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‘Lazy’ Natives, Coolie Labour, and the Assam Tea Industry*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2008

JAYEETA SHARMA
JAYEETA SHARMA*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaM1C 1A4 Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper considers the creation of a ‘coolie’ work-force for the Assam tea industry and the local dimensions of tea plantation enterprise. While the industry has flourished through its use of migrant labour and export markets for tea, it has retained important connections with the locality. The Assam tea industry was a predominantly colonial enterprise manned by white British planters. It allowed participation, albeit in subordinate and dependent roles, by local peasants and gentry, though mainly based on the labour of migrant ‘coolies’ recruited on indentured contracts. The prominence of ‘imported’ coolie workers has obscured the significance of various local groups as well as the tea industry's importance in the local ‘imagination’. Despite the gradual development of nationalist antagonism towards the white ‘Planters' Raj’, tea enterprise retained a hallowed place for the Assamese middle classes, as tea workers continued as a racialized labouring class.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 6 , November 2009 , pp. 1287 - 1324
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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