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Land, Labour and Livelihoods pp 111–131Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Female Labour in Tea Plantations: Labour Process and Labour Control

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Part of the book series: Gender, Development and Social Change ((GDSC))

Abstract

This chapter draws on a study conducted in the tea plantations of Upper Assam. It analyses gender relations in the labour market and the role of women labourers in sustaining the structure of the tea plantation economy of Assam. It also explores the question of women’s location within the existing system of production and traces how their position has changed following changes in the relations of production and labour processes. Based on in-depth interviews, this study analyses women’s status in a capitalist production process deeply embedded in patriarchal and cultural norms that invisibilise women’s roles in economic processes.

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Notes

  1. 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 cent20Act_amended.pdf).

  2. 2.

    Name of the plantation has been changed.

  3. 3.

    Interview with Suboti Tanti, 20 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.

  4. 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. 5.

    Interview with Monti Tanti, 20 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.

  6. 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. 7.

    Interview with Sunita Sawtal, 27 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.

  8. 8.

    Interview with Sonali Porja, 24 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.

  9. 9.

    Interview with a group of women leaf pluckers, 18 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.

  10. 10.

    Interview with Monti Tanti, 17 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.

  11. 11.

    Interview with Suboti Tanti, 16 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.

  12. 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 plantation work by signing local agreements, while others chose to live their lives as independent cultivators.

  13. 13.

    A major characteristic of the leased lands distributed among the tea plantation workers was that, since vast tracks were water-clogged lands lying in lowland areas, they were unsuitable for tea cultivation.

  14. 14.

    Interview with Devi Raotia, 20 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.

  15. 15.

    Settlements of tea workers within the plantation provided by the tea company.

  16. 16.

    Interview with Rama Tanti, 25 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.

  17. 17.

    Interview with Lata Tanti, 26 August 2014, Majuli Tea Estate.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies, School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, India

    Ashmita Sharma

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  1. Ashmita Sharma
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Sharma, A. (2016). Female Labour in Tea Plantations: Labour Process and Labour Control. In: Land, Labour and Livelihoods. Gender, Development and Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40865-1_6

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