Abstract
The conditions of tea-plantation workers in Assam were a crying scandal under British rule, and the author in this title gives us a description of the ways in which the indentured labourers were treated and the extent to which the leaders of the national movement took up their cause. All this is well done. On only a few points one would like to enter for some qualifications. Tea cultivation began in Assam well before the 1850s, and then expanded entirely under the control of Europeans whose capital had in large part been raised in India. The author lays emphasis on the relationship between famine-driven labour and extension of tea plantations, which suggests as if the Assam plantations’ entire labour supply came from the districts of Chota Nagpur and Santhal Parganas. While the role of famines in other areas in driving labour into Assam cannot be denied, Assam itself was also a major source of labour employed in plantations. ‘The Report of the Assam Labour Enquiry Committee, 1906’ (published in S.D. Punekar and R. Varickayil, eds., Labour Movement in India, Documents: 1850–1890, Vol-I, 1989, New Delhi, pp. 136–37), makes this clear by a table which shows that in 1885 as many as 29,398 labourers came from Assam and Surma valleys, and only 9,790 came from Chota Nagpur and Santhal Parganas. In 1900, the corresponding figures were 44,534 and 17,605. Santhal labour was admittedly an important factor in that, employed under notoriously oppressive conditions, their recruitment enabled the planters to reduce wage costs for un-indentured local labour as well. To this extent, the author is right in stressing the regressive role of ‘labour contracts’ system and its impact on wages in the plantations. Perhaps, the author in his discussion on wages could also have looked into the question of sharp price variations during 1818–90 in contrast to subsequent decades 1891–1900 and 1901–10 when the railways had been extended into Assam. The planters were keen on railway extension for enabling them not only to export tea at low costs, but also to reduce wages as prices fell upon railway extension.
The third chapter deals with the emergence of indigenous tea companies, who naturally enough received step-motherly treatment from the colonial state that brazenly supported the interests of the European planters. A few great European managing agency houses, controlling droves of European plantation companies, created a monopoly-like situation in which they prevented any local entrants into the tea-plantation industry. The European controlled banks, especially the Presidency Bank or later the Imperial Bank (1921), also mainly served the interests of the European managing agencies. Between 1928 and 1947, the numbers of tea-gardens under Indian entrepreneurs, nevertheless, showed a rising trend in comparison to those of European planters. Still the area under European planters continued to be proportionally larger than under their Indian counterparts. Even in 1947 the Indian-owned plantation comprised only 257,414 acres while 1,191,278 acres were under European control.
The author finds himself closer to the views of Bipan Chandra and Aditya Mukherjee that the fear of the left or popular movements from below led Indian planters either to surrender to, or strike a compromise and collaborate with, British officialdom. The author considers this factor while discussing the impact of Gandhi, and his non-cooperation movement (1920–22) on Assam. The next phase 1930–39 saw labour unrest partly inspired by the Congress with visits of leaders like Subhash Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, and socialists such as Sajjad Zaheer (misspelt Jahir), S.S. Batliwala and Dr Z.A. Ahmed, who tried to arouse and help organise plantation labour. The author has some perceptive remarks to make about the relative failure of Communists in the domain of working class movement of Assam that are worth notice.
The book under review originated as a PhD thesis and still bears marks of its original form. This perhaps may be overlooked in view of the solid factual material that the book provides.