Female Labour in 

Tea Plantations: Labour

Process and Labour Control

Ashmita Sharma

INTRODUCTION
Plantation labour, in contrast to the characteristics of both industrial and
agricultural labour, is unique in a number of ways. Based on the cultiva-
tion of a type of crop, the plantation, as defined by the Plantation Labour
Act (PLA) 1951,1 creates a distinction between the plantation labour force
and the agricultural labour force. The former is more akin to industrial
labourers who are also wage earners, without a connection to the land
they work on. However, the plantation labour force is differentiated from
its industrial counterpart by: the seasonal nature of their work; low wage
levels; permanently settled residence on the plantations; mode of pay-
ment; mechanisms of labour control; and geographical location away from
the cities. As a result of these variations, the plantation labour force sits
between agriculture and industry.

A. Sharma ()
Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies, School of Development Studies,
Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, India
e-mail: ashmitasharma31@gmail.com

© The Author(s) 2016 111

B. Fernandez et al., Land, Labour and Livelihoods,
Gender, Development and Social Change,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40865-1_6
112 A. SHARMA

This chapter analyses the particular characteristics of the tea plantation

labour force and the changes associated with its development throughout
history, from pre-capitalist to contemporary times. The chapter accounts
for the preferential demand for women workers and their significant con-
tribution to sustaining the plantation economy. In this context, the objec-
tive is to critically analyse the gender relations and practices underlying the
employment of female labour in tea plantations, with a specific focus on
the organisation of labour processes and the subsistence economy.
The chapter is based on a study conducted at the Majuli Tea Estate,2
located in a small town called Doomdooma, in the Tinsukia district of
Assam. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, fieldwork was
conducted over a period of five months from May 2014 to September
2014. Semi-structured in-depth interviews, a structured survey method
and case studies were used to probe the research questions. In this
chapter, the names of respondents have been changed to maintain
confidentiality.
The paper is divided into three main sections. The first section dis-
cusses the history of the formation of the plantation labour force under
the influence of colonial capitalism. Based on interviews and primary
accounts from the field, the second section provides a detailed description
of how the labour process in tea plantations is gendered by making refer-
ence to the role of women workers within changing labour processes and
relations of production. The third section explores the existence of the
non-capitalist subsistence economy as an essential mode of sustaining the
capitalist plantation sector. It also discusses women’s access and claims to
land rights.

COLONIALISM AND MOBILISATION OF LABOUR

IN TEA PLANTATIONS

Colonialism was instrumental in shaping the tea plantation labour force

in Assam. A distinctive feature that characterised the colonial tea planta-
tion sector was that it was already a capitalist venture in which terms and
conditions of employment were dictated by the British capitalist class. In
Marxist terms, colonial capitalism was instrumental in creating a ‘formally
free’ wage labour force for plantations, in contrast to the ‘unfree labour’
in pre-capitalist times. While juridically the plantation labour force was
‘free’ to move in and out of the occupational structure, as we shall see, the
reality was very different.
 FEMALE LABOUR IN TEA PLANTATIONS: LABOUR PROCESS AND LABOUR… 113

Procurement of Labourers
From the start, given the intensive nature of the labour processes on tea
plantations, it was understood that labour was the tea industry’s major
mainstay. Although the Nagas and the Singphos were already employed on
the tea estates, the British East India Company’s administration was initially
convinced that only Chinese tea growers could make tea growing fruitful in
the region (Sharma 2006). When the efforts to import Chinese labourers to
work on the tea plantations of Assam proved futile, British planters turned
their attention to procuring labourers locally and from neighbouring areas
like Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh
through sardars (male supervisory staff in the plantations) and individual
agents (Weiner 1978). The Adivasis (original inhabitants or indigenous
people) in these areas were undergoing dispossession of their lands and live-
lihoods with the incursion of outsiders, the dikus (outsiders or foreigners),
merchants and landlords (Chatterjee 2003). Adivasis were alienated from
their lands by these politically and economically dominant groups, which
compelled them to seek work as plantation labourers in Assam and North
Bengal. However, plantation owners soon realised that these labour pro-
curement channels met with poor results, as recruited labourers escaped
from plantations before the termination of their contracts.

Family Recruitment: A Gendered Form of Labour Control

In the initial phase of the plantation industry, only males were hired to
work on the plantations. British planters realised that this was not produc-
tive, because men either returned home on the termination of their con-
tracts or absconded from plantations, flouting the terms and conditions
of their contract. As a result, family recruitment policies were instituted,
which became a powerful tool in aiding the migration of men, women
and children to north-eastern India. Family migration largely served three
purposes. Firstly, it provided cheap labour, as all members of the family
—men, women and children—were employed, rather than individual
workers. Secondly, making use of women’s reproductive labour, family
migration ensured the reproduction of a future workforce, which eased the
problem of further recruitment. Finally, family recruitment also ensured
that workers did not return to their native lands on the termination of
their employment contracts (Bhowmik and Sarkar 1998). The tradition
of family-based employment has continued and planters have employed
114 A. SHARMA

a large number of women workers as a strategy for keeping wages low

(ibid.). Only women who were accompanied by their male counterparts
were permitted to work on the plantations (Chatterjee 2003).
We see therefore that, from the outset, instead of market mechanisms,
force—both overt and covert—was used by British planters to mobilise the
labour force (Gupta 1992). The unequal relationship between the planters
and the workers after the 1920s gave rise to the growth of a working class
movement and the birth of trade unions within the tea plantation industry.

GENDERING THE LABOUR PROCESS: CONTROL OVER

WOMEN’S WORK
The transition from colonial to post-colonial plantations is not only char-
acterised by the changing relations of production, but also by associated
changes in the nature of work, patterns of employment, occupational
structure and the everyday life of plantation workers. Taking the case of
the Majuli Tea Estate, this section of the paper discusses the position of
female labour in tea plantations by exploring themes covering work and
family, gendered nature of tasks in the tea plantations, gendered structure
of the plantation labour force, discrimination in the wage payment system
and effects of mechanisation on women working in the tea factory.

Work and Family
Under capitalism, while the division of labour is constructed in terms of
class position, it is reinforced and mutually constituted by gender, caste,
race and other such social distinctions. Patriarchy coupled with capitalism
systematically devalues women’s work both inside and outside the home.
As we shall see, women’s engagement in the social reproduction of the
family was seen as both invisible and unacknowledged labour. While wom-
en’s role as tea pickers was glorified, their simultaneous responsibilities
at home remained unaccounted for. Women workers of Majuli expressed
how they were compelled to do double the work of men on the plantation
for a large part of the year, that is, as a housewife and as a full time labourer
(see also in this context, Boserup 1970).
Suboti Tanti, a permanent tea leaf plucker said:

My daily routine in the garden begins early morning at 3:00 am. I wake up,
take a bath and get down to begin my household chores for the day. I clean
the house first, fetch water, clean the used pots and then cook for myself and
my children. Since the plucking section is … quite a distance from my home,
 FEMALE LABOUR IN TEA PLANTATIONS: LABOUR PROCESS AND LABOUR… 115

I pack my lunch so that I do not have to walk all the way back home or
starve for food in the field. I cook enough food so that it’s sufficient for my
children as well. I have to take care of everything on my own. I do not even
earn enough [money] but I am still trying to educate my children. I reach
the plucking section by 7:30 am or [at the] latest by 8:00 am. After spending
the entire day in the field we disperse from work at 5:00 pm or 6:00 pm in
the evening. We work overtime but never get paid for [doing so]. After get-
ting back home my routine [reverts] back to square one. Once work in the
plucking section is over, work at home begins. This is the story of my life.3

This is the daily routine of Suboti Tanti. Describing the daily routine of
the female estate workers using this account is important for two reasons:
firstly, this routine is not unique to Suboti Tanti’s life, it describes the lives
of thousands of tea leaf pickers working at Majuli Tea Estate. Secondly,
this account provides us with an understanding of the various types of
tasks and expectations a woman worker is confronted with on a daily basis.
The men on the estate supported the natural assignment of their role as
breadwinners and that of their wives as caregivers. Such a situation not only
made the lives of women difficult, but also created a fretful atmosphere,
with mounting pressure on women to perform better in both the work-
place and the domestic space. This performance pressure stemmed from
the gendered myths on which the plantation system rests, that women
workers were the best workers and served as nurturers of the tea garden.

‘Do Nimble Fingers make Better Workers?’: The Gendered Nature

of Plantation Tasks
The senior manager of Majuli Tea Estate asserted that it was only because
of the women workers that the garden was safe from natural catastrophes,
like wildfire and animal grazing, as well as from human threats such as the
theft of tea leaves. The manager stated that the women treated the garden
as their own home, with genuine love and care. Supporting the views of
the senior manager, the factory manager asserted that leaf plucking was a
tedious job and only women who were born with this skill could perform
this task every day with the required precision.
The accounts from these two managers on the perceived tenacity, will-
ingness and genuineness of the women workers evoke two important
aspects regarding the patterns of employment of women as leaf pluck-
ers. The first is that there has been a systemic ‘entrenchment’ of gender
stereotypes within the relations of production in the plantation economy.
Such a systemic structural conditioning of the plantation suggests that
116 A. SHARMA

plantations are, in essence, patriarchal institutions, where gender discrim-

ination is incorporated into the labour regime and the social hierarchy
of the plantations. In the context of Sri Lanka, Kurian and Jayawardena
(2013) labelled this ‘plantation patriarchy’, a comprehensive set of con-
trols on plantations stemming from colonialism, race, caste, ethnicity,
religion, region and cultural practices that incorporate social hierarchies
and gender biases into the structure of the labour regime and the social
organisation of plantations.
Secondly, while women’s work in the plantations as tea leaf pickers was
fetishised, celebrated and romanticised, it was simultaneously economi-
cally devalued. The fetishisation of women’s work was based on the belief
that there existed a natural differentiation, produced by the innate capaci-
ties and personality attributes of women in contrast to men.4 Thus, this
essentialisation and feminisation of women’s work, and their subordina-
tion as a gender, legitimised patriarchal authority and wage structures in
the plantation industry. Such an attitude towards women’s work has been
an historical justification found in ‘waged production’ from plantations to
factories (Chaudhuri 2013).
There is a wide variety of forms of labour, of institutions of labour
hire and of forms of remuneration in agriculture in South Asia. While
some field operations are labour intensive but cover short periods of time,
others are also labour intensive but are carried out over a longer time
(Ramachandran 1990). In fact, the most labour-intensive task on the tea
estate was the pata tula (plucking of tea leaves) of the flush or imma-
ture leaves that appeared on the tea bush. Plucking was generally done by
women and adolescent girls who had learnt the skills from their mothers
(Kurian 1998).
Field data shows that the life of a tea plucker is both severe and danger-
ous in many ways. The official number of working hours for agricultural
labourers is eight hours, though this is not constant and varies greatly
according to the nature of the tasks. This is particularly true for women
tea leaf pickers, especially during the peak plucking season, when the first
layer of fresh, bright green leaves can be discerned amid the older, darker
foliage. It is during the tea bushes’ first cycle, called the first flush, that
tea garden management is geared towards making maximum profit at the
expense of the workers’ hours. The skills required for these tasks are learnt
on the job and preference is generally given to those who have been asso-
ciated with the estates for a significant part of their lives. There is a high
level of supervision at every stage of the task to ensure that workers are
doing their job properly and sincerely.
 FEMALE LABOUR IN TEA PLANTATIONS: LABOUR PROCESS AND LABOUR… 117

GENDERED STRUCTURE OF THE PLANTATION

LABOUR FORCE
One of the major points of division in the labour force is the categorisation of
labourers into permanent and faltu, or temporary workers. In Majuli, while
permanent workers are assured a steady flow of labour supply, casual workers
make up the reserve army of labour for meeting the demands of the planta-
tion in times of need or crisis. While women formed a significant part of the
labour force, data shows that with the progressive increase of land under tea
cultivation, a casualisation of the labour force, particularly women, increased
from 2013 to 2014. Table 6.1 shows the distribution of workers in the field
by work status and gender. While 64 per cent of the male workers in the field
were permanent, only 49 per cent of the female workers were permanent.
However, as far as casual workers were concerned, the percentage of female
workers stood at 51 per cent against only 36 per cent male workers, showing
an increase in the casualisation of the female labour force.
Being employed on a temporary basis for no more than six to seven
months a year, these casual workers were forced to stretch their day for
the maximum number of hours in order to earn the maximum personal
remuneration. This was because of the temporary nature of their work,
which gave leverage to overseers to exploit them. Monti Tanti, a casual tea
leaf picker residing in a nearby basti (village) stated:

When we pluck leaves there is always some ambiguity in the estimation of

weight. We do not get equal return for the work we do. The sardars and
the babus coerce us to produce the maximum, saying that we [only] have six
months [in which] to earn the maximum. Their only motive is to exploit us.
The sardar and the hazira babus [observe] our reporting time[s] [closely].
The morning shift begins at 7:30 am. We start our journey [to the planta-
tion] by 6:00 am from our respective villages. But when the sardar com-
mands us to keep working past 5:00 pm, it really becomes difficult for us to
walk back alone after sunset. It is not safe! We hear of incidents everyday.5

The above narrative also suggests the importance of discussing the grow-
ing incidence of everyday violence confronted by plantation workers.
Since plantations are located in remote areas, they often become inacces-
sible to resident and non-resident workers, particularly women, and par-
ticularly in the evenings. The lack of infrastructure—schools and colleges,
market places, hospitals, roads, street lighting, toilets and so on—within
the plantation area also compels workers to travel long distances to meet
their daily needs.
 118
A. SHARMA

Table 6.1 Distribution of male and female workers in the field by work status, Majuli Tea Estate, 2013–2014, in number
and per cent
Male–Field Female–Field

Work status Number of Percentage Labour Percentage Number of Percentage Labour Percentage share
workers share of days share of workers share of days of labour days
workers labour days workers

Permanent 55 64.0 15,980 73.8 71 49.0 21 731 58.8

Casual (faltu) 31 36.0 5669 26.2 74 51.0 15 234 41.2
Total 86 100 21 649 100 145 100 36 965 100
Source: Household Survey, Majuli Tea Estate, 2014
 FEMALE LABOUR IN TEA PLANTATIONS: LABOUR PROCESS AND LABOUR… 119

The frightening regularity with which incidents of killings, murders,

looting and dacoity occur within plantations renders the lives of women
extremely difficult. Monica Porja expressed how her father-in-law went miss-
ing and the family later discovered that he had been murdered. In another
incident, she talked about how adolescent girls were being kidnapped from
the tea estate. Many women workers at Majuli reported the grave neglect
of women’s safety by the management. With a view to preventing attacks,
many women workers expressed their preference for moving in dols (small
groups) after five pm in the evenings for their personal safety. Such frequent
incidences and the scale of violence impinge on women’s rights to access the
plantation space without fear and with a sense of belonging.

Nature of Work and System of Payment

A well-established characteristic of plantation labour and its wage system
has been the low wage earnings of individual workers. This was effected
as a basic mechanism for forcing the entire family—including children—to
participate in wage work in the gardens or the labour market, and to thereby
ensure the reproduction of labour (Gupta 1986). It is through the existence
of casual labour within the same families that management succeeded in
keeping the general wage level low. When the trade unions negotiated for
higher wages for both temporary and permanent workers through wage
revision every three years, the management’s usual response was to reduce
the casual labour force. This created a dilemma for the workers, since higher
wages would inevitably increase their individual incomes, but the reduced
casual labour would decrease the household income. As a result of this, the
general wage level was inevitably scaled down (Bhowmik 2009).

Discrimination in the Wage System and Piece-rated Tasks

The plantation system was finely tuned to complete the maximum num-
ber of nirics (pre-set tasks assigned to workers, where there is pressure and
competition to cover as much as possible and where workers are not given
the freedom to stop when they want because of coercion or low wages)
via a production process differentiated along the lines of gender and age.
The most important task—picking two leaves and the bud—was entrusted
to women and young girls at relatively lower wages, while the highest
wages were earned by men conducting indoor factory processing work
along with the babus (plantation employees belonging to the category of
sub-staff paid monthly) and the sardars (Sharma 2006). Field data reveals
120 A. SHARMA

that the wage rate for daily workers during the year 2013–2014 was Rs.
84 for an eight-hour work day, increased to Rs. 94 in the year 2014–2015,
which was much lower than the national minimum wage fixed at Rs. 137 per
day and the minimum wage for unskilled tea plantation workers in Assam
which was Rs. 169 per day.6 Furthermore, for certain on-field operations
like pesticide application, men were paid five rupees more than women.
The difference in the plantation work schedule for men and women
workers resulted in male workers being able to earn extra cash because
male workers were mostly involved in task-based work, which they fin-
ished within a few hours in the morning. This left them with the opportu-
nity to either engage in additional non-plantation horticultural activities,
such as being a casual wage labourer, home-based vegetable gardening or
cultivating small-scale tea gardens of their own. Studies by scholars like
Samarasinghe (1993) confirmed the same for workers in Sri Lanka.
Payment in the tea garden was generally based on piece-rates related
to the completion of allotted tasks. Generally, during the earlier years of
the plantation industry, the output targets set by planters were extremely
high (Gupta 1986). Sunita Sawtal, an ex-casual tea garden worker stated:

‘[Previously] when I was working, we were given niric [for] plucking leaves.
[Therefore], when the tasks [of] a worker [had been] completed, [they]
would be off from work for the rest of the day. We would generally start
work at 8:00 am in the morning and [be] free by 2:00 pm in the after-
noon. Nowadays, under the time regime, after finishing in one section of the
garden, the workers are sent to pluck in another part. [This way] they end
up working the whole day [until] 5:00 pm in the evening.’7

In contrast, a permanent tea leaf plucker, Sonali Porja, reported:

‘[It] was easier and more convenient [previously], because we would wrap up
all our work in the garden quite early … [However, this] was not the case [for]
all our fellow workers. Not everyone could move their hands at the same pace.
While those who finished work would leave early, others [who moved more
slowly] [were] left behind. This was the shortcoming of the niric system.’8

Under the piece-work/task-based system, it was therefore in the per-

sonal interests of the workers to work as intensively as possible to lengthen
the working day, since this meant an increase in personal remuneration.
This also applied to groups competing with one another in the field if tasks
had been allotted to them that covered more than one field area. While
workers under the time wage regime were paid equally for similar tasks, it
 FEMALE LABOUR IN TEA PLANTATIONS: LABOUR PROCESS AND LABOUR… 121

was implicit in the nature of piece wages that individuals and groups could
earn different amounts (Ramachandran 1990).

Time as an Important Component of Piece-rated Tasks

Over the years, there has been a change in labour processes that has seen
the time component becoming an integral part of piece-rated work for
some of the primary agricultural operations like plucking. For others,
however, like pruning, digging and cleaning drains, spraying, hoeing,
weeding and cutting shade trees, their work continues to be task-based.
Consequently, the leaf pluckers have to spend the entire day, from 7:30
am to 5:00 pm, in the plucking section. Under the constant vigil of the
sardars, on the completion of their tasks in one area of the plucking field,
they are forced to resume work in another area of the estate. Narratives
from the field suggest that while in the past workers had been assessed
only on the completion of allotted tasks, today time spent in the field has
become an important part of wage-work on tea estates. Daily wage work-
ers are therefore paid on the basis of both time and piece work.

Implications of the Incentive Wage System

There is an incentive wage within the time wage regime called the thika,
encouraging plantation workers to pluck leaves above the fixed quota. The
required target for a wage of Rs. 84 was settled at 23 kilograms. This incen-
tive wage system is applicable during peak plucking season, which usually
lasts for five to six months, beginning in the month of March. During this
period, workers have the opportunity to earn twice the amount in daily
wages, depending on the extra kilograms of leaves plucked. This clause
meant that for every extra kilogram of leaves plucked beyond 23 kilo-
grams, workers earned 0.50 paise extra per kilogram up to 30 kilograms,
after which the extra pay amounted to one rupee per kilogram.
While the incentive wage system, or thika, seemed like an opportu-
nity for workers to earn more money, it was an inherently exploitative
mechanism. It kept workers bound to their tasks for the entire day, which
often extended to nine or ten hours, and workers were coerced into
working these long hours. Moreover, the very term and idea of an incen-
tive wage revealed the capitalist strategies of planters to extract surplus
value from the workers by cultivating a spirit of competition and enticing
them to earn more than their fellow workers. The incentive wage sys-
tem also structurally organised women’s self-exploitation of their labour,
122 A. SHARMA

and concomitantly limited the time available to them to participate in

union activities. Women workers at Majuli often complained of the lack of
time to engage in union activities, on account of their extra burden in the
workplace and simultaneous responsibilities at home.
Field observations and findings showed that a major aspect of pluck-
ing that warranted attention was the weighing procedure for measuring
the quantity of leaves each woman plucked during a given bela (shift).
A working day was divided into three shifts: morning, when the first
round of weighing leaves took place at 9:30 am; afternoon, when the
second round took place at 12:30 pm; and evening. with the final round
at 4:30 pm. It is worth noting that the time required or spent on weigh-
ing fell outside the eight-hour working day. This was particularly sig-
nificant, because the weighing area was in the weigh-in sheds, situated
at a considerable distance from the plucking area. Significant time was
wasted carrying the baskets of leaves and standing in the long queue
until the procedure was complete. Furthermore, the women workers
complained that the hazira babus (plantation employees who weigh the
plucked leaves and calculate the wages) manipulated the readings at the
time of weighing. The babus were careful to not let the women look
into the weighing machines, so as to hide actual readings from them. A
group of women tea pluckers working in the plucking section of Majuli
Tea Estate stated:

‘We do not get paid for the quantity we pluck. The hazira babus are very
shrewd. Even if we have plucked over 23 [kilograms], they make it out to be
23 only and [no] more! When we [try to make] them … tell us the reading,
they [chase] us away.’9

In this context, another casual woman tea leaf plucker, Monti Tanti,
who resided in a nearby basti stated:

‘Since we are illiterate we have no clue as to what the reading on the meter
[really is], because we cannot read the numbers that appear on the auto-
matic machines. The introduction of these weighing machines has made our
lives more miserable. Since we have been associated with the tea estates for
long, we do [have an estimated idea] of the quantity we pluck every day. At
times we feel that … if we are able to earn the daily hazira (daily wage ),
[this] is [enough]. The babus reduce the incentive for us to further increase
our output.’10
 FEMALE LABOUR IN TEA PLANTATIONS: LABOUR PROCESS AND LABOUR… 123

The lack of familiarity with technology, their own lack of access to train-
ing and the discriminatory behaviour of supervisors reflect the ways in
which occupational discrimination has been perpetuated and reproduced
through the lived experiences of women. Gender prejudices and patriar-
chal norms not only justified the subordination of women and their work
but also normalised it, both ideologically and structurally (Kurian and
Jayawardena 2013).

Mechanisation and its Effects on Women Working

in the Tea Factory
Difference between the plantation’s field and the factory can be observed
in three ways. Firstly, a prominent and visible division of labour existed in
Majuli. Female workers were mostly employed in the field and male work-
ers were divided between the field and the factory. As Table 6.2 shows,
62.8 per cent of workers employed in the field were women and only 37.2
per cent were men. On the other hand, in the factory 85.4 per cent of all
workers employed were men and only 14.6 per cent were women. The
employment of more women in the field, where tasks like plucking were
marked by drudgery, was a reflection of the efforts of the company to
cheapen wage costs as much as possible.
Secondly, the task component, a unique characteristic of field labour,
was absent in factory work, which was organised entirely according to the
regime of the clock or the factory siren. Factory workers’ wages were cal-
culated on a daily hazira and over time, and were paid on an hourly basis.
Processing in the factory depended on the amount of leaves plucked from
the field. Unlike other factory industries, the factory in tea plantations is
not completely independent, but tied to operations in the field. During
peak harvest season, the number of shifts in a day expanded from two to

Table 6.2 Percentage share of workers in field and factory by sex, Majuli Tea
Estate, 2013–2014, in per cent
Sex Field Percentage share Factory Percentage share

Male 86 37.2 35 85.4

Female 145 62.8 6 14.6
Total 231 100.0 41 100.0
Source: Household Survey, Majuli Tea Estate, 2014
124 A. SHARMA

three, which included the night shift. With the dwindling of tea leaves in
the field by the end of November/mid-December, factory operations also
closed down. During this time, women factory workers were temporarily
removed; only a small number of men involved in machine overhauling
remained in the factory.
Thirdly, the spatial ordering of women in the field followed a certain
pattern of organisation, where working batches of women were employed
along open spaces of field. Such a positioning of women’s dols in the field
allowed for a sense of camaraderie to develop, in contrast to the enclosed
space of the factory (Chatterjee 2003). The work schedule of the women
leaf pluckers was of particular significance, not only because of the length
of the day spent in the field, but also to indicate how they strategically
made use of the given time frame to form informal collectives within
the field landscape, which in turn gave rise to revolutionary ideas. For
example, many women leaf pluckers have reported the forming of secret
groups, despite the inescapable gaze of the sardar. The women were of
the opinion that this was the reason why many of them who were slightly
vocal about the problems faced by their fellow workers, bore the brunt of
the high-handedness of management.
Despite the striking gender imbalance between field and factory, a large
number of women had previously been employed in the factory. Sorting
large bamboo sieves was done by women workers, because it was thought
that sorting and sieving were tasks best suited to women. Small groups of
women were assigned the task of sorting tea leaves by hand. However, the
introduction of machines led to their gradual replacement. Responding to
the impact of mechanisation on women’s employment, Suboti Tanti stated:

‘I used to work in the factory as a temporary worker. I was involved in

the task of stalk picking, along with 50 other women workers. However,
after [implementation] of the new machine, I was relocated to the field.
Although the machine brought respite to some women who had been
involved in this tedious task for hours [on end], for many it [represented] a
loss of livelihood.’11

SUBSISTENCE ECONOMY AND WOMEN’S ACCESS TO LAND

A crucial feature of the plantation system of Assam and North Bengal is
the existence of a subsistence economy within the plantation sector. The
tea plantation system is marked by two distinctly different yet interrelated
sectors: the dominant capitalist plantation sector; and the non-capitalist
 FEMALE LABOUR IN TEA PLANTATIONS: LABOUR PROCESS AND LABOUR… 125

subsidiary, subsistence economy that exists within the plantation sector

and adjacent areas (Gupta 1986). This is an important feature of the plan-
tation economy and deserves particular analysis, as it is a mechanism of
labour retention and control that has existed since the colonial era.
During the colonial era, a fairly large proportion of tea garden work-
ers were allocated small plots of land on which to grow their own crops,
primarily paddy, for which a nominal or no rent was charged. The exis-
tence of the subsistence economy within the plantation sector served three
purposes. Firstly, it helped to build and retain the bulk of the resident
labour force in the respective gardens. Secondly, it resulted in time expired
coolies12 forming the bulk of the casual labour force required during the
peak plucking season in the garden. Thirdly, it relieved planters of the
responsibility of supplying sufficient food crops to workers.
While a majority of the plantation households were landless, a few
households did own small plots of land. Others who possessed land within
the plantation did not necessarily claim ownership rights as it was leased
from the company at zero rent.13 The plantation company had the author-
ity to reclaim this land as and when required. Devi Raotia,14 a permanent
worker at Majuli Tea Estate, claimed to have lost her ancestral land to land
grabbing by the present company. The land was taken by the company
to build another labour line15 to house the surplus labourers working at
Majuli. Table 6.3 shows the distribution of households according to land
possession. While 67 (43.5 per cent) households had ownership rights
over 88.8 acres (62.2 per cent) of the land area, 44 (28.6 per cent) house-
holds had leased in 47.2 acres (33.1 per cent) of land at zero rent from
the company. Table  6.3 also shows that 39 (25.3 per cent) households
were completely landless with no owned, leased in or mortgaged in land.

Table 6.3 Distribution of households by land type, Majuli Tea Estate,

2013–2014, in number, acres and per cent
Land type Number of Percentage Extent Percentage
households share (acres) share

Owned 67 43.5 88.8 62.2

Leased in 44 28.6 47.2 33.1
Mortgaged in 4 2.6 6.8 4.8
Leased out 0 0 0 0
Mortgaged out 0 0 0 0
Landless 39 25.3 0 0
Total 154 100.0 142.8 100.0
Source: Household Survey, Majuli Tea Estate, 2014
126 A. SHARMA

Table 6.4 Distribution of households by land ownership, Majuli Tea Estate,

2013–2014, in number, acres and per cent
Size-Class Number of Percentage Extent owned Percentage
(Acres) households share (Acres) share

Landless 87 56.5 0 0
0.2–0.4 18 11.7 6.6 7.4
0.4–0.8 19 12.3 13.4 15.1
0.8–2.0 21 13.6 33 37.2
2.0–4.0 5 3.2 14.6 16.4
>4.0 4 2.6 21.2 23.9
All size class 154 100.0 88.8 100.0
Source: Household Survey, Majuli Tea Estate, 2014

Since the extent of land owned by the households was marginal there was
no leasing out or mortgaging out of land. Only 2.6 per cent of the house-
holds had mortgaged in 4.8 per cent of the land.
Table 6.4 shows the distribution of households according to land own-
ership. Land ownership is defined as the total land owned and self-culti-
vated, including leased out and mortgaged out land. While more than half
of the households (56.5 per cent) were landless, only four households (2.6
per cent) owned 21.2 acres (23.9 per cent) of the total land owned (see
Table 6.4). While the bottom 50 per cent of households were landless, the
top five per cent owned 83.5 per cent of the total land owned. As land size
progressively increased, the share of households owning land dwindled.
While the total land area of the Majuli Tea Estate was 1,621 acres, the
effective area, that area under tea cultivation, was 992 acres.
It is important to note that even in households that owned land, women
did not have independent ownership and control over whatever land was
owned. As Agarwal (1998) asserts, the question is not only about wom-
en’s access to cultivable land, but also about its management and control.
During the field survey, it was found that women were hardly aware of
household land ownership. Rama Tanti stated: ‘We have land but I don’t
know how much. I am not sure if we own the land or we have leased in
from the company. I will have to ask my husband. He takes care of all that.
I can only tell you about domestic assets like utensils, jewellery etc.’16
This shows the unequal relationship that men and women have to
household assets. This disparity in resource ownership not only affects
women’s bargaining position within the household, but also their deci-
sion-making power in relation to family and matters outside the home.
 FEMALE LABOUR IN TEA PLANTATIONS: LABOUR PROCESS AND LABOUR… 127

Such a gendered nature of resource ownership and control explains wom-

en’s secondary class position in the household and in the community.
However, despite all the reservations surrounding women’s access to
claiming land rights, the situation was not always grim, as suggested by
the experiences of some of the women tea plantation workers from Majuli.
There was evidence of struggle over land where women had participated
as active agents and political partners with men, and where they had
made some advances regarding their control over land. This was not only
marked by individually contesting the demands of management, but also
by seeking the support of plantation unions and organising themselves
with the backing of educated women from outside the local community.
Lata Tanti, a permanent factory worker and the general secretary of the
women’s wing of the branch unit of Assam Tea Labour Union (ATLU)
stated:

‘One … morning I, along with my comrades, mobilised all [the] workers

[at] the tea estate, both men and women, to organise themselves and chal-
lenge the authority of the management by grabbing all the lands within the
ambit of Majuli Tea Estate and those illegally occupied by the babus since
… colonial times. This was the first time in the history of Majuli that work-
ers decided to voluntarily organise themselves in such large numbers and
mobilise others, too.’17

Lata Tanti was particularly appreciative of the efforts of the unions in

orchestrating an estate- wide struggle and mobilising workers from all
the labour lines. This struggle showed how the land question garnered
the support of plantation workers, even those in a state of extreme depri-
vation. However, despite the struggle for land redistribution, there still
exists inequality in the pattern of landholdings by workers. Lata Tanti
explained this inequality as a consequence of the lopsided nature of the
land struggle. As a result, many workers still remain landless, with no alter-
native avenues for income generation.

CONCLUSION
This paper analyses female wage labourers within the existing system of
production in tea plantations and traces changes in their position along-
side larger structural changes in production. Taking the case of Majuli Tea
Estate in the Tinsukia district of Upper Assam, this study found historical
128 A. SHARMA

changes that had important consequences for women in: the patterns of
work in field and factory; nature of tasks performed by men and women;
system and mode of wage payment; structure of the plantation labour force;
and access to land rights. It can be seen that through these changes, the
plantation regime has successfully managed to retain or sustain its female
labour force, most importantly through labour control, which has been a
recurring phenomenon from the colonial era to contemporary times.
Women have become the backbone of the plantation economy over
the years. However, the basis on which the plantation system was estab-
lished and the basis on which it exists, indicates and highlights a phenom-
enal degree of individual and familial exploitation. This has perpetuated
the exploitation of its female labour force in particular. Though the
predominance of women in the tea industry was recognised, the chapter
analysed how pre-defined gender roles were binding in relation to both
men and women in the plantations. While gendered wage differentials
were removed, differences in wage rates for gendered segregated tasks in
the field and in the factory persist.
The nature of plantation work and the system of payment underwent
a change, with time becoming an integral part of task-based work, espe-
cially for women leaf pluckers. Workers in the factory were paid overtime
on an hourly basis. While a large number of women had previously been
employed in the factory, mechanisation of factory operations led to their
gradual replacement. There were internal differences within the female
labour force, with a hierarchy created between permanent and tempo-
rary workers. While temporary workers always occupied a subsidiary posi-
tion, women were more affected due to the increasing casualisation of the
female labour force during peak plucking seasons. Although the terms
permanent and casual are relative in their definition, permanency gave
some guarantee of work for a certain period of time, which was lacking for
the casual majority.
While this chapter explored the labour process and the various forms of
labour control, the threat of violence shaped the everyday lives of men and
women working and living in Majuli and was intrinsic to this very concept.
This everyday violence not only instilled a sense of fear among the workers
but also curtailed their freedom of movement and rightful access to the
plantation space.
Lastly, this chapter attempted to discuss the subsistence economy
as an important feature of the plantation system. The original idea of
the subsistence economy was to ensure the social reproduction of the
 FEMALE LABOUR IN TEA PLANTATIONS: LABOUR PROCESS AND LABOUR… 129

plantation labour force. However, in contemporary times we see that

more than half the labour force is excluded from this source of suste-
nance and their claims on land are subject to enforced dispossession
by the company. The situation is even more precarious for women
because they do not have independent ownership of whatever land is
owned by the households.
In sum, with changing relations in production, women’s involvement
in the labour process has changed in important ways. Changes in the
labour process within plantations came about in a phased manner. In iden-
tifying the changes in the social relations of production and reproduction,
this chapter attempted to ascertain the location of female wage labour in
tea plantations with reference to the nature of gender relations under the
influence of patriarchy and capitalism.

NOTES
1. (a) Any land within five hectares or more that is used or intended to be
used for growing tea, cinchona, cardamom, coffee or rubber and in which
15 or more people are or were employed on any day of the preceding
twelve months;(b) Any piece of land within five hectares or more that is
used for growing any plant referred to above, in which 15 or more people
are or were employed on any day of the preceding twelve months, after
obtaining the approval of the Central Government, the State Government
by notification in the Official Gazette (Tea Board of India 2015, http://
www.teaboard.gov.in/pdf/policy/Plantationsper cent20Labourper cen-
t20Act_amended.pdf).
2. Name of the plantation has been changed.
3. Interview with Suboti Tanti, 20 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.
4. In their study of the employment of women in world market factories,
Elson and Pearson (1981) argue that women are brought together in the
factory by virtue of their particularised gender ascriptive relations.
5. Interview with Monti Tanti, 20 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.
6. http://www.paycheck.in/main/salary/minimumwages, http://pib.nic.
in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=123038 and Notification No. ACL
43/2004/, Office of the Labour Commissioner, Government of Assam,
March 2013.
7. Interview with Sunita Sawtal, 27 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.
8. Interview with Sonali Porja, 24 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.
9. Interview with a group of women leaf pluckers, 18 August 2014, Majuli
Tea Estate.
10. Interview with Monti Tanti, 17 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.
130 A. SHARMA

11. Interview with Suboti Tanti, 16 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.
12. In plantation economies, time-expired coolies, or ex-tea garden workers,
are those whose contracts for working in a tea plantation have expired. In
the Brahmaputra Valley, some of these workers re-engaged in tea planta-
tion work by signing local agreements, while others chose to live their lives
as independent cultivators.
13. A major characteristic of the leased lands distributed among the tea planta-
tion workers was that, since vast tracks were water-clogged lands lying in
lowland areas, they were unsuitable for tea cultivation.
14. Interview with Devi Raotia, 20 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.
15. Settlements of tea workers within the plantation provided by the tea
company.
16. Interview with Rama Tanti, 25 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.
17. Interview with Lata Tanti, 26 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.

REFERENCES
Agarwal, Bina. 1998. A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bhowmik, Sharit K. 2009. Unfree Labour in the Plantation System. In India’s
Unfree Workforce: of Bondage Old and New, eds. Jan Breman, Isabelle Guerin,
and Aseem Prakash, 312–332. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Bhowmik, Sharit, and Kanchan Sarkar. 1998. Trade Union and Women Workers
in Tea Plantations. Economic and Political Weekly 33(52): 50–52.
Boserup, Ester. 1970. Women’s Role in Economic Development. London: George
Allen and Unwin Ltd.
Chatterjee, Piya. 2003. A Time for Tea: Women, Labour and Post/Colonial Politics
on an Indian Plantation. New Delhi: Zubaan.
Chaudhuri, Soma. 2013. Witches, Tea Plantations and Lives of Migrant Labourers
in India. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.
Elson, Diane, and Ruth Pearson. 1981. Nimble Fingers Make Cheap Workers: An
Analysis of Women’s Employment in Third World Export Manufacturing.
Feminist Review 7: 87–107. http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fr/journal/
v7/n1/pdf/fr19816a.pdf. Accessed 24 November 2015.
Gupta, Ranajit Das. 1986. From Peasants and Tribesmen to Plantation Workers:
Colonial Capitalism, Reproduction of Labor Power and Proletarianisation in
North–East India, 1850s–1947. Economic and Political Weekly 21(4): 2–10.
———. 1992. Plantation Labour in Colonial India. The Journal of Peasant Studies
19: 173–198.
Kurian, Rachel. 1998. Tamil Women on Sri Lankan Plantations: Labour Control
and Patriarchy. In Women Plantation Workers: International Experiences, eds.
Shobhita Jain and Rhoda Reddock, 67–87. New York: Berg.
 FEMALE LABOUR IN TEA PLANTATIONS: LABOUR PROCESS AND LABOUR… 131

Kurian, Rachel, and Kumari Jayawardena. 2013. Plantation Patriarchy and

Structural Violence: Women Workers in Sri Lanka. Paper presented at the
Conference on Bonded Labour, Migration, Diaspora and Identity Formation
in Historical and Contemporary Context, Paramaribo, Suriname, June 6–10.
Ramachandran, V.K. 1990. Wage, Labour and Unfreedom in Agriculture: An
Indian Case Study. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Samarasinghe, Vidyamali. 1993. Puppets on a String: Women’s Wage Work and
Empowerment among Female Tea Plantation Workers of Sri Lanka. The Journal
of Developing Areas 27(3): 329–340.
Sharma, Jayeeta. 2006. Growing Tea: Lazy Natives and Colonialism’s Coolies.
Agrarian Studies Colloquium, April 16. http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/
colloqpapers/24sharma.pdf. Accessed 19 November 2014.
Tea Board of India. 2015. http://www.teaboard.gov.in/. Accessed 20 January
2015.
Weiner, Myron. 1978. Sons of the Soil. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.