“Assamese Tea’s History and the Effects of Welfare Initiatives on Tea Plantation Workers” (A Study in Golaghat District of Assam)

Tea is one of the largest agro-based industries in the North Eastern region discovered by the Britishers during their colonial rule in India. It is a vital sector in the economy and socio-cultural life of the people of Assam. Being agro-industrial in character, tea is a labour oriented industry requiring a very large number of workers. Since about mid-nineteenth the British Company started tea plantation in Assam and imported a large numbers of labourer from different parts of India for tea plantation. Through the natural process of social change and assimilation; the tea labourer have been formed a separate community in Assam called them the ‘‘Tea Garden community” or “Cah Bagicar Asomiya.” The migrant labourer, who came to this part of the North East for their means of livelihood, gradually assimilated in the Assamese society in heart and soul and living permanently depending on British company system. With their excessive labour, they planted tea gardens in Assam and majority of them cut off their close relation from their own kith and kin in the native places and now they are inseparable part of Assamese nationality in various name as Cah Bonua, Cah Mozdur, Cooli, etc, “The tea garden labourer connected so much with tea that without ‘Tea’ their existence is unthinkable.