there was much rumour-mongering mainly concerning the possible takeover of the plantations by new companies and the restarting of production in estates where work had ceased. As mentioned above, the rumours which circulated in the crisis context provided the impression that the deferred wages and benefits would be paid and plantation production would return to normal functioning. This impression, I observe, restricts the workers from agitating against the deferral of wages and welfare cuts, or from seeking government intervention through special welfare packages for the crisis-ridden plantation workers. The spread of rumours is directly related to an anticipation of some sort of relief for the plantation workers.

Six major rumours dominated daily conversations in the plantations between 2009 and 2012. They were all related to the possible takeover of the plantations by new companies. Each rumour was displaced and taken over by another when the preceding rumour weakened. The weakening of each rumour refers to the realization by the workers that it was just rumour and the plantation was not going to be taken over by a new company. In other words, the displacement of a particular rumour by a new one is related to the loss of faith in the initial one by the workers and thus the loosening of its relevance as a rumour. Each rumour had active existence from three to six months before it was replaced by a new one. However, there were situations when two consecutive rumours overlapped for specific periods before they got replaced by another.

The first major rumour during my fieldwork in 2009 was related to the take-over of the plantations by Reana Tea Company. This company previously leased the nine estates (including the Green Valley estate) of HillTop Company in 1985 for a period of 20 years. The rumour was circulated among the tea workers that the Reana Company had interest in the purchase of the estates it had managed for 20 years. The second rumour was that the HillTop Tea Company would renew tea production under their direct control rather than selling it to the Reana Company. These two rumours circulated for six months. The first rumour begun to be circulated approximately three months before the second rumour emerged and started to overlap with the first rumour. These two rumours were weakened when the workers became convinced that the HillTop Company was not going to take over control of the company as previously supposed.

The two previous rumours then gave way to a third one which claimed that two famous tea companies, TTV and TEATA, would lease or rent the plantations through a joint venture for a 20-year period and that the deferred wages and retirement benefits would be paid to the workers from the rent and lease. It was further circulated in the rumour that the TEATA Company would cover most of the cost needed for the lease, while the TTV would be responsible for managing the plantations. This rumour circulated for around four months until another rumour, the fourth, took over. The new rumour was that the TTV and TEATA venture was not going to happen, but that instead, the TTV would lease only the factory in the Green Valley estate while the field (which entails the plucking of tea leaves) would be under the control of Reana Tea Company. These two rumours lasted for around six months in the 2009–2010 period. Although the fourth rumour was closely interconnected to the third one, I considered them as different ones because the content of the rumours was distinctive enough to survive together for six months as alternative possibilities. I talked to different workers – whom I thought would know developments concerning the transfer of the ownership of the plantations – to check the veracity of these rumours. In this regard, I often initiated conversations with the security guards of the fields and factory in the Green Valley estate because they monitor and control the entry of vehicles and people into the estate. Two of them told me that no one from TTV and TEATA had come to visit and assess the fields and the factory, and the rumour remained false and the transfer/leasing of the estates to new companies did not occur. The workers who were hopeful for the reopening of the plantations and the payment of the deferred wages felt betrayed and misled once again.

The fifth rumour circulated the claim that the New Travel Company, a real-estate firm based in Mumbai, would take over the plantations. While part of the content of the rumour was true, since a real-estate company based in Mumbai had paid an advance to the HillTop Tea Company to buy the plantation, the estates were not transferred out of HillTop control. It was later revealed that there was a rift between the HillTop Company and the New Travel Company which caused the HillTop Company to back out of the sale. Nevertheless, the representatives of the New Travel Company stayed in the tea belt for further negotiations. This indicated that the New Travel Company was still in negotiation with the HillTop Company and that there was still a possibility of transfer in ownership. This encouraged the rumour and its expectations. The basis was also provided for further rumours when a section of workers raised the idea that the New Travel Company would buy the estates, although many workers remained doubtful. The fifth rumour was sustained for approximately six months.

While the uncertainty of the negotiations between the HillTop Tea Company and the New Travel Company continued, another rumour (the sixth rumour) began circulating that a new Company called Batal had entered into the bidding for the purchase of the HillTop Tea Company. This occurred in early February 2011. The entry of the new company created more confusion among the workers leading to more rumour circulation. After one year of negotiations between the companies, by March 2012, the Batal Company took over all the estates of the Hilltop Company with the exception of the Green Valley estate, which was left out due to continuing disagreement between the New Travel Company and the HillTop Tea Company. This concerned the return of an advance payment from the New Travel Company. Settlement was achieved by October 2012 when the New Travel Company was given the ownership of the Green Valley estate in lieu of the advance payment. The workers now expected the payment of their deferred or delayed wage payments and retirement benefits. While the deferred wages were paid by the end of 2012, the retirement benefits for the workers were yet to be distributed.

The source of the rumours was very likely the office of the plantation management. It was from this office that the workers enquired of developments and continually went to receive what was owed to them. The managers and office staff fuelled the rumours to control the anxious situation of the workers. It was easier for the plantation manager or other staff to deny the advances on the basis of these rumours. The rumours started by management were then spread by the workers, becoming, for them, a discourse of hope. However, it was not these workers who were responsible for validating the rumours. It was the supervisors and the union conveners who corroborated the rumours. The workers only become agents of circulation of these rumours in a fragile situation where they hoped for an improvement in their conditions and feared this was unlikely to happen. As James Scott (1990: 145) noted, ‘As a rumor travels it is altered in a fashion that brings it more closely into line with the hopes, fears, and worldview of those who hear it and retell it’.

Rumour bore the tensions arising out of the crisis-ridden life of the workers, which is strikingly similar to what Ann Stoler (1992: 179) discuss about the plantation workers in Deli, Indonesia, where the rumours bore the cultural weight of social and political tensions. Rumour in moments of uncertainty becomes ‘facts’ as ‘rumors voiced the possible’ (Stoler, 1992: 180) and rumour about what is ‘possible’ shapes the course of human actions. For the workers in the Green valley estate, unfortunately, the rumour of ‘possibility’ of reopening of estates was important in generating a social reality of passiveness against the callous attitude of the plantation company, unions and the government bureaucracy. This inaction occurred even when the workers were very much aware of their exploitation which is evident through their gossiping.

As James Scott (1990: 144) has pointed out, ‘rumor thrives most in situations in which events of vital importance to people's interests are occurring and in which no reliable information or only ambiguous information is available’. The rumours discussed above arise mainly because the workers rarely have access to information related to the negotiations between the unions, plantation companies and the government on the reopening of the partially and fully-closed plantations. These negotiations have a direct impact on the workers’ future in the plantations but paradoxically the workers are not allowed any involvement or access to information in such negotiations. It is the unions which represent the workers in any negotiations with the government as well as with the plantation management. CITU of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, AITUC of the Communist Party of India, and INTUC of the Indian National Congress are the three trade unions that are active in the tea belt. As I have discussed somewhere else (Raj, 2014), the majority of the union leaders are from Malayalam-speaking upper caste/class communities and the workers are from Tamil-speaking Dalit communities (although there are a few exceptions in both cases). The majority of the union leaders live in nodal towns outside the plantations and they were not part of the plantation workforce. The workers themselves hardly communicate with these union leaders; it is the union conveners⁵ who work as interlocutors between the union leaders and the workers. Therefore, rumour materializes when there is a dearth of information for the workers on the negotiations between the authorities.

In such an alienated situation, the workers have to rely on the information given by the union conveners and the supervisors who maintain close relations with the unions and the plantation company, respectively. The union conveners and the supervisors, however, are situated in a low status position within the structure of the unions and the plantation companies so information passed on by them often proves to be false, as what they claim to be happening does not occur in reality. This observation comes from my personal experience in the plantation when I sought information from union conveners and supervisors regarding the transfer of the plantations from the present company to another. It is possible that the union conveners and supervisors were actually provided with false information on the immediate future of the plantation. However, a few interlocutors have told me that sometimes they have to pretend that they know about what was happening at the higher level talks between the authorities mentioned above since the possession of valuable information is closely interconnected to maintaining their higher status among other plantation workers. In fact, supervisors and trade union conveners are expected to have such information.

Changes in plantation ownership formed the basis for rumours that became a source for the workers’ imagination regarding the potential return of plantation production and the revival of ordinary plantation life. The periodical change in the rumours sustained the creation of hope of the workers. When one anticipated solution was not met another replaced it. This was rumour as a projective fantasy of hope. These rumours were generated in the context of workers being aware that few opportunities existed for them outside the plantations. Hope in the face of despair gave a tragic undertone to many of the rumours.

These six rumours were discussed and circulated both in public spaces and in private households. The rumour often followed me as well as the workers considered me as someone who might possess valuable information on the possible re-opening of the plantations. Whenever I visited the estate lines (workers’ settlements) to interview the workers, they asked me if I knew anything about the transfer of the estates to the new company. I told them what I heard elsewhere. I become an intermediary for passing information that I had received from the security guards regarding the possible transfer of the estates. In other words, the workers checked the veracity of rumours through me. I often had the chance of being witness to all kinds of imaginary scenarios, predictions and claims of authentic information (specifically by the trade union conveners and the supervisors) formulated in the course of the transmission of rumour through gossip. I explore this further in the following description.

Gossip and the circulation of rumours

The crisis has changed the social demographics of the plantation community. The social spaces for gossip reflect this new demography and are composed of groups consisting of persons who for some reason or another (e.g. sickness) are off plantation work, or are between work in one or another of the satellite towns, or else unemployed. It should be noted that these are the people who continue to rely on the plantations in one form or another and therefore they are deeply concerned about the re-opening of the plantations. These concerns of the workers are reflected in the gossip. For more than a decade now, the crisis of the plantations has been a major theme of everyday conversations and gossip took place in public places such as tea shops, work-sites, at marriages, funerals and other public gatherings as well as in commuting between towns and plantations during a Jeep trip. I present three encounters concerned with gossip and the circulation of rumour.

Encounter 1 – Moitheen’s tea shop

Everyday life in the plantations starts with men being assembled in front of Perattukulam, the Muster office, for work assignment. Moitheen, the owner of the small tea shop (chāyākadai) next to the office was complaining to me about the collapse of his business as I noticed a few workers moving back to their lines after the early morning muster call. Moitheen’s is the only Muslim family in the Green Valley estate. His family came from Malabar in northern Kerala in 1959 in search of employment. His mother became a worker in the plantation so as to feed her five children: Moitheen, his younger brother, and three younger sisters. Moitheen managed to open a tea shop next to the Muster office, as the workers requested the management that they needed the tea shop to alleviate the severe cold in the early morning. Moitheen’s business flourished. It was to his advantage that (in his own words) each day, he knew exactly the number of cups of tea, coffee/black coffee, and sometimes even breakfast, to be sold out. This precision in calculation and Moitheen’s hard work had made his tea shop as profitable as a tea shop in the nodal towns. However, as the crisis crippled, the plantation workers’ income, the number of workers who visited Moitheen’s shop declined. Moitheen told me that his business was totally ruined by the end of the 1990s. He was further worried that he was unable to support himself in alternative ways such as by undertaking labour work due to his old age and poor health.

As Moitheen voiced his complaint about the ruin of his business, five workers entered into the tea shop to have hot tea/coffee before starting the hard labour of pruning tea bushes in the cold morning. One of the five workers – Paramasivam, a 52-year-old male worker, entered into our conversation and said,

The crisis is our fate. But what is painful is that the government did not give us any support. They only gave one thousand rupees to buy groceries during an Onam festival a few years ago.⁶ But that was only for that particular year. The government does not care because we are Tamils. The union (referring to the trade union) leaders don’t ask the government about this. They come to the plantation in a covered Jeep,⁷ and travel directly to the manager’s office and leave without talking to us.

What Paramasivam communicated was that the trade union leaders rarely visit the workers’ lines located not that far from the manager’s office. By referring to the covered Jeep, Paramasivam was commenting on the comfortable superior life style of the trade union leaders. His comment had other critical implications, specifically that the trade union leaders were more interested in their relations with management than with the workers – in fact that the interests of management and the union were similar. After making his comment, Paramasivam excused himself saying that he needed to rush to change his clothes and have breakfast before leaving to the tea fields for pruning. At the time, Moitheen distanced himself slightly from Paramasivam’s comment possibly because like the management and the union leaders he is a Malayali, and also because he had rented the tea shop from the company. But after the workers had left he asserted his support for Paramasivam’s comment but cautioned that Paramasivam would be in trouble if he kept on criticizing the union leaders.

Moitheen registered the cost of Paramasivam’s tea and breakfast bun into the latter’s name in the account register.⁸ The conversation continued as a few other workers were still having their tea. The theme of the conversation was on the negotiation between the trade unions and the new corporate companies which took over the nearby tea estates that were previously closed down. The workers were concerned about the rumour that the trade unions were divided on the issue of supporting the new company, allegedly because the opposing trade unions demanded a lump-sum as a donation to the trade unions and the new company refused to pay. Manikandan (alias Mani), who was reading the previous day’s newspaper, said irately that all the people deceive the workers and make money from them.⁹ Everyone was silent for a moment after Mani’s angry statement. Moitheen suddenly redirected the conversation by talking about the climate and people of Norway trying to follow-up on an earlier discussion he had been having with me. When Mani left the shop, Moitheen told me that he had shifted the conversation because he did not want anyone to inform the field officer about the conversations that had taken place in the shop. Moitheen did not want the plantation management to know that he had been involved and collaborated in the conversations. Moitheen’s concern shows that there are workers who would pass the information on to the field officer, who often acts as an intermediary between the workers and the plantation management. The usual informants for the management were absent in the tea shop during the conversation. Nonetheless, Moitheen wanted to be much more careful about who he gossiped with and this extra caution is the reason for Moitheen’s lack of interest in discussing what is locally called ‘plantation scandals’. When Mani and the others were leaving the tea shop, Krishnaswamy, who was in the group, told me that everyone has their own troubles and things can slip out from their heart (manasu) once in a while. What Krishnaswamy meant was that each and every plantation worker keeps their miseries and anger hidden, although they share it once in a while when they become overwhelmed by the situation. Krishnaswamy’s observation was referring to the anger of Paramasivam and Mani. In fact, Krishnaswamy was considered the local savant in the Green Valley estate, who talks very little while making perceptive short comments similar to those mentioned here.

While the tea shop conversation would seem like a casual one, it needs to be considered as gossip because the conversations contained information that was generally agreed upon – it affirmed the commonality of their situation. Furthermore, the workers who were usually suspected of being informers to field officers or the trade union conveners/leaders were absent from the tea shop. The absence of informers provided a perfect backstage – which is an important requirement of gossip-transmission (Goffman, 1959) – to talk critically about the trade union leaders and the plantation management. As we can see from this encounter, the workers were conscious of the collusion between trade union and management and of this fact being a part of their exploitation. For many, it articulated the scandalous nature of management–trade union relations in the plantation. Moitheen understood that the information circulated was sensitive and this accounts for his wariness in participating. As a tea shop owner, he had to be on good terms with all parties.

The conversations among the workers about the reactions of the management and the unions to the crisis should be understood as gossip since they ‘speak the unspeakable’ (Gluckman, 1963). It takes place within the total institution of the plantation where the participants are under severe surveillance of the management and the unions. Therefore, the workers often express their views only within small groups and they are careful about the membership of such groups. Anyone who participates in the conversations about the callous attitude of management and the corruption of unions should be aware of the severe consequences for them if the management/union comes to know about their participation in the ‘gossiping’. The popular gossipers are treated as trouble makers by both the management and the unions. The workers who were suspected of participating in ‘gossip’ will usually be allocated the hardest tasks in the workplace, and the unions would generally refrain from challenging management’s decision related to the ‘gossipers’. There were incidents in the past where the workers who ‘talk too much’ (Naakku Neelam or longer tongue) about both the management and the unions were suspended from work for ‘lack of discipline’, and the unions reprimanded the workers, not the management. The plantation society’s disciplinary apparatus is so sophisticated (Raj, 2014) that it makes the workers paranoid about management’s informants in their day-to-day conversation about the management–union nexus. In all the three encounters of gossip discussed above, one could see that there are workers who were distancing themselves from the ‘gossiping’ although they were present throughout the gossiping sessions. They would project the gossip as unnecessary talk (veen pechu) and would warn the gossipers about the serious repercussions of participating in gossip (kicu kicu). The colloquial term of veen pechu is popular in the plantation among those who denounce gossiping about the management (mostly out of fear). In the plantation’s controlled society, those who were afraid of gossiping about management were in fact considered as weak and frightened who does not dare to resist the management/union nexus.

Encounter 2 – Jeep trip

The second encounter I discuss (recorded in May 2011) concerns gossip during what is locally called a Jeep trip from Pambanar town to the Green Valley estate. All the estates represented in the Jeep belonged to a particular company – Hilltop – and the gossip represented their general unity in feeling and opinion. The Jeep as usual was overloaded. It had a carrying capacity of 9 persons but 15 were loaded into it. The trip took about 30 minutes. I was sitting in the front seat next to the driver. There were three other passengers sitting with me in the front seat. I could barely stretch my legs or move my body because we were five in a seat made for three. Subramani who sat beside me was around 45 years old and was a supervisor in the third division¹⁰ of Green Valley estate. Two women who seemed to be in their mid-30s, in the back seat (one was Saraswathi, a worker from the Green Valley estate, and the other Ponnuthai from Kanmani estate which is located on the way to the Green Valley estate) were chatting about price rises; Saraswathi was complaining that there was no need to bring big bags to buy groceries anymore because, given the monthly income of a family, one is able to only buy groceries that fit in the smaller 50 Paise bag (ambathu paisā kūdu). Ponnuthai was nodding her head indicating that she agreed.

The conversation shifted to the topic of delayed wages, for wages had not been paid for the past two months and Saraswathi was worried. She looked at Subramani (the supervisor), and asked him if the payment of the wages would be made by the end of that week or not. Subramani looked into the Jeep’s mirror, whereby he could see Saraswathi sitting in the back and told her that the payment of part of the wages would not be made the following weekend, and there was doubt that anything would be paid for the next two weeks or more. Another worker from Kanmani estate asked Subramani about what had happened to the proposed transfer of the plantations to the New Travel Company. Subramani replied that the transfer would happen soon. The driver of the Jeep asked Subramani to give a definite answer rather than hedging his answers (angeyum ingeyum thodama solringa). Subramani looked at the driver and told him that what he (Subramani) was saying was true and it was up to the other travellers to judge what he was saying. When Subramani got out of the Jeep in the third division of Green Valley estate, the driver told me that Subramani was a liar and he did not know anything about the take-over the plantations by new companies, for Subramani would always repeat the same reply whenever he travelled in that particular Jeep. However, those who were listening to Subramani seemed to consider his opinion seriously.

Saraswathi looked at those who were sitting opposite to her in the backseat, and said that it would be good if the management distributed the wages before the opening of the school in June, for she needed to buy bags and uniforms for her children who were studying in the High school located in Pambanar town. She then said that her mother-in-law went to the manager’s office to seek an advance amount from the unpaid pension benefits in order to meet the costs of looking after her grandchildren. But the manager asked her to wait three more months, as a new company would buy the plantations and they would then pay the benefits owing. She expressed doubts about whether she would be paid and also doubts as to whether the trade union leaders would force the management to pay the wages. Nallakannu, a retired guard in the Kanmani estate who still had not received his retirement benefits, came up with his opinion: ‘We will not get anything. Everyone plundered the plantation and left. All the leaders are thieves. I wish the white people still controlled the plantations’. Murugan did not like this comment from Nallakannu as his uncle was the trade union convener in Kanmani estate. Murugan was sitting next to me. Murugan moved close to me, and whispered: ‘He (Nallakannu) thinks that he knows everything. Old people (like Nallakannu) say insane things’. Murugan now openly participated in the discussion and looking over to Saraswathi said that the plantation was going to be transferred soon for sure, and that the owed wages would be paid in the following month. Saraswathi and the others seemed to believe him, since they knew that he is the nephew of a local trade union activist and that Murugan often travelled to the administrative town of Peermade so as to meet trade union leaders. When I asked the driver about Murugan’s claims, he told me that Murugan’s visit to Peermade town was for arranging a subsidised loan for building a house, and that he did not have good connections with the union leaders.¹¹

I continued listening to the conversations in the Jeep. Although other topics such as an accident of an auto rickshaw and complaints over rationing shops came up, it was the plantation crisis that was the dominant topic. It should be noted that Saraswathi brought up the discussion of the crisis and the criticism of plantation management/unions only after Subramani got out of the jeep. Similarly, Nallakannu offered his criticisms only after Subramani left. I suspect this was because Subramani had a reputation for being very close to one of the trade union leaders and also to an assistant field officer of the Green Valley estate. He was not an accepted member of the group and was perceived as being too close to those in management positions, so he could not be included in the gossip. The gossip, in other words, was as much about affirming solidarity among the workers (see Gluckman, 1963; Jayawardena, 1968) as it was about communicating information about the crisis.

It should be noted that estate supervisors and trade unionists (as well as those who gained status from association with them) usually rode in the front seat of the Jeep. The seating pattern reflected the plantation hierarchy. The supervisors or the union conveners were expected to answer other workers sitting mostly in the back seat on issues that are concerned with the reopening of the plantations. This responsibility of the supervisors and conveners brings them the respect they enjoy as intermediaries between the workers and the controlling institutions of plantation management/trade union leaders. These intermediaries were optimistic about the transfer of the ownership when answering the workers’ questions. In other words, the rumours were authorized by the aforesaid intermediaries in these question-answer sessions. Although a few (such as the Jeep driver and Nallakannu) were sceptical about the optimism of these intermediaries, others such as Saraswathi seemed to be optimistic of the situation and believed in what Murugan had said about the negotiation process. In other words, Murugan worked to authorize the rumour which reproduced hope among the workers. Murugan’s intervention shows that the rumours sometimes appear to be used and disseminated by those in power or with perceived access to power. Assumed knowledge re-affirms their position of authority, and so they have interest in disseminating and authorizing rumours. At the same time, many of these rumours function to placate the workers, to give them false forms of hope that their unpaid wages will be paid and they will have job security. Accordingly, the re-affirmation of the authority of those in power and the reproduction of the logic of the hierarchical order under the crisis go together in the circulation of the rumours.

These Jeep-trip conversations were very much controlled and mediated by the trade union representatives or supervisors in the plantations. Murugan, who is the nephew of a union convener, was observing the conversation and would probably report it to his uncle, singling out individuals like Nallakannu who vehemently criticized the authorities and the unions. This kind of highly graded surveillance system is a potential instrument of discipline that worked to contain unrest in the crisis context. The tension between workers, unions and management in the crisis context makes everyone careful on what they gossip about and with whom they participate in the gossiping, and also about whom. The jeep travel shows the significance of the changing constitution of membership (Gluckman, 1963) and rules of conduct (Stoler, 1992: 173) for gossiping. Furthermore, the nature of gossip that could be communicated and themes of gossip that can be raised within the membership also changes as people get off and get into the jeep on the move.

The workers’ condemnation of trade union corruption is clearly evident in the gossip. Nallakannnu’s comment on union leaders as thieves pretty much reflects a popular impression about the unions in the tea belt. This is also evident in a major strike occurred in a neighbouring tea belt of Munnar in September 2015. The strike was entirely organised and led by Pembillai Orumai (Women’s Unity), a group of women workers who constitute around 70% of the tea plantation labour force. One of their major demands was to put an end to the corrupt alliance between the union leaders and the plantation companies. The women workers not only went on strike outside of the unions but actively tried to keep them out of the strike. The workers challenged the union leaders’ relatively higher social status and economic position mainly because the union leaders became better-off than the workers through corruption as they had compromised on challenging workers’ exploitation. The union leaders were as impoverished as workers a few decades back. However, the union leaders became differentiated from the workers over years as their socioeconomic status drastically increased, while the plantation workers become poorer. The workers’ discontent with the union corruption that is reflected through the gossip becomes so powerful due to the moral failure of the unions to support the workers in moments of crisis. After all, moral judgment, especially in moments of uncertainty and crisis, is a major aspect of gossiping (Venkatesan, 2009).

Encounter 3 – Muster Office

The muster office, where the workers assemble in the morning for work assignments, is one of the places where men come together to sit and chat: an everyday process of socializing. The muster office is a central place close to workers’ lines, temple/church, field officer’s bungalow and labour clubs. When it rains the group will move onto the verandah of the muster office or that of the fertilizer store or Moitheens’ tea shop to sit and chat. Every evening during my fieldwork, I used to be part of the sit-and-chat group. While many themes were brought up including cinema and politics, the concerns often raised in conversations and gossip included the question of whether there would be a new recruitment of workers (puthupathivu) or not, and if yes, who would get the new positions.

On a sunny evening in November 2011, a group of men (Kannan, Mukundan and Michael) were chatting in front of the muster office. My local friend Suresh and myself were on our way to a self-help group meeting when I noticed the heated conversation between the three men. The conversation was on the logging in the plantations by the New Travel Company which had control of the Green Valley estate after a year of conflict. The workers opposed the logging by arguing that the new management may abandon the estate once they exploited all the natural resources, mainly the trees in the plantation. Kannan and Mukundan argued about whether the trade union should be blamed for the failure to stop the plantation management from logging. Kannan was a member of one of the left-wing unions (CITU) and Mukundan was a trade union convener of the right-wing union (INTUC). Michael, who had just become a permanent worker in the estate, did not take a side and was just listening to the argument between Kannan and Mukundan. Kannan expressed his anger at the INTUC leaders for them not opposing the logging. To counter Kannan’s point, Mukundan argued that the CITU should be blamed because they were the most powerful union in the tea belt and their standpoint has a major influence over the decisions of the plantation company. Mukundan asked me if I agreed with him or not. I just smiled at him without giving any signals about which side I agreed with, which conveyed that I was just interested in observing their argument. During their argument, both Mukundan and Kannan tried to lure Suresh onto their side.

Suresh, who is a motor-bike mechanic in Pambanar, intervened and stated that all the political leaders are corrupt (ellarum kanakkuthan) and that it was futile to argue about it. Michael approved of Suresh’s opinion, exclaiming Adhu sarithan (that is correct). This conversation over logging was not an isolated one. Mukundan did not like Suresh’s comment and he informed us how the union leaders of his party had negotiated with the new company to pay the deferred retirement benefits for the retired workers, to reopen the medical dispensary and to repair the workers’ lines. Kannan disputed Mukundan’s claim and he noted how no union leaders had come to the plantation’s head office that week. Mukundan was annoyed by Kannan’s challenge, and stated that Kannan could not see the INTUC leaders going to the administrative office to negotiate with the planters because Kannan had blind faith in CITU leadership. Kannan stood up after hearing this and walked away after telling me that the conversation is getting bad and that he did not want to fight with Mukundan. After Kannan left, Michael asked Mukundan if indeed the trade union leaders had negotiated with the New Travel Company to pay the deferred benefits. Michael was convinced after Mukundan told him that he would resign from the convener position if his claims proved to be false.

Michael left after a short conversation on the dam-conflict between Tamil Nadu and Kerala. I asked Mukundan to tell me the truth if the trade union was indeed negotiating. He told me that he was not sure, but there was ‘a high probability’ that the union leaders were. While Mukundan was not sure about the visit of the leaders, he still claimed that the estate lines would be repaired and the deferred wages would be paid. Michael appeared to believe it and he would probably pass on the information to others. Mukundan, however, told me the truth because he believed that I am not part of the workforce and would not communicate his fabricated story to anyone. Furthermore, I did not take a position within the conflict between him and Kannan. I realized that Mukundan’s claim that he would resign if his claims were proved false was indeed a political gimmick. The political gimmick was used by Mukundan to defend his own and his union’s sense of moral commitment to the workers. Similarly, Kannan stressed INTUC’s failure to counter Mukundan’s claim. In a way, by gossiping about each other’s political parties and the associated trade unions, both Kannan and Mukundan wanted to uphold their own (failed) moral convictions (see Venkatesan, 2009). As Soumhya Venkatesan (2009: 85) observes in another context, ‘gossips take it as self-evident that those they are criticizing were free, like themselves, to act in a more moral way but chose not to’.

It is part of daily conversation that many workers argue for the trade unions that they are affiliated with, and a few remain silent, and blame all the political parties and the workers who actively support them. They have also discussed cinema and politics. However, the themes related to the crisis were always there in everyday gossip, and the rumours surrounding the situation of the crisis dominated. Most of the conversations were based on speculations and rumours because the workers or their dependents in the plantations were confused by the situation and they did not have access to the information related to the decisions made by the plantation management, state agencies and the trade unions. It is because of these speculations and rumours that the workers depended on the information from supervisors, local conveners of various trade unions and workers close to the plantation management, such as those who worked as servants and security guards at the plantation bungalow. These individuals often fuelled speculations about the progress of negotiations in the plantations. Gossiping becomes the only form of obtaining information in moments of uncertainty. Under crisis situation, ‘gossip becomes a way of trying to come to terms with, or negotiate, social situations’ (Rapport, 1996: 267. Quoted in Stewart and Strathern, 2004: 4).

It is evident from the discussion that the functioning of trade unions forms a major theme within the contents of gossip. The unions were supposed to be the representatives of the workers. However, the gossip shows that the workers were often alienated from the unions and highly suspicious and critical of them. The fact that the unions were closely attached to major political parties made them compromise their positions especially when those political parties were in government. The institutionalized nature of unions in the tea belt made them a legitimate authority to represent the workers. The dilemma of plantation life was that the workers were unable to project and articulate their exploitation and suffering as unjust unless the union approved and authorized this portrayal. In other words, the workers needed the permission of the unions to agitate against their socioeconomic insecurity and marginality. Here the norm is that some processes cannot be thought of as injustice until the trade unions accept it as injustice.

As mentioned before, the union leaders are from outside the plantations and there is a clear difference on the hierarchical status between the union leaders and the plantation workers based on linguistic, class, caste and ethnic differences. There is a fundamental paradox here that the trade union leaders are imported from outside for trade union activism in the tea belt. The contradictory role of the unions in the plantations belt is also evident in causing rivalry between the workers of different unions. It could be argued that the workers’ slandering and ridiculing of corrupt union leadership through gossip was an attempt to expose the moral failure of the trade union leadership. In other words, the major element of the particular gossips was judging the moral failure of the union leadership. This echoes the earlier analysis of Max Gluckman (1963), John Campbell (1964) and Soumhya Venkatesan (2009) that the element of moral judgement is what underpins gossip across societies.

Rumour and gossip in a time of crisis: Concluding analysis

Rumours and gossip in the Green Valley estate shed light on the extent to which the crisis conquered the imagination of the workers. Rumours and gossip about the crisis revealed the workers’ understanding of the crisis and also their imagination of the immediate future of the plantation production. While gossip is integral to the plantation’s social life in general, it became increasingly more focused on the economic crisis as it concerned the whole plantation workforce in the tea belt. Similarly, rumours became an important social process in the crisis context, specifically when the rumours on the transfer of the ownership of the plantations became widespread.

As mentioned before, my own impression is that the source of the rumours was possibly the plantation management and the trade unions. Plantation management used the rumours to deny or stall paying the outstanding wage payments to the workers. The trade unions needed to make the workers believe that they were actively involved in finding a solution to the suffering and deprivation of workers experienced under the temporary closure of tea production. Although rumours were often factually incorrect, they gave voice to real-life suffering in the forms of hope they projected and anticipated. As forms of social control, the rumours were not organized as a conspiracy by any authorities, but were more diffused forms of social control mediated and fed by different strategic players who knew the fears and hopes of their audience. Even when they were not sure of the rumours they knew of the importance of pretending to be sure and often, I felt, people became entrapped in this role of authorizing a new rumour to keep hope alive, to preserve a sense that the plantation community had a future.

The workers being uncertain about their future were very keen to update on the transfer of ownership or relief measures of the management, unions and the government, but only through gossip. Gossip generates solidarity against the workers’ exploitation and it is the practice through which the wounds of the economic crisis are soothed as the workers share their struggle to maintain a subsistent life. Goffman rightly observes that back-stage performances are events where wounds are licked and morale is strengthened (Goffman, 1959). Here Gluckman offers a supporting observation that

Gossip and even scandal unite a group within a larger society, or against another group, in several ways… and have the effect of maintaining the village as a village and of preventing it from becoming a collection of houses, like a housing estate. (1963: 313)

He also adds that the very phenomenon of gossip is possible only when there is a sense of belonging to a group for those who participate in the gossip. In the plantation society, the realisation of the exploitation through gossip regenerates the sense of belonging on the basis of class, caste and linguistic identity. But this process of solidarity did not bring organised resistance from the workforce in the crisis context. The circulation of rumour on the possible re-opening of the plantations plays a role in the failure to convert the solidarity into active resistance against the lock out of the company, non-intervention of the government and corruption of the unions.

The discussion on rumours and gossip, and the conversations in which they are embedded, show that they have different roles in the crisis context. While the gossip discussed here indicates that the workers are conscious of their exploitation, the rumours and the authorization of the rumours by the intermediary group of trade union conveners and supervisors provided hope for the workers. This hope in turn encouraged the workers to remain relatively quiet as there were very few demonstrations and protests organized to demand interventions by various authorities such as the state, plantation management, and to a certain extent the trade unions, in securing workers their livelihood. In other words, both Max Gluckman and James Scott are right in their own terms with regard to their emphasis on the specific relation of gossip and rumour with resistance and accommodation. They have also noted the existence of alternative possibilities to what they stressed as the most important function of gossip and rumour. This article merely illustrates the co-existence of resistance and accommodation, which results, however, from the varied and contrary functioning of gossip and rumour in the crisis context.

Footnotes

Jayaseelan Raj is now affiliated to Centre for Development Studies, India.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Bruce Kapferer, Andrew Lattas, Laura Adwan and Sruthi Herbert and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author (s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The writing of the article was supported by the LSE Department of Anthropology, Research on Inequality and Poverty, funded by the ESRC and the EU ERC Starting Grant, led by Alpa Shah and Jens Lerche.

Notes

Author biography

Jayaseelan Raj is an assistant professor at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Kerala, India, and Research Associate in the Egalitarianism Project at the Department of Anthropology, University of Bergen, Norway. He received his PhD in Anthropology from Bergen in 2014. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the London School of Economics before joining CDS. His main research interests include plantation labour in South Asia, anthropology of development, caste and class, poverty and inequality, and industrial work and social life.

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