Centuries’ old migration to tea plantations of Assam from Jharkhand is now a roadblock in a growing demand among workers for scheduled tribe status
Maitreyee Boruah
On a rainy day in June, women workers stage a protest at Chandmari tea estate in Assam's Tinsukia district. They want a hike in daily wages and Scheduled Tribe status for their Adivasi community.
Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
GUWAHATI, Assam: Neha Sagar, Manisha Tanti and Milika Topno - all three in their 20s - believed their elders and peers that education would be their ticket to a job, and freedom from tea plantation work.
Born to plantation workers in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, the three completed their schooling and college, emerging as first-generation graduates in their families, and joining a growing league of educated youth in Assam’s tea gardens who wish to find work beyond plucking tea leaves, but find themselves trapped in the ‘tea tribe’ identity.
Tea tribes - or adivasi communities who have for two centuries been the backbone of the globally famed Assam tea - comprise 20% of the state’s 3.12 crore population. They are counted amongst India’s most marginalised groups, but despite the generational poverty they have suffered and their indigenous roots, they are not recognised as ‘Scheduled Tribe’, an identity which could fetch them quotas for education and jobs.
Now those like Sagar, Tanti and Milika, among other people, organisations and youth groups are pushing for this identity, which historians say has been denied to them owing to the community’s ancestral history of migration over two centuries ago - a historical wrong that kept them in forced labour in the plantations, which must be corrected to protect the future of this generation.
Neha Sagar (left), Manisha Tanti (centre) and Milika Topno (right) talk about issues affecting their Adivasi community in Assam. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
“My parents are tea plantation workers, and made a lot of sacrifices to educate me. We want to end this cycle of poverty endured by our families for generations,” said Sagar, sitting with her two friends Tanti and Topno in her house nestled in the tea bushes of Assam's Tinsukia district.
“I have been looking for a job for three years now. But where are the jobs,” she told The Migration Story.
HISTORY’S SHADOW OVER QUOTAS
Adivasi women workers in a tea garden in Assam's Dibrugarh district hold umbrellas in one hand and pick leaves with another on a hot afternoon in May. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
India offers reservation in education and jobs to some of the country’s most marginalised communities - the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes.
Families like those of Sagar, Topno and Tanti have for generations worked in tea gardens that supply to global tea brands. They trace their ancestry to the migrant workers from Chota Nagpur plateau - now in Jharkhand - who moved to Assam in the 19th century.
Many of them were brought to Assam during the British rule to work as indentured labourers in the tea gardens, said Stephen Ekka, an Adivasi leader and writer. The initial migration, as early as 1837, was a forced one.
“The colonial rulers kidnapped people from the Chota Nagpur Plateau and brought them to Assam and made them work in tea gardens as the local workforce was scarce,” historian Rameswar Kurmi told The Migration Story, explaining that most of Assam’s locals during that time were engaged in agricultural work and the British found it hard to make them work in tea plantations.
Tribal communities living in the Chota Nagpur Plateau, on the other hand, were poorer and had no such agricultural fields to tend to, according to Kurmi. This led to the rulers bringing people from there as cheap labour, creating a special labour force of these migrant workers for the tea gardens.
“They were treated like slaves. They were made to work hard, and not allowed to protest,” Kurmi said.
Assam's tea plantation workers comprise Munda, Santhal, Gonds, Oraon, Bhumij among other tribes. They are identified as ‘adivasi’ community, but are more commonly known as ‘tea tribes’.
“They were denied the ST status as they were viewed by the local population as "migrant workers,” said historian Kurmi. This migrant branding, the youth believe, is an erasure of their history and ancestry.
Now the community, that has produced Assam tea for nearly two centuries, wants out.
SLAVERY
Assam produces 700 million kilograms of tea annually - half of India’s total tea production - according to the Industries and Commerce Department, Assam. In 2022-2023, the country earned 63.85 billion rupees from its tea exports, with Assam’s share estimated at 50%.
Despite being the industry's backbone, the profit has never percolated to the workers.
There are 800 major and 1,00,000 small plantations across Assam, according to the state government’s Directorate of Tea Tribes and Adivasi Welfare. More women are employed in the tea gardens, and more men in the factories.
Plucking tea leaves for three decades has left innumerable fissures on Nirmala Topno's palms.
Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
But the hardship of plantation work, poor wages and slave-labour like work conditions have for years brought the global spotlight on the tea gardens with sourcing firms promising action.
"I suffer from body aches and skin infections. My back and leg pain does not allow me to sleep at night," said Nirmala Topno, Milika Topno’s mother, showing the cracks on her heels and the fissures on her palms.
"In a day, a worker collects 20 to 60 kilograms of tea leaves depending on the season," she said, adding that most workers like her put in 8 to 10 hours every day.
On good days, she gets an hour-long lunch break. But she has to get back to work within 40-45 minutes most of the time.
Women workers earn between 150 and 250 rupees in daily wages, depending on the plantation size. The Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS), the largest trade union body of tea garden workers in Assam, has been demanding that the daily wage be increased to 350 rupees.
The workers stand on their feet for hours as they pluck leaf sets from tea bushes and throw them in baskets that they carry on their heads. Once a basket gets full, the produce is emptied in front of a supervisor and the worker immediately gets back to picking leaves and repeats the process till it gets dark.
Women labourers said even their toilet breaks are monitored strictly. Due to the lack of time, they are often forced to urinate in the tea bushes.
"The working environment is brutal and exploitative. We always faced financial struggles as our parents were paid so little. They had to borrow money for our education and slogged to pay off the debts," said Manisha Tanti.
Workers said they were treated like “untouchables because of our economic status and dark skin”.
“People even hesitate to eat food cooked by us,” said Niroda Tanti, 39, a plantation worker.
"Every Adivasi family in the plantation area is struggling financially. We are also battling to get respect from people,” she said.
THE COMPETITION
Families and campaigners contend that communities working in tea plantation demanding ST status check the boxes to get this classification: evidence of primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographic isolation, reluctance to contact with the general population, and backwardness.
But they are currently categorised as Other Backward Caste or OBC, which is a large group in Assam comprising 25.3 percent of the state's population, as per the 2011 Census. This makes competition for jobs stiff, with thousands of applicants for each opening.
Tea plantation workers believe an ST status will not only improve their political representation but, more importantly, fetch them quotas in educational institutions, government jobs, and scholarships.
Besides, the ST status is important to break the ‘tea tribe’ homogeneity of plantation workers, said Ekka, as it would recognise each tribe as a distinct one. This, he said, was crucial for the job-seeking youth as their tea tribe identity was overshadowing the skills they have acquired to find work outside the plantation.
Plantation families cite the examples of their tribes such as
the Santhal, Munda, Oraon, Malpahari in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, who are identified as STs.
"It's the constitutional right of Assam's Adivasis to be recognised as ST," said historian Kurmi, who did his doctoral thesis on ‘Identity Formation of Indentured Labour in Tea Plantation of Assam: A historical study (1859-1950)’.
He argues that it's a flawed theory to consider Assam's Adivasis as migrant labourers.
"They are as much a bhumiputro (indigenous) as anybody else in the state. Assam is their home, where they live, work and die. And, nobody can overlook that Adivasi people have contributed immensely to Assam's economy by raising and nurturing the plantations for decades," he said.
The demand for an ST status has yielded promise for action from political leaders.
Raju Sahu, former legislator and an Adivasi leader from Tinsukia, has been heading protest rallies of labourers in several tea gardens of Upper Assam demanding workers' rights (including an increase in wages) and the ST status for the community for months now.
“To deny the community ST status is a continuation of the historical injustice. The Adivasis' contribution to the making of modern Assam has been disregarded and we are construed as migrant intruders,” said Sahu.
During the 2014 Lok Sabha election and 2016 Assam Assembly election campaigning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to grant ST status to the six communities.
The office of Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha in Assam's Dibrugarh. The union wants the daily wage of tea garden labourers to be increased to Rs 350. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
"Our community voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party hoping to get the ST status. It has been a decade now and the ruling BJP has forgotten its promise," said Nabin Chandra Keot, vice president of Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha, as he went through files sitting on his desk in his office in Dibrugarh.
Dilip Saikia, parliamentarian and spokesperson of the BJP, Assam, said the party favours the ST demand of all the communities asking for it.
"The BJP wants to honour the demand. However, there needs to be proper consultations with all the stakeholders including Assam's ST communities. They have shown apprehension as they fear the inclusion of more communities will reduce the percentage of benefits and privileges they are currently getting," he said.
Workers, however, find little hope in the promises.
"The Adivasis have been used as vote banks by all political parties,” said Minoti Malpaharia, 27, a tea garden worker in Lakhimpur district.
“During elections, they make all kinds of promises including an increase in the salary of plantation workers and giving us our rightful identity by granting us the ST status. Once we cast our votes and they win polls, they forget about us,” Malpharia, mother of two, said.
FOR A BETTER FUTURE
Tea garden worker Nirmala Topno (left) with her daughter Milika (right) at a tea estate in Assam's Lakhimpur district. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
Plantation workers do not wish for a future in tea for their children, and hope to carve out a better future for themselves by educating their children, which they believe would fetch them regular jobs.
But their lack of recognition in Assam as a Scheduled Tribe is forcing them to remain mostly employed in tea gardens, worker families said.
The ST recognition is particularly important for women plantation workers, said campaigners.
“A woman working in a tea garden is the most suppressed one. The ST status will create a space where we can vie with other tribes like Bodo and Mishings in Assam for seats in educational institutions, jobs and scholarships,” said Sangeeta Tete, an Adivasi women's rights activist from Lakhimpur district.
"It will also create a level playing field for us to compete with Adivasis from other states for central jobs and seats in educational institutions."
For now, the three young women - Sagar, Topno and Tanti - are trying to help themselves in their search for elusive jobs. They are, in fact, trying to help their community in this identity battle, pursuing courses and joining movements to realise their goals.
Manisha Tanti is associated with Purva Bharati Educational Trust, a nonprofit that works for girls' education in tea gardens.
Sagar has started speaking for the rights of Adivasi women and children on various platforms as a member of the All Assam Tea Tribes Student Association (ATTSA), a student-led outfit. She is one among a new crop of Adivasi women leaders.
She is also working on her passion: tailoring.
“I make dresses, blouses and salwar kameez. I sell them and earn some money. Sometimes, I feel like I need to fully concentrate on tailoring and becoming a fashion designer instead of waiting to land a job,” she said, adding after a pause, “It’s all a dream.”
Topno is now pursuing a law degree after her master's in the hope additional degrees will help fetch jobs outside the tea gardens. She said the dreams of the youth, like that of Sagar to become a fashion designer, from tea gardens can be fulfilled if the Adivasis are given the ST status.
"Our situation will be better.”
THE ADIVASI  The word Adivasi means indigenous people or first people. They primarily depend on agriculture for their livelihood and live near forest lands. As an affirmative action, the framers of the Indian Constitution provided reservations to marginalised castes and tribes, based on their historical background of backwardness. There are over 700 scheduled tribes in India, according to the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), a constitutional body. "Every state or Union Territory has its respective list of STs. The list is valid within that particular jurisdiction. A community accorded the ST status in one state does not necessarily get the same recognition in other states," Joseph Minj, an Adivasi advocate, said. The battle for recognition as ST by those identified as Assam’s tea tribes started right after India got its freedom, with Jaipal Singh Munda, who captained the Indian hockey team to clinch gold in the 1928 Olympics in Netherlands’ capital Amsterdam, as the first prominent person who advocated for ST recognition, said writer-activist Stephen Ekka. “He came to Assam to speak on behalf of his 'brothers and sisters' from the Chota Nagpur plateau in the 1950s," Ekka said. Munda was from Jharkhand and a member of the Constituent Assembly, which drafted the Constitution. Assam already has nine ST communities – Mishing, Bodo, Karbi, Kuki, Dimasa, Deori, Tiwa, Sonowal Kachari and Rabha. They constitute 12.44 percent of the state's population according to the 2011 Census. The benefits and privileges of STs are listed under Article 46 of the Constitution. The ST demand isn’t limited to the tea tribes alone. Five other indigenous communities — Tai-Ahom, Koch-Rajbongshi, Moran, Chutiya and Muttock of Assam – are also demanding to be recognised as STs. Over the decades, organisations such as the All Adivasi Students' Association of Assam (AASAA), Assam Tea Tribes Student Association (ATTSA) and Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS) regularly protested and petitioned the government to honour their demand. The Scheduled Tribes Amendment Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on January 8, 2019. It mentioned that the ST status has been granted to the communities seeking this category. However, the bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha, but it is yet to be enacted. |
Maitreyee Boruah is a Guwahati-based independent journalist
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