TRATANDO DE DEDUCIR EL MENSAJE

Palash Chandra Modak1

Abstract:

Since the inception of tea industry in North Bengal during the colonial period, women have had an overwhelming presence in this industry in comparison to their overall work participation rates in the state. But their lives and experiences have not received adequate attention in the Indian plantation labour historiography. This paper presents the socio- economic status of the women in tea garden areas. This paper focuses on the significant factor of socio-economic life of the Adivasi women of the North Bengal’s tea garden. In the paper I have tried to find out the factors that are responsible for the low level of social development in tea garden areas and also made some fruitful recommendations.

Key words: Tea Garden, North Bengal, Women Labour, Socio-economic condition

Introduction:

India is one of the major tea producer and exporter in the world. In the mid-18th century, the British introduced a new kind of economy

in India, the ‘plantation’ mainly tea. There was a huge demand for

tea in England which was supplied by China in exchange of bullion. But with the Charter Act of 1833, abolished the trade between British India and China as a result of which tea plantation was introduced in India to supplement the growing demand for tea in the world market. To work in the tea gardens, labours were indentured from various places. But the labours were subjected to inhuman conditions of living and the women labours faced gender discrimination as far as wages were concerned. They received less pay than their male counterparts. Further women were subject to more exploitation like the European

‘sahibs’ used to deflower the newly married virgin wives of the tea 1 Teacher at Siliguri College (under North Bengal University)

garden workers. Therefore, violence against women in the tea gardens can be traced from the time of the colonial rule. In the post-colonial period, the violence against women in the tea gardens has increased.

They face the problem of sexual abuse, vulnerability to flesh trade

and domestic violence.

Among the teas cultivated in India, the most celebrated one comes from North Bengal. The best of India’s prized Darjeeling and

Dooars Tea are considered the world’s finest tea. This region has been

cultivating and producing tea since the last 150 years. This paper deals upon the negligence and high handedness of tea management towards the social and economic development of women tea workers. Women’s labour force participation in the tea plantation industry of North Bengal has a very long history. The plantation labour historiography

in India all through has almost ignored the specificities underlying the

experiences of women tea workers in the process of their becoming the majority of the labouring class in North Bengal’s tea industry (Sen, 2004). This paper makes use of a variety of secondary sources of data in order to trace this historical trajectory of women’s labour force participation in the tea industry of North Bengal. Various archival sources of information, like old census documents, reports of various government committees and commissions, planters’ associations, newspaper reports etc. have been used for this purpose.

Women Tea Workers in Colonial North Bengal:

The history of the development of the plantation industry in the

districts of North Bengal dates back to the early fifties of the 19th

century when the English entrepreneurs took lease of extensive land area on the mountain slopes of the Darjeeling Himalaya and Terai- Dooars region and started tea plantation for commercial purpose. During the formative years of the introduction of the plantation industry these region was sparsely populated so labourers from various parts of India and her neighbouring countries were encouraged to settle in the fringe areas of the tea and cinchona gardens. Several scholars have documented historically; the social, economic, political and health

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conditions of the largely indentured population in both overseas and Indian plantations. North Bengal after Assam is one of the largest tea producing regions in India. Its got increased during the colonial rule with the establishment of tea estates in the hilly tract of Darjeeling and in the lower plain regions of Dooars and Terai in north Bengal to cater to trade by the second half of the 20th century.

The then superintendent of Darjeeling, Dr. Campbell and Major

Crommelin are said to have first introduced tea in Darjeeling Himalaya

during the period of 1840-50 on experimental basis out of the seeds

imported from China. According to the available records, the first

commercial tea gardens were planted in 1852. Darjeeling was then a very sparsely populated region and was only used as a hill resort. Tea

being a labour intensive industry needed sufficient number of workers to plant, tend, pluck and finally manufacture the produce. Hence, people

from the neighbouring regions, mainly Nepal, were encouraged to immigrate and engage as labourers in the tea gardens. It appears that by the year 1866, Darjeeling had 39 tea gardens producing a total crop of 21,000 kg of tea. In 1870, the number of gardens increased to 56 to produce about 71,000 kg of tea harvested from 4,400 hectares. By

1874, tea cultivation in Darjeeling was found to be a profitable venture

and there were 113 gardens with approximately 6000 hectares. Today there are 87 registered gardens sprawled across the geographical area of 20,200 hectares.

In Assam and North Bengal, the wage rates were fixed at such low

levels that even the family income of the worker was below subsistence levels. In turn, the employers boasted of providing employment to family workers also, a system that was not provided by any other industry in the region. W. I. McKercher, the then Chairman of the Assam Branch of the Indian Tea Association, told the Royal Commission that there was work available for the women and children of the tea plantation workers, something that was not done in a coal mine or oil

field. Even the Enquiry Commission of 1868 agreed that the wages

the minimum wages prescribed by the Bengal Act ill of 1865. In Assam, for the indentured labour, the average monthly wages were Rs.3.00 for men and about half for women, whereas the Bengal Act of 1865 had prescribed a monthly wage of Rs 5.00 for men, Rs 4.00 for women and Rs 3.00 for children. This was only an average wage paid and there was no uniformity in the wages. The Planters did

not want Government interference in fixing the rates. This was also observed by A. Guha in his book ‘Planter Raj to Swaraj; Freedom

Struggle and Electoral Politics in Assam - 1826 to 1947’ (ICHR, New Delhi, 1977, p.45), wherein he wrote that this system of paying wages lower than the prescribed by the Government, was in force even up to 1901. At the same time, the free workers in the PWD and Railways received a minimum monthly wage of Rs 7.00. In D. E.

Currjel’s report, ‘Women Labour in Bengal Industries, 1922 – 23’

(p.94 - 98), women’s wages in tea plantations lay between Rs.4/- to Rs.9/- per month. This included incentive wages.

The tea industry of Jalpaiguri District is situated on a vast area of Dooars Region. A large number of poor people worked here. The tea industry of Bengal was established in Darjeeling district by the English tea planters in the decade of 1840. A vast area of Dooars was captured by the English after Anglo-Bhutan war (1864-1865). After the establishment of Jalpaiguri District in 1869, the tea gardening was opened on the bank of Tista River near Gajoldoba by Richard Haughton, the pioneer of the tea industry in the Jalpaiguri district, in 1874. In this regard, English tea planter Dr. Brougham, former minister of education, played an active role. From D.H.E. Sunder’s Settlement Report it appeared that the tea industry in this district began in 1874-75

and the first lease issued to 22 gardens in 1877. Gradually, so many

tea gardens were set up after the settlement of Gajoldoba tea garden. Tea garden workers of Jalpaiguri district played an important role in Colonial Indian society. The society will never be complete without the involvement and contribution of workers. So, it is necessary to study the socio-economic condition of the workers. The study on the socio-economic condition of tea plantation workers of Jalpaiguri

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district is important from sociological, historical and anthropological point of view. Tea garden workers in Jalpaiguri district in general and women in particular, have, long been a disadvantaged, deprived, under-served, exploited and alienated group. The tea garden labourers of Jalpaiguri district were not free from coercive methods of labour control. Direct as well as indirect, and sometimes outright terrorization techniques were used by the planters and their agents in procuring labour, putting them to work and keeping them under control. The Dooars plantation labour was wage labour put under various types of non-economic constraints which severely restricted the mobility of labour and it turned out as labour held in bondage in a free market.

In case of Darjeeling tea plantations, there is another additional factor which has led to the preponderance of female workforce. During the colonial period, the British deployed the Gurkha soldiers, recruited from among the Nepali migrants in Darjeeling, to suppress

nationalist movements and also to fight battles for the British Empire

across the globe during the World Wars. Because of this, while more and more Nepali men were sent away from Darjeeling, the female Nepali labourers remained on the tea plantations (Besky, 2014). As a result, between 1939 and 1944, the number of women workers

compared to male workers increased significantly in the Darjeeling

tea plantations, thereby changing the gender makeup of the labour force in favour of women (Dash, 1947).

Apart from these ‘pull’ factors, there are certain ‘push’ factors

which have also resulted in the preponderance of women in the labour force of tea industry in North Bengal. During this period, the labour catchment areas for the tea estates of north-east India experienced massive migration of labourers, especially that of vulnerable, poor, peasant deserted women labourers, resulting from factors like expansion of opportunities of wage employment in new sites of capitalist production (mainly the North-eastern plantation economies) rural impoverishment in the countryside following from colonial revenue policies, abusive family situations and commercialisation of agriculture and spiralling rent demands. Thus it can be said that the naturalisation of tea work

as women’s work and the feminisation of tea labour is an outcome of historical developments in the North Bengal region and the major social and economic processes that took place in the labour catchment areas, entangled with the colonial military and economic projects of the British colonial planters and administrators and that the general relationship between capital and labour, especially women’s labour, is

remade in specific locations, as found in slightly different relationship

between the two prevailing in Darjeeling in comparison to Dooars. Even the pregnant women coolies were also subjected to the strictest discipline of the planters and were not spared from arduous plantation even during the maternity period.

Showering of abusive language on the ‘native’ labour force in

the day-to-day tea plantation life is it at the workplace or the Sahib’s

bungalow became a ‘natural’ routine for the planters to enforce

strictest form of discipline on them. Women workers were also not spared from this kind of abusive behaviours. As as found in a colonial planter W. M. Fraser’s recollection of memories of a senior manager

admonishing the women labourers: ‘The ground become strewn

with bad leaf, while from one woman to the other went admonishing Thomson, his tongue and hands fully employed’ (cited in Behal, 2010:39). Apart from methods like trickery, coercion or surveillance

against women, one can find high incidence of sexual threat (in the form of rape and assault and violation of ‘honour’) posed by the

white European planters, managers and the native supervisory staffs on the women workers in the tea plantations of Assam and Dooars, as reported consistently in the nationalist discourse in India from the end of the nineteenth century. This characterisation of planters as sexually abusing working class women in the colonial tea plantations assumed legendary proportions when compared to such incidences among women jute mill workers in colonial Bengal.

The wages of the plantation workers had not been revised since 1865. The British Planters purposely kept the wages low for the following reasons:

● As labour was short and workers were housed in colonies

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(labour lines) where they lived with their families, the women were bound to take up work to meet their daily needs. With women working, the masters gained efficient field workers with higher productivity than the men. In addition, the colonies being maintained by the Companies, and with all members of households working, the Companies had sufficient workers at lower infrastructure costs.

● In the days of indenture of labour from other states, when a worker arrived at a garden he was paid Rs.12.00 for himself and Rs. 8.00 for his wife. This was done because such workers usually came from very poor backgrounds and the Planters gave them the money to buy necessary items to start

a household. This was known as ‘Agreement’ or ‘Girmif’

money. While receiving such payments, the recipient had to sign for the same but while receiving their weekly wages, they did not have to sign for it. This created an impression in the minds of the illiterate workers that they had signed some form of Bond, whereby they were not allowed to leave the estate. Therefore, they worked for the low wages paid to them out of fear of reprisal. This suited the employers’ intentions of ensuring that the workers could never save enough money to leave the estate. Also, when a worker retired, he was given money in the form of gratuity.

Present Status of the Women Tea Workers of North Bengal: It has been noticed that some of the northern districts of West Bengal like Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling became relatively backward in economic prosperity because of the closure of tea gardens which initiate some social ills like Gender- based violence which consist

of the domestic violence, trafficking etc. became dominant. In 2003

- 2004, the daily wages of tea garden workers in Assam is Rs.48.50, while in the Dooars and Darjeeling it is Rs.32.30. This is exclusive

of all fringe benefits.

tea producing districts- Jalpaiguri ranks tenth and Darjeeling fourth out of 18 districts of west Bengal. Literacy rate is relatively high in Darjeeling with 81.28 % for males and 63.92 % for females with school enrolment rate of only 51.9. As per census 2001 the total population of this district is 3,401,173 of which 18.87 % are S.T.s and 36.71 % are S.C.s. The literacy rate for S.T. (male) is 31.69 % and 12.52 % (female) and S.C. it is 54.82 % and 26.57 % respectively. Female literacy is astonishing by low in the case of the S.T. in Jalpaiguri. If we take into account the gender disaggregated data with respect to GER for class 10-11 (2008-2009), overall GER for Jalpaiguri district is 21.28; but boys it is 23.37 and girls it is 19.07. Figures for Darjeeling girls are much lower with 18.62 as compared to boys with

26.79. The figures for west Bengal are also not positive with GER

-23.77 for boys and 19.03 for girls respectively. There are other worse performing districts in west Bengal with respect to such indicators that require a separate examination. Another important indicator i.e. the repetition rate was found to be highest for Darjeeling for children of 5+ to 8+ years group with 35.0 % and for the 9+ to 13+ year’s group with 17.45 % respectively. Drop outs rates for both these groups were higher in Darjeeling as compared to Jalpaiguri. Many factors such as quality of education, accessibility to schools in terms of distance and time for female members to drop the children to school during work hrs. disinterest of both teachers and children etc. perhaps

could be attributed to such dismal figures for Darjeeling. Low school

enrolment rate in Jalpaiguri district also is linked to factors such as inaccessibility to schools given the isolated geographical locations of the tea estates and most importantly, the medium of instruction. There are very few Hindi-medium primary schools and majority of the secondary schools that are proximity are in Bengal medium. A complete absence of vocational training institute for skill development and thus alternate employment opportunities have perpetuated high levels of out-migration on the hand and an emerging phenomenon of labour shortage in plantations on the other.

Ms. Sayantani Roy (Amity University, M.P.) in her article on “Women Labour in the Tea Gardens of West Bengal: Changing

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Orientation and Emerging Challenges” depicts that lots of women, girls are have migrated from North Bengal’s tea gardens to several states for earning purpose but after that they did not come back to their home and they are missing. The tea garden women workers are not only deprived of various rights but also face various other problems inside the tea gardens. They are facing various social, economic and health related problems such as: Poor health care facility, maternal mortality, problems of epidemics of various diseases, scarcity of drinking water, early marriage, child labour, alcoholism, illiteracy and superstition belief etc. Till the Equal Remuneration act was passed in 1976, women workers were paid lower wages than their counterparts. Apart from this women are always kept in the category of daily rated workers and are never promoted to the supervisory category known

as sub staff. In the trade unions too, one rarely finds women worker

as a leader. We have Sardars but no Sardarnis (female counterparts of Sardars). There are only few cases where women form the leadership of the plantation unit of a trade union and that is also because when there were no competent male leaders at that time. Hence, division of sexes is prevalent in all aspects of the workers lives (from work load, wages to leadership). One of the important reasons for their backwardness