Introduction

The tea industry is the largest organized sector which employs millions of labourers – both permanent and temporary, most of them women. Hereby, the questions on “gender” result in different discourses regarding work in the bagans (plantations). This is followed by the three most important factors- low wages, coercion and immigrant labour.[i] The tea gardens follow a plantation ideology which leads to the continuous oppression of labourers in general and female labourers in particular.[ii]

British India started to recruit migrant workers instead of local workers as they were termed “lazy natives”. They started to recruit migrant workers from mostly Central and South India through the penal and indentured labour system. These migrant workers are termed as “coolie labourers”.[iii]  The descendants of these people are now termed as “tea tribes” of Assam.[iv]

The tea tribes in Assam are among the most backward tribes in the country. They work as labourers, and live in the most inferior locations, away from the mainstream population. This results in their oppression by the tea planters. The workers live with just the basic facilities provided in the tea estates. The most common problems among the tea tribes are lack of educational facilities, poverty, poor living standards, addiction of males towards opium and country beer and no proper health facilities.[v]

Gendered Division of Labour

Half of the labour force is constituted by women. The plantation economy is a domain of political power which gets transferred to the private spaces.  There is a representation in previous works of how the women tea workers face the double burden of being labourers and of being women in particular.

Socialist feminists claim that there are conflicting interests of male capitalists and workers, on one hand, and their common interest as men in general, on the other, referring to the “dual-system approach”, including capitalism and patriarchy. As a result, the private aspect of patriarchy on tea estates is transformed into ‘public patriarchy’ through management or capitalism. Marxist feminists view work as the social process which shapes and transform the material and social spaces. It sees class as a structure, production as its results, capital as its congealed form and control as its issue. However, there is a proxy representation of women workers in trade unions, whereby their powerlessness is termed as natural. Thus, the first conflict between male and female workers is due to the distinction between women-nature-necessity and men-society-freedom.[vi]

The female labourers are seen mostly in the fields and engaged in the art of plucking. They need to remain away from their homes for at least eight hours per day, spend more extended hours at work than a man does, and also require faster speed to earn better wages. This results in higher pressure on women to increase productivity. Plantation work entails a demanding and exacting work schedule on the workers to keep labour expenses down. Also, the companies do not wish to offer long-term, protected work contracts to the workers to keep the chance open to move their capital wherever they find a more significant cost advantage.[vii]

Women workers usually perform the most hazardous work such as carrying heavy loads on uneven terrain.[viii] At times plucking is done amidst harsh climates such as scrunching heat or even in rain. Further, they are easily susceptible to water-borne diseases while in the field. Reports have shown that in some of the tea gardens, there were disproportionately high numbers of female casual workers in comparison to men. Casual workers do not receive the same benefits as permanent workers. This has impacted their life’s every aspect, including their ability to access basic social services.

There is also a gendered division of labour in tea plantations stemming from the structural imperatives of the ‘social division of labour’. Work which is exclusively done by women in the tea estates is termed as less skilled. This results in their lower status in the hierarchy of labourers.[ix] Thus, tea plantation was a development of the feudal regime which got transformed into the capitalist regime where woman’s labour is seen as only a medium of production. They faced retaliation if they protest against the management.[x]

Conclusion

The challenges and marginalization of women tea workers can be analyzed sociologically through the lens of social stratification and the intersections of gender and labour. There is a hierarchical structure which fosters gender inequities, limiting women’s access to better wages and higher status in the tea plantation economy. There is an ongoing “commodification of women’s labour” since the colonial period in the tea gardens which continues even today. Thus, there is an urgent need for comprehensive measures to empower women in the tea plantation economy. There should be initiatives undertaken by the government, management, and NGOs to come together to promote awareness programmes for the tea workers.

[i] Bhowmik, S. et al.(1996). Tea Plantation Labour in India. New Delhi: Friedrich Elbert Stiftung.  

[ii] Baruah, J. (2018). The Public Versus Private Space: The Feminization of Work in Tea Plantation. ANTYAJAA: Indian Journal of Women and Social Change. 3 (2): 207-217. Sage Publications.

[iii] Sharma, J. (2009). “Lazy” Natives, Coolie Labour and the Assam Tea Industry. Modern Asian Studies. 43(6): 1287-1324. Cambridge University Press.

[iv] Das, K., et al. (2022). Exploitation in Small Tea Gardens of Assam. Economic and Political Weekly. 57(35).

[v] Das Gupta, A. (2016). The Socio-economic and Health Challenges of Labourers in the Tea Gardens of Assam, HR and Leadership Challenges for Business in India.

[vi] Baruah, (2018). The Public Versus Private Space: The Feminization of Work in Tea Plantation. ANTYAJAA: Indian Journal of Women and Social Change. 3 (2): 207-217. Sage Publications.

[vii] Baruah, P. (2008). The Tea Industry of Assam: Origin and Development. Guwahati: EBH Publishers.

[viii] Kushwah, R. A. (2022). Women In The Tea Industry: Gender Roles, Unequal Pay, And Feudal Structures Disadvantage Female Labourers. Feminism in India.

[ix] Baruah, (2018). The Public Versus Private Space: The Feminization of Work in Tea Plantation. ANTYAJAA: Indian Journal of Women and Social Change. 3 (2): 207-217. Sage Publications.

[x] FIAN International et al. (2016). A Life Without Dignity – The Price of Your Cup of Tea: Abuses and Violations of Human Rights in Tea Plantations in India. Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition.

***

Vaishali Saikia is a PhD Research Scholar in the Department of Sociology, Pondicherry University.