Tea garden worker required to pick 24 kgs of tea a day. Credit: Sukti Dhital
In 1894, Rev. Charles Dowding, a missionary based in Assam, India wrote “[l]ow wage-rate and high death-rate are convertible terms,” a devastating statement that remains true to this day. Producing more than 52% of India’s tea, the north eastern state of Assam is home to the largest tea-growing region in the world. While most of it is sold in the domestic market, Assam tea is consumed worldwide, and constitutes a core part of the ‘English breakfast’ blend. Less known, however, is the 175-year history of colonial to corporate exploitation.
Forcibly brought by the British in the 1840s from the central regions of the country - Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh - thousands of the Adivasi indigenous people began a journey marked by involuntary servitude. Left with no option but to live and work on the tea plantations, the workers became isolated from Assam’s mainstream in a structure designed to maintain control and produce profit.
