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Wage Structure and Labour:

Assam Valley Tea Plantations, 1900-1947

(Rana Partap Behal)

(Rana Pratap Behal is with Deshbandhu College, Delhi University, Delhi. The author is grateful to Prabhu Mohapatra and Babu P. Remesh for their valuable suggestions, which helped in revising an earlier draft of this paper.)

Preface

In July 1998, a new research programme, Integrated Labour History Research Programme (ILHRP), was initiated at the V.V.Giri National Labour Institute, in collaboration with the Association of Indian Labour Historians (AILH). The programme envisaged the establishment of an apex repository of labour history documents, an Archive of Indian Labour History, with special emphasis on digital storage and retrieval. Alongside this, it was felt that there is need to encourage substantive research on the neglected areas of labour history. A specialised programme, Writing Labour History was designed in 1999 to encourage historical research on labour. A first step in this direction was the commissioning of a series of thematic essays by renowned scholars in the field, covering a wide range of issues. The essays were discussed and presented at two workshops held in January 1999 and January 2000. Dr. Rana Behal’s essay, `Wage Structure and Labour: Assam Valley Tea Plantations, 1900-1947’, belongs to this series. 

Plantation Industry in India is an enduring legacy of the colonial period, which was initiated in the early 19th century, with the establishment of indigo plantations. Gradually several new commodities came to form the staple of Indian exports in the 19th century. Tea plantations were established in Assam in 1834 and rapidly grew in size and value to become the major exporting Industry of India. At its height, not less than a million workers were employed in the Tea plantations of Assam, Darjeeling,Bengal Dooars and in the Western Ghats of South India. The labour force to these remote regions were imported over a long distance and were employed under stipulated contractual provisions regulating wages and working conditions under a severe work regime. The history of labour relations developed under the force of the incessant drive to increase production under global economic pressures is a fascinating part of Indian labour history. Many scholars argue that the Plantation employment conditions provided a model for development of the broader industrial relations regime in the colonial period.

By its sheer size and spread plantations have deeply imprinted themselves on the labour landscape of India and the patterns developed in the colonial period continue to influence the structure of labour relations long after Independence even with major changes in the pattern of ownership and various welfare measures of the Government of India.  A key feature of the Plantation industry was the strict control over the wage component as it formed a large part of the cost of production. This was necessitated largely by the fluctuations in the international demand and consequent price instability. These relations had direct effect on the living condition of the largely immigrant labour force.

Rana Behal’s study takes up the case of the Assam tea plantations and specially the relation of the wage structure of the industry with various indices of workers’ living standards. This is a little understood area of labour history of the plantation and the author makes a valuable contribution to this area. The structuring of the wage relations and constant struggle of the workers to defend their living standards form the core of this study.  There is perhaps an important lesson to be derived from this study specially for the present times when the tea industry under the pressure of increasing globalisation is leading towards closure of gardens and, consequently, job loss to a large number of workers.

I hope that scholars and practitioners working in the area of labour history in general and plantation labour in particular would find this essay useful.

Uday Kumar Varma

Director

  I

Tea plantations have been the major employer of wage labour in Assam Valley for nearly one and a half century. Majority of its labour force was by nature immigrant recruited from various parts of British India. Its spectacular expansion during the nineteenth century was followed by a steady growth in the twentieth century.  In 1947 the three major tea producing districts of Assam Valley (or Brahmputra Valley) viz., Lakhimpur, Sibsagar end Darrang: had a labour population of nearly three quarters of a million.  This represented an increase of nearly 116 per cent from the figures of 1900. The total daily working strength of labour force (both permanent and temporary) in the above districts increased from 289,920 in 1900 to 394,799 in 1947.1

In this paper I shall analyse the nature of wage structure in the Assam Valley tea plantations during 1900 and 1947.  Most of the wage data used here relate to the three districts of Lakhimpur, Sibsagar and Darrang.  Methodologically the analysis shall proceed in the following manner. Section I critically surveys the official methods of collection and compilation of wage data in order to highlight its severe limitations and the constraints encountered while analysing the wage trends, etc.  In section II I have attempted a critical examination of the employers' claims of fair wage and comfortable living conditions of labour in the tea plantations.  In this context the nature of the mode of payment, differentiation in wages and wage incentives have been examined.  I also discuss the implications of 'concessions' like land grants to labourers for private cultivation, subsidised rations and 'bonus'. In section III I have tried, within the limits set by the data, to construct a price index in order to get an idea of the trends in nominal and real wages.  Finally in section IV I discuss the conditions of living of the plantation labourers.

In this section we shall critically survey the source material and the quantitative data on wages in the Assam Valley tea gardens. The most important source of information is the annual reports on the emigrant labour published by the Government of Assam till 1933.  From 1934 onwards these reports were published by the office of the Controller of Emigrant Labour which had been constituted under the Tea District Emigrant Labour Act XXII of 1932. These reports contained, apart from other information regarding the emigrant labour in the province, the figures of average monthly earnings of different categories of labour in various tea districts for each year. For example, there are separate figures of average monthly earnings of men and women under the category of Act labour.2 In the second category came the average monthly earnings of Non-Act labour with separate figures for men, women and children in each district.3  With the repeal of Act XIII of 1859 in 1925 and Act VI of 1901 in 1932 the above two categories disappeared. From 1934 onward, when the newly passed Tea District Emigrant Labour Act (XXII of 1932) came into effect, the wage figures were published under two different categories viz., settled labour and faltu or basti labour.4 Under both these categories average monthly wage figures of men, women and children were published separately for each district every year.

First I shall discuss the methods of collection and compilation of wage statistics of the Act and Non-Act categories. This statistical information had been originally compiled by the district officials out of the wage returns submitted by the planters to the government. The district officials worked out average monthly earnings of each category of labour for each district from these returns to be published in the annual reports. At this point there is an important question to be asked: to what extent do these figures represent the actual earnings of the labour force in the tea gardens?  Apparently the rules of labour law had been strictly followed. But a closer scrutiny of the methods of collection and compilation of the wage statistics shows major flaws making their accuracy highly suspect.

In the first place, the district officials compiled the averages out of the statistical information submitted by the planters without any system of ascertaining their accuracy even when it was well known that the latter often did not provide correct information.5 Thought it was a violation of the provisions of labour laws the government never reprimanded the planters for concealing the actual earnings of labour and for providing inflated figures. Nor was any attempt made to establish any government agency, which could collect this information independently or regularly check the accuracy of the returns submitted by planters.  Similar situation existed with regard to the data on vital statistics concerning the tea garden labour in the province. The planters submitted statistical on labour mortality in their respective estates.  This information was often not correct (as we shall show later) but, as the Controller of Emigrant Labour admitted, there was no government agency for the registra­tion of births and deaths in tea gardens.6

Besides, the planters submitted the returns in an arbitrary manner.  For example, until 1905-06 the wage returns were submitted only for the last six months of the year.  Therefore, the yearly average of the monthly earnings were calculated on the basis of last six months' returns and not on the basis of twelve months' earnings.7  This was especially misleading because the last six months of the year included the peak season of work during which the earnings of labour were higher compared to the slack period. After 1905-06 this practice was discarded. Now the yearly averages of monthly earnings were worked out on the basis of figures for two months only i.e., March and September. This practice was followed both in case of Act and Non-Act labour.  The argument in defense of such a practice was that March and September represented the slack and peak periods respectively.  This again was an arbitrary method. While it is true that these two months fall in the slack and peak period, it does not necessarily follow that the earnings of the labour during these two months were also the lowest and highest in the year.  Moreover, no record of the original wage returns was maintained. The district officials were instructed to destroy all the original returns of the wages immediately after the compilation of yearly average had been completed.8 Thus any possibility of a cross examination of officially published time series was also destroyed.

There is another problem with regard to the accuracy of the above wage statistics.  The planters' supporters and some other official reports claimed that the labourers supplemented their cash earnings through ticca work and other forms of concessions which they were required to give under the labour laws.9 This implies that the wage figures published in Assam Government's annual reports did not represent the actual earnings but only the cash earnings excluding the supplementary income.  On the contrary, however, all the annual reports on emigrant labour in Assam, invariably pointed out that the wage figures represented "average monthly cash wages including ticca, subsistence allowances, value of diet or rations provided in lieu of wages or subsistence allowances" in the case of both Act and non-Act labour.10   Thus it appears that these average monthly wage figures represented more than the cash earnings i.e., it included the value of most 'concessions' the planters were supposed to have provided the labour force as well as the part-time or overtime earnings in the form of ticca work.

The fourth difficulty in determining the accuracy of wage statistics arises from the two different sets of figures published under the heading of 'monthly average earnings' in the Assam labour reports. Both sets of figures are published under further sub-headings: (a) calculated on the basis of total number of labourers on the gardens books; (b) calculated on the basis of daily working strength.11 The figures in set (a) were calculated by dividing the total wage payment with the total number of labour on the books during the above two months.  And in the case of set (b) the figures were calculated by dividing the total wage payment with the daily working strength of the labour force during the same two months in each year.  The figures in set (a) are lower compared to the figures in set (b).  But the reports did not make it clear as to which set presented the actual earnings of the labour force. And from 1925-26 onwards the reports only published the figures given in set (b). Given the fact that plantations experienced a very high rate of absenteeism (nearly 25 per cent) the figures in set (b) could not be taken as representing actual earnings.12 These figures simply represented what a labour would earn if he or she had worked on every single day of the month.  

In 1933 serious objection was raised against this erroneous practice by Mr Lee, the newly appointed Controller of Emigrant Labour. In his confidential report to the Government of India he pointed out that the wage statistics published in the annual reports of Government of Assam were 'misleading'.  In his opinion only the wage figures earlier published under set (a) represented the actual earnings of labour  which were less compared to the set (b).13 In his reply Mr Clow, a senior official in the Department of Industry and Labour, Government of India agreed with the Controller of Emigrant Labour that "the present method of calculating the average monthly cash earnings is open to serious objection as the figures do not represent what they purport to represent and are definitely misleading”. But the government was not in favour of publishing the substitute figures of average monthly earnings calculated on the basis of total number of labour on the garden books.  The reason given for this was that it will show a big drop in the figures of average earnings which "might be misinterpreted by the public”.14  Instead it was suggested that the present figures in set (b) should be substituted by the average amount earned by a labourer in a day's work.  This could be obtained by dividing the total wage payment by the number of working days. "This will not lend itself to misleading comparisons, and it would give a figure representing something real, whereas the present figures represent something that borders on the imaginary."15  However, the Emigrant Labour reports published three sets of figures, which included the former two sets of figures as well as the figures representing average daily earnings of all categories of labour. Unfortunately most other sources which published the figures of average monthly earnings of tea labour simply reproduced the figures from Assam Labour Reports. For example, the annual reports on production of tea (1900-1929) and the Indian Tea Statistics (1930-1946) reproduced the provincial averages of monthly earnings which were originally published in the Assam Labour Reports respectively. Similarly, Rege's report in 1946 also reproduced the wage figures published in the latter sources. The same practice was repeated in the Indian Labour Year Books.

Deshpande's report (1948), however, adopted a completely different method of calculating (based on data collected through sample survey) weakly average earnings and expenses of tea garden labour families in Assam. In Assam Valley 560 family budgets of labour out of twenty gardens were selected for tabulation.16  The average size of the family was determined at 4.15 persons including earning and non-earning members (men, women and children). Out of these the number of earning persons was 2.44 and 1.71 were dependends.17 While calculating the weekly family income of tea garden labour Deshpande included wages, ticca earnings, dearness allowance, bonus, money value of  concessions and income from other sources like land, etc.18 Using this method the Enquiry Committee calculated the weekly income earned by 2.44 persons (of an average family of 4.15 persons) as Rs.10.82.19 As compared to this the nominal wages of two adult (man and woman) and a child works out to be Rs. 8.42 per week (the averages of three districts combined) for 1947.  This figure also includes the value of concessions and ticca earnings.20 Thus Deshpande's estimated figure is 22 per cent higher compared to the figure worked out from the official time series. Two factors are responsible for this.  First the money value of concessions and, second, dearness allowance. The assumption behind the first seems to be that all labourers received full concessions. This is not entirely correct as we shall show later. It was clear from the inspection reports of the district officials that 'sickness allowance', 'subsistence rations' and 'bonus' did not always functioned as concessions.  Secondly, the dearness allowance was officially introduced only in February, 1947.21  However from the past experience of antipathy of planters towards provisions regarding labour welfare in the law it would be too optimistic to expect them to have implemented the dearness allowance clause immediately. The fact that the official annual report of the Controller of Emigrant Labour did not include this in its published wage figures for 1947 strengthens our argument. Moreover, the dearness allowance and the money value of concessions constituted nearly 41 per cent of the total weekly earnings of a labour family in Deshpande's calculations.22   Deshpande accepted that 41 per cent of the total wages were actually earned in kind by a labour family.  This appears to be a very high figure in the light of the evidence (shown below in section II) available in the inspection reports of the district officials which render such claims of concessions highly suspect.

There is only one set of separate wage figures available outside the above source which in our view fairly represents the average monthly earnings of the labour force. This set of figures are available only for the year 1900 and 1901 and were reported in the unpublished inspection reports conducted by the district officials in some of the tea districts in Assam Valley.  These figures were collected and compiled out of the original books maintained in the planters' offices in the tea estates by the inspecting officials. Unfortunately, we have not come across any other such report for the rest of the period of our study.

These figures show that wages earned by the labour in the inspected tea estates were much lower compared to those published in Assam Labour Reports of 1900 and 1901. For example the yearly average monthly earnings (based on figures for 12 months during 1900) of labour in Latabari Tea Estate of Sibsagar district were Rs. 3.48 and Rs. 2.74 for men and women respectively.23 Compared to this the wage figures published in the official time series for the corresponding year were much higher, i.e. Rs. 5.38,  Rs. 5.30 and Rs.4.89 per men, Rs. 4.07, Rs.4.06 and Rs.3.92 for women in Lakhimpur, Sibsagar and Darrang respectively.24  Similarly the yearly average of monthly earnings (based on the figures of January and June, 1901) of non-Act labourers in Sadhrugope, Shakemato and Aberdeen tea estates (Darrang) were Rs.3.54, Rs.1.96 and Rs.1.30 for men, women and children respectively.25  Comparatively the figures of monthly earnings for the yearly average of the corresponding year in the official time series were higher, i.e. Rs. 5.27, Rs. 5.31 and Rs.5.06 for Men, Rs. 3.57, Rs.3.78 and Rs.3.56 for women and Rs.2.23, Rs. 2.46 and Rs. 2.44 for children in Lakhimpur, Sibsagar and Darrang respectively.26

Following the above arguments about the limitation of wage data published in the Assam Government reports on emigrant labour and on the basis of its comparison with the figures given in the inspection reports for the corresponding years (1900-1901) we put forward our main proposition: that the data published in both set (a) and (b) in Assam Labour Reports represented inflated figures of average monthly earnings for each year.  Our contention is based on the following arguments:

Under the prevailing laws for the emigrant labour in Assam the planters were required to pay a minimum fixed rate of wage to their labour force. But in the pre-1900 period the wages paid to the labour were generally below the statutory minimum rates of Rs, 5.00 and Rs.400 for men and women respectively.27 The respective Chief Commissioners, however, chose to ignore this obvious breach of the labour law. When Henry Cotton suggested a raise in the wages of tea labour, his major argument in support of his recommendation were the above facts: "The accuracy of the statements of figures given in the Provincial Immigration Annual Reports, obtained from the employers' accounts, is perhaps open to question, and there is reason to believe that the average returned in recent years are in excess of the wages actually paid”.28

The bitter public controversy which took place between Cotton and the planters over the question of wages during his tenure as the Chief Commissioner of Assam made the planters somewhat cautious.29  Hence the necessity to publish inflated wage figures which would conform with the statutory minimum rates instead of actually paying stipulated wages. This was successfully achieved by adopting arbitrary methods of collection and compilation of wage returns.  This could not have been done without the sanction and active support of the colonial bureaucracy.

II

The general impression of the material conditions of labour in the Assam tea plantations projected by the planters and the colonial state was one of 'comfort' and 'well-being'. This impression was reinforced by claims that labour was paid well enough not only to live in 'comfort' but also even to save.  For example, the Assam Labour Enquiry Committee in 1906 wrote: "on the whole the wages paid to the labourers are sufficient to keep them in comfort, and even to enable them with the practice of a little thrift to save money". 30   The picture painted of the permanently settled labour was even rosier. It was claimed that the object of such emigrants was not, as a rule, to save money but rather to lead a 'pleasant' life. The emigrants of aboriginal stock were specifically mentioned as belonging to this category. "He works enough to provide himself with food and clothing and a few luxuries, and if he has any surplus cash, he spends a good deal of it in drinking, gambling, and cockfighting. The standard of living of the ordinary coolie is certainly much in advance of what it would be in his own country... In addition to the ordinary supplies, fowls, ducks, and fish are largely bought, and there is a general air of prosperity about the holiday making crowd, which is convincing poof that the coolie is fairly well off in his new home".31 It was further pointed out that the cash wage did not represent the total earnings of the labour, since it was supplemented by grants of cultivable land, either free or for nominal payments, as well as by the provision of cheap subsidised rice during certain periods.32  Mr. Buckingham, a representative of planters in the Central Legislative Council, had provided a longer list of such supplementary sources of income by including in this category medical comforts, sickness allowances, free diet for sick 'coolies', free housing, firewood, etc.33

Another factor supposedly contributing to the 'prosperity' and 'luxurious' living of tea garden labour was said to be the much higher "family-wage" as compared to the individual earnings. It was asserted for purposes of comparison, that plantations, by employing men, women and children afforded the labouring family a much higher 'family-wage' than in other major industries in the organised sector.34   In the plantations, therefore, there were "comparatively few non-working dependents in a working class family. The effect of this on the standard of living is important, for, even with low individual earnings, the total family income is sufficiently high to prevent the worker from feeling the pinch of poverty." 35

In addition to the "concessions" and "family-wage", ticca (over-time) earnings were considered to be yet another source of income, it was said, because the standard daily wage, hariza, was fixed with regard to the daily task, nirikh, which it was claimed could be completed in four to five hours.36 After the completion of this daily task the labour had the 'liberty' to undertake ticca work. 37

In order to examine the validity of these claims it is essential to analyse the different features of the wage structure in the Assam Valley tea plantations. Foremost amongst these was the fact that the foundations of the wage structure lay in the indenture system.38   Under this system labour was bound to the gardens for a period of 5 years on the basis of a fixed rate of payment.  The wage-rate was fixed by the employers and thrust upon the labour. Even more crucial was the fact that planters, in the period when the industry grew rapidly and became highly organised, also managed to build a mechanism for controlling labour mobility within the tea districts.  The Indian Tea Association successfully enforced what came to be known as the "wage agreement" (an agreement between the employers themselves) which functioned as an effective constraint on labour mobility. Under the provisions of the "wage agreement" every employer agreed not to pay labour wages higher than those paid by his neighbours.39 In other words the "wage agreement" imposed uniformity in wages and drastically weakened the power of labour to secure better wages or working conditions.40 At the same time, the planters through their use extra-legal authority, successfully checked the emergence of any labour organization.41 This put labour in a truly helpless position vis-a-vis the employers in the tea gardens. Even the Royal Commission, though not objecting to the "wage agreement", pointed out that "workers suffer owing to the absence of any organisation on their side to counteract the powerful combination of their employers."42

Another important feature was that the wage payments were made under two distinct systems, i.e., (1) the hariza and ticca system, and (2) the unit system. The wages of tea garden labour were generally piece-work earnings depending upon the quantity and quality of the work turned out. Whether expressed in terms of a daily or a monthly wage, they were contingent upon the execution of a standard daily task or nirikh, the payment for which was known as hazira.  The labourer who completed the full nirikh on each working day of the month was entitled to receive the monthly wage.43 Only after completing the daily task was a labourer entitled to earn ticca earnings. The Assam Enquiry Committee of 1921-22 expressed its doubts in this regard: "There are obvious limitations to the possibilities of ticca earnings. The rule of the maximum efficiency at the minimum cost holds good in tea gardens as in other industries."44 In 1946 Rege reported that" ticca earnings constitute a very small proportion of the total cash earnings of workers. It was found that such earnings were more in Indian-owned gardens, which are generally short of labour and therefore offer more ticca to their labourers."45 The unit system, a modified version of hazira and ticca system, was a later innovation. Under this system the payment was made for each unit of work done which, in the case of hoeing and pruning, was based on the one-anna unit and, in the case of plucking, on the one-pice unit.46

One major flaw in both these modes of wage payments was the fact that while the daily task was linked with the fixed minimum statutory wage, the volume of work per unit or per nirikh was decided by the employers. This was conceded by Sir Charles Rivaz (a member of the Select Committee constituted by Viceroy Curzon to go into the question of wages of tea garden labourers in Assam) when he pointed out that the "system of minimum wage-rate was contingent upon the condition of a daily task, the regulation of which is practically in the hands of the employer."47 The total inability of labour to bargain because of their lack of any organisation was compounded by the complete absence of even a nominal legislative check on the regulation of the daily task. This gave the employers a free hand to use the hazira and unit system for exacting maximum work for a fixed minimum wage. We know, for instance, that through the arbitrary use of their extraordinary powers, the managers in the tea estates generally assigned so heavy a task that the labourers often took more than one day to finish it.  This was revealed in December 1900 by an inspection committee which reported on a Sibsagar tea garden, "From the nature of the work... coolies, especially women, would have to work very hard to earn a full haziri and a glance at the haziri books will show that it seems almost impossible for a great number of men and women to be able to earn anything like a full day's pay. The number of fractional haziris far exceed the full one.”48

Moreover, the balance was further weighted in favour of the planters by the fact that it was left to managers to determine whether the labourers had done the full day's work.  The civil surgeon of Sibsagar district observed from the garden books in 1899: "it may be noticed that a system of quarter haziris seems to have been started. This means that because the manager decides that only a quarter has been done, only a quarter of a full day's salary is to be paid.  Similarly, regarding a particular month, he reported, "fractional haziris preponderate in this month and not a single full wage has been earned by men and only one by a woman."  There were few labourers in 1899 who earned their full haziri.49 Sir Charles Rivaz, after examining some of the garden books remarked, "the practice of strictly enforcing the daily task and of keeping down the labour bill by method of fractional haziri, that is, of paying half or three quarters wages for short tasks, has grown of late years”.50    Clearly, daily task fixed by the managers was excessive and it was one of the major complaints of labourers in a large number of strikes which took place in the Assam Valley gardens during the late 1930s.51

The wage data published in the annual official reports, do not reflect any significant wage differentiation. This was perhaps a consequence of the "wage agreement" and "labour rules."  The Royal Commission termed its effects as "standardisation."  "Each planter fixes his own piece rates, but in so doing, regard is paid to the agreement arrived at by the Committee in order that the wages of his employees may not be appreciably higher than the agreed level."52 Another factor responsible for this was the statutory minimum fixed wage rates under the indenture system. Finally, the labour intensive tea plantation industry utilising limited technology did not generate a wide range of specialisation that would require various levels of skilled work which in turn would have affected the structure of wages.

Nevertheless within this "standardised" or "uniform" framework there were variations, though very limited, in wage rates between Act and Non-Act labour, and between men, women and children. In the case of the Act and Non-Act labour the officially published statistics show higher figures for the latter.  The official explanation for this are the following: (i) that the non-Act labour was free labour, i.e., they were earlier working as Act labour and, after the expiry of their contract, they re-employed themselves as non-Act labour; (ii) since these labourers were experienced and acclimatised to the conditions on the plantations, they were employed in better paid jobs; 53 and (iii) being "free labourers", the non-Act workers contracted themselves under Act XIII of 1859, because they received 'bonuses' amounting to Rs. 12 in the case of men and Rs.10 for women for each year of engagement.54

The difficulty in accepting such explanations rests on the following arguments: while the majority of non-Act labour had been contracted under Act XIII of 1859, one has to keep in mind the fact that no provisions, even nominal, were made for any kind of labour welfare or protection in this Act.  On the contrary, labour was bonded to the gardens for long periods and controlled by penal laws just as Act labour was.  Moreover, the better paid jobs were available only in the tea factories where slightly higher levels of skill were required. According to one authoritative estimate of the total labour force in a standard size tea garden only 10 per cent was employed in the tea factory.55 Obviously the bulk of the non-Act labour could not have been employed in such better paid jobs.  Here it is worth mentioning again that the non-Act labour was increasing very fast and after 1918-19 there was virtually no Act labour in Assam Valley tea plantations.  It is important to note that in terms of actual performance of work on the field there was no difference between Act and non-Act labour. The decline in the employment of Act labourers was due to the fact that Act VI of 1901 (under which most Act labourers were contracted) was no longer as useful to the employer because by 1908 its penal provisions were abolished.56

And finally, as far as the question of 'bonus' was concerned it seems that the term was loosely used in official literature. The concept of profit bonus as we understand today (labour sharing certain portion of the profits) did not exist in the tea industry till the end of the period understudy.  While answering a query from Sir Nicholas Beatson Bell, the Governor of Assam, in February, 1921 the representatives of the tea industry admitted that their labour force did not receive a bonus on profits.57   The Royal Commission also acknowledged that no such system was in force in the Assam tea industry.58

The variation between the wages of men, women and children was totally arbitrary and discriminatory. Women and children were paid less than men.  Reasons for this were never given.  The hours of work for women and children were the same as those of men.  Women, moreover, performed most types of work done by men like hoeing, pruning etc. In fact the women labour even specialised in plucking and their number was fairly large.  In peak season, it was estimated, nearly 60 per cent of the labour force consisted of women who were engaged in plucking the leaves.59   Besides, there were no complaints either in the official reports or in official histories and ITA reports of women performing less work compared to men.  Moreover the technique of production in the tea plantations did not undergo any radical changes and there was hardly any differentiation of skills which could explain the variation.  Since male and female labour worked on similar types of jobs of low skills and for the same number of hours it would appear that productivity per unit of male and female labour did not differ significantly.  Therefore, it seems that the variation between male and female wages was created purely on the basis of conventional values of sexual discri­mination.  As for the effects of this discriminatory policy, the low rate of wages for women and children served to depress the overall average rate of wages. The lowering of wage rates through such discrimination was certainly of very significant magnitude considering the fact that the employment of women and children combined, was proportionately higher than that of men.60

Grants of land made by managers, for private cultiva­tion by labour, was considered to be an important 'concession' which supplemented their earnings.61 Most of the labour reports remarked that gardens with plenty of cultivable land were 'popular' with labour. The Royal Commission remarked, "The garden worker is essentially an agriculturist and his desire for the possession of a holding which he can cultivate with the help of the members of his family is great."62 However, the labourers who were granted such lands, had to pay rent to the gardens. And, while it is true that such lands were granted by the planters to their labour force for their private cultivation, the motives claimed are suspect.  Besides, whether cultivation of such lands significantly contributed towards the extra earnings of labour has to be critically examined.

First of all, most of such grants were conditional; the labour had no occupancy right over such land and he could hold it only so long as he performed labour in the tea garden.63  The land could be taken back on "disciplinary" grounds.64 Secondly, while not every labour received land for private cultivation, the size of holdings given, was usually very small.  A study of the number of adult labour (settled) and total area held by them as tenants of the tea estates in Table 1 shows that in Lakhimpur the average land granted per worker was less than 1/3 of an acre.  In Sibsagar it fluctuated between less than 1/4 of an acre to less than 1/3 of an acre, and in Darrang between less than 1/2 of an acre to less than 1/4 of an acre.

From the limited evidence available, we have tried to work out the approximate money value of the total produce from such holdings.  The Enquiry Committee of 1921-22 estimated that between 15 to 20 maunds of paddy per acre may be taken as a fair amount of the crop in a normal year.65 For our purposes, we shall take both the highest and the lowest figure. The market price of unhusked rice for the year 1921-22 was on an average quoted at Rs.2.69 per maund.66 The total value of crop per acre for one year then works out to Rs, 53.80 (for 20 maunds) and Rs.45.35 (for 15 maunds). In that year it was reported that the labourers as tenants of the tea estates held 35, 358 acres of land in Lakhimpur, 18,012 acres in Sibsagar and 9,103 acres in Darrang.67 Compared to this there were 120, 802,  118, 155 and 69, 895 adult labourers in Lakhimpur, Sibsagar and Darrang respectively in the same year.68 The average holding therefore, came to be less than one-third of an acre in Lakhimpur, little less than one-seventh of an acre in Sibsagar and about one-eighth of an acre in Darrang.

Table-1

Total Number of Adult Labourers (on the garden books) 

in the Tea Gardens and Total Amount of Land.  

Source:  Annual Reports on the Working of the Tea District Emigrant Labour Act (XXII of 1932) for respective years.

Note: Granted (for private cultivation) by the Planters to the Labourers in Lakhimpur, Sibsagar and Darrang. 1934-1944  

The combined average for three districts works out to be approximately one-fifth of an acre per labour in 1921-22. After deducting the yearly rent (at the rate of Rs. 1.58 per acre) the approximate money value of paddy comes to Rs.10.44 (for the highest figure) and; 7.80 (for the lowest figure) per labour during the corresponding year.69   Calculated in yearly averages, it represented about 12.7 per cent (for highest figures) and 9.46 per cent (for the lowest figures) of the yearly income of an adult labour earned in 1921-22 (this average represents all three districts).

However, these figures cannot be accepted at their face value as representing real extra income for the following reasons.  Firstly, the labour received no wages while engaged in their own cultivation because the concept of leave with pay (even on Sunday) did not exist in the gardens.70 Therefore; the wage foregone ought to be deducted. Secondly, the deduction of the cost of seeds still further lower the figure.  The Enquiry Committee of 1920-22 did not accept the argument that the cash value of crops so raised should be considered as a "concession."71

However, though private cultivation did not contribute significantly towards the total earnings of the labour force, they became increasingly dependent on such lands because of very meagre cash earnings.  It was more so