Tea plantation in Assam

View of a Tea garden in Assam, India.

Tea plantation, tea estates and the tea industry as a whole has been seriously hit by the explosive environment in Assam. Militancy is telling heavily on the industry. Many tea gardens are abandoned by their owners and many others are somehow functional. The dwindling economic condition has further been made worse by the tough competition in the international market, falling prices and recurrent slumps (Orange, 2008). These factors have led to deterioration of the economic conditions of tea labourers in Assam.

After discovery of Camellia sinensis (1834) in Assam followed by its tests in 1836--37 in London, the British allowed companies to rent land since 1839. Thereafter tea plantations mushroomed in Eastern Assam, where the soil and the climate were most suitable. Problems with the imported laborers from China and hostilities of native Assamese resulted into migration of forced laborers from central-eastern parts of India. After initial trial and error with planting the Chinese and the Assamese-Chinese hybrid varieties, the planters later accepted the local Camellia assamica as the most suitable one for Assam. By the 1850s, the industry started seeing some profits. Industry saw initial growth, when in 1861, investors were allowed to own land in Assam and it saw substantial progress with invention of new technologies and machinery for preparing processed tea during the 1870s. The cost of Assam tea was lowered down many folds and became more competitive than its Chinese variant.

Despite the commercial success, tea laborers continued to be exploited, working and living under poor conditions. Fearful of greater government interference, the tea growers formed the Indian Tea Association in 1888 to lobby to retain the status quo. The organization was very successful in this, and even after India's independence, conditions of the laborers have improved very little.

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