Hundred Years of Chargola Exodus: Changes and Continuity in the Tea Plantations in Eastern India

Abstract

The introduction of tea plantations was a colonial capitalist venture in eastern India. The tea plantations turned into social enclaves and hotspots of labour migration. The tribal labourers had to work in a bondage labour system with low wages, strict surveillance and harsh working conditions. The Chargola Exodus of 1921 was one of the first organized and articulated labour protests against colonial oppression and the bondage labour system in tea plantations. The plantation labourers revolted against the colonial oppression and decided to return to their homeland to quit from bondage system in the tea plantations. This article examines the changes and continuity in the tea plantations in the last hundred years since the Chargola Exodus. It argues the bondage labour system can still be sensed as the colonial structure in the plantations remained unchanged. However, the forms of labour bondage have been changed, and it has become ‘unannounced’. Therefore, the servitude of the labourers in the tea plantations has continued since the colonial period, even after the independence of the country. At present, the tribal communities in the tea plantations are living in extreme poverty, chronic hunger, low literacy, unsanitary living conditions and poor health status. The tea plantations have turned into a hotspot of human trafficking, forced out-migration and hunger deaths.