Restructuring the Economy of Women's Work on the Assam-Dooars Tea Plantations

Colonial annexations in Northeast India opened the way for planter capital. Plantations needed a large permanent labour force for planting the new territories. In order to meet this demand, systems of indentured labour brought Adivasi families from central India to Assam and the Dooars. Even after the end of indentured labour, the tea labour system tied entire families for several generations to plantation work. Recent reorganisations of the tea industry through fair trade initiatives for smaller plantations, which only produce and sell green leaf, are viewed as a desirable erosion of the tied labour system. Yet given the piece-rated form of payment for women's plantation work, do these changes offer a fair solution for women pluckers, who constitute half of the tea labour force? This question is explored in the context of the complex labour history of plantations and recent organisational changes within the Assam-Dooars tea industry.