Class Struggle In Assam Tea Plantations With Special Reference To The Assam Hooch Tragedy Occurred In Salmora Tea Estate,Golaghat,Assam:
Introduction:
The Implementation Of The Class Struggle Philosophy Of Karl Marx In Assam Tea Plantations:
After the end of British rule, India became a half capitalist and half feudal state. But the tea gardens were under the impact of colonialism. Some irrational rules are still in play in most of the plantations in Assam. The labor cannot bring home the medicines that the garden hospital allows to take if any of the plantation labor is ill. They can only go to the hospital and take that medicine. It is still an "undeclared rule" that has been in place since the British rule. Amalendu Guha in his book 'Planter Raj to Swaraj' gives an informative interpretation of the heartbreaking history of tea makers. Since the colonial rule, the above-mentioned unreasonable rules have been in place so that no one can escape the difficult garden work by making excuses for physical illness. In a democratic country, there is also a colonial environment in some places. Sociologist James Scott calls it internal colonialism. Marxist economist Paul M. Sweezy has named these tea gardens as “Enclave Economy”. Sweezy gives an incredible account of how this 'Enclave Economy' is being kept in force in the largest tea plantations in Latin America. These tea gardens covered with green tea plants are like a small colony for companies. The tea plantation authorities are the supervisor of these colonies.
Neo-liberalism has brought a new crisis to the life of tea garden workers.Facing intense competition in the globalized market, tea companies have focused on the cost of tea production to come down. They have focused on reducing the cost of work to reduce production costs. Most of the workers did permanent work within the tea garden till the new liberalism policy came into force. The tea garden owner had earlier provided food items to tea garden workers with the house, hospital expenses, etc but paid less for their work.During British rule, it was a strategy to lock tea garden workers inside tea gardens.The system was validated in the “Plantations Labour Act of,1951” after independence.But neoliberalism has led to measures to lower the cost of work, besides other items provided. They gave more focus on hiring temporary workers instead of permanent ones. There were a few temporary laborers in the garden even before 1991 but now the number of temporary laborers in most of the gardens is high. The owners have brought down the cost of work by hiring temporary ones in place of permanent ones. As a result, at the same time, the social security of tea garden workers has also been greatly down as compared to the previous ones.Tea gardens have been included in the National Rural Health Mission since 2007. The Assam government also has a lot of schemes to protect the mother and the child. However, most of the workers are still provisional in tea gardens. Temporary workers in tea plantations do not get maternity leave. So sometimes the women workers have to work in the garden even the day before she has labor pains. Many of them still give birth at home instead of in hospitals. So they are deprived of all the three schemes of the Assam government - 'Mamta', 'Morom' and 'Majoni.Thus the two-hundred-year British rule, the 74-year-old 'fraud of independent India', and the idea of neoliberalism that has been going on for 30 years of recent times have made the life of the proletariat tea workers even more miserable.
This is how a report published in the magazine Som Prakash in 1290 was designed.
– “যদি মিল্টনৰ পেৰেডাইজ লষ্ট নাটকৰ নৰক বৰ্ণনা পাঠ কৰিছা, যদি মেঘনাথ বধৰ ভীষণ যমপুৰীৰ চিত্ৰ কেতিয়াবা মনত আঁকিছা, যদি ৰবিনছন ক্ৰুছ’ৰ বনবাসৰ কথা শুনিছা তেনেহ’লে এই স্থানৰ চিত্ৰ হৃদয়ংগম কৰিবলৈ সমৰ্থ হ’বা। প্ৰত্যেকখন চাহ বাগিচাত এইসমূহৰ সমাৱেশ আছে।”
Although this report was published many years ago, this image can still be seen in tea gardens in Assam. Walking from the highway,when we reach the “Coolie line”, personally it sights like we are 200 years back on the time machine. The presence of two different worlds can be seen outside and inside the tea plantations. There is still a colonial world in the tea garden area. A documentary about tea gardens in Assam was made by the US "The Guardian" newsgroup. The name of that documentary was "Modern Slaves In Assam”.The literacy rate among the tea community is very low. Two primary schools in Golaghat and Cachar districts are being run by the Assam government. On the contrary, all primary schools in tea gardens are run by the garden authorities. The Assam SarvaShiksha Mission has set up a 'Plantations Shiksha Samiti' to spread education within the plantation. The Tea plantation committee, 2007 report, and studies by various researchers and institutions give some glimpses of the real picture.The infrastructure of the schools in the tea garden areas is miserable. In many places, 150/200 students are being taught by one teacher. A generally educated tea garden student is appointed as a primary school teacher by the plantations authorities. Sometimes the teacher spends half the time in the tea garden and teaches for the rest of the time. Pay is also made only if he/she teaches without work in the plantations. Schools are closed at many places while plucking leaves in the plantations. Because the student and the teacher get busy with plucking all the leaves. Many students do not even finish primary school. The girls are often put to the job of plantations at the age of 9/10. There is no system to coach teachers. The number of people pursuing higher secondary or graduate education is very negligible. Under The plantations, labor Act, 1951, no child above the age of 12 years will be able to work within the tea garden as per 24th and 26th. But there are also mentions that children between the years of 12 and 17 years will be worthy to work to get physical fitness certificates from the garden. Again this certificate is to be appointed as permanent workers in the gardens. The fact of obtaining this certificate gives some kind of legitimacy to the employment of child laborers. "The Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act, 1986" amended the previous Plantations Labour Act, 1951 to give the minimum age of employment of the garden to 14 years.Though schools have been established in gardens, there is still no awareness among the tea garden people about education. In Assam, Bodos can study in Bodo language, Bengalis in Bengali, Hindi speakers in Hindi, but no child has been able to get education in the mother tongue in tea garden areas. Students are also deprived of education in Sadri or Sadani language, which is a language prevalent as a language in tea garden areas. The lack of higher education programs in the tea gardens and the lack of teachers in proportion to the students has not been resolved even today. Although the lower class of people do not understand the complex language of politics, the educated community has come to realize this very well. The demand for the safeguard of tea garden workers for political security has been long-standing but even today it is confined to demands due to the indifference of both governments. There are a total of 800 small tea plantations in Assam. Of these, 503 are large and 297 are small tea plantations in Assam. The 'Plantations Act, 1951' mentions providing potable water to tea laborers, free medical care,houses, and basic education, although even today, there is a lot of problems faced by tea garden workers. The dream of maintaining the interests of the workers has not come true even as they struggle to ensure the economic, social, and political rights of the workers in tea gardens of Assam as well as to solve problems like health, residence, potable water, food, electrical connectivity, etc. Tea laborers in various Tea estate of Assam get only Rs.167 per day by contributing duty all day. The task of the laborer is curtailed if the laborer arrives a little late than the time. They are given government houses to stay but the houses are not livable. Tea garden workers living in a very pathetic environment also have to work hard to get home from duty due to poor road conditions. Workers have to die at a very young age due to an unhygienic environment. They are given 6kg of rice and 6kg of flour per month from the garden side but they are not adequate for a family. The work of tea laborers is performed from 8 am to 4 pm. It is also mandatory to pluck 24 kg of tea leaves on this 8-hour duty. If a worker is plucking a little less than 24 kg of leaves, he gets half the wages of the day. Government houses remain the same as they had during the period of British rules.No emphasis has been given to their repairing. So the laborers have spent their lives in a miserable conditions. Electricity connections have not been complete in all tea gardens to date. It may be noted that according to Indian law, it is also mandatory for the tea garden owner to provide toilets in addition to the house for the laborers, but even today the laborers are deprived of their dues. Women, working in tea gardens become physically week at a very young age, the reasons may be easily predictable for all of us. Tea garden workers do their duty well by taking all hardships. There are about 800 tea gardens in Assam. This is more or less a picture of each garden. That miserable British era came to an end through the atrocities and exploitation of tea labor remain in the same. In such a context, the cooperation of every person is essential to ensure the economic, social, and political rights of tea labor in Assam. Otherwise, we are more likely to be able to see many more mishaps like killing doctors in the days to come.
Class Struggle In Assam Tea Plantations With Special Reference To The Assam Hooch Tragedy Occurred In Salmora Tea Estate,Golaghat,Assam:
The northeastern state of Assam is prospering as the best tea producer state all over the world. The first incident of the hooch tragedy arose at Salmora tea estate in Golaghat district on February 21, 2019. Four women died after consuming spurious liquor. Four women, Draupadi Orang, Bel Bhumij, Agni Guwala, and Bandhoi Bauri, fell ill after drank alcohol in the evening. They were later brought to Shahid Kushal Konwar civil hospital in Golaghat but were declared dead by doctors. According to media reports from February 21 to February 27, the death toll rose to 159, though according to private data, the figures were about 180. A lot of laborers also died in areas like Barhola, Rajabahar, Rangabat, Raidangjuri, etc. in Titabarsubdivision of Jorhat district as well as tea garden areas like Usha, Gauranga, Salmora, Merapani, Govindpur in Golaghat district. Of these, the Barhola tea estate in the Jorhat district and the tea garden in Rajabahar had the most number of deaths.Though four persons died after consuming spurious liquor on February 21, the excise department did not take any adequate action of the incident. As a result, the illegal business of spurious liquor was being continued. Later, spurious liquor poisoning also expanded in new areas. In this regard, the number of dead increased tremendously as the government did not raise awareness among the employees and avoided taking certain steps in the area of spurious liquor control. The educational, social, and economic status of tea garden labor in Assam demonstrates that a century has passed through an exploited socio-economic and political system. It was the Britishers, who developed the habit of drinking among tea garden workers. For Britishers, drinking was an apparatus of exploitation of the tea laborers. It was in 1878 that the Group of Owners of The New Tea Garden built a liquor plant in Dibrugarh. They also appealed to the authority in Assam to bring down the liquor tax imported. Even in the House of Commons, an Mp from England discussed how the plantation owners group had set up liquor shops around the tea garden. Colonial rulers used narcotics as the main instrument to carry out the most difficult tasks by tea garden workers. From many years ago, out of a total of 33 tea gardens, 31 gardens were provided with spurious liquor by the owners. Spurious liquor was given to the workers as a reward for their excessive work. The owners also distributed spurious liquor among the workers during festivals like Karam Puja, Durga Puja, etc. In this way, the owners used the liquor to serve their interests. This is how the bourgeois class tried to a large section of a large population become inebriated slavery. This evil tradition could not be put to an end even after many years of independence. Even before this incident, 23 workers died prematurely due to poisoning in Daiyang Tea Estate in Golaghat district and no one was punished by the government for the same. The government also did not take any specific measures to stop liquor. So where there is an environment for drinking alcohol and people have to die of that alcohol, this can also be called one kind of murder by a government machine to a great deal.
Evaluation
As we all know that various communities have contributed to the development of Assamese culture and civilization. In this regard, everyone should take a united endeavor for the all-round development of the tea community of Assam. Only then will the dictatorship of the proletariat be ascertained as Karl Marx said in class struggle theory.We haven't sighted any substantial representatives in the political field from tea garden areas but they can play an indispensable role in the elections. There is a lack of political awareness and competent leaders among the tea-garden communities as compared to other communities in Assam. The trade union and student unionsplay a notable role in raising several socio-economic and political demands of tea garden workers before the government but these organizations are also not completely free from political influence.Even after many years of India's independence, the tea community is classified to be Collie, Bagania, or Bongali. They are still not considered an integral part of Assamese society. Although Karl Marx cites the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in his class struggle theory, the rising growth of globalization, capitalism, and neo-liberalism in the 21st century has made the condition of tea workers awful. To establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, the emphasis must be on the overall development of tea workers and strong participation of all people is necessary in this regard along with government cooperation.
Conclusion:
The ongoing exploitation of tea labor completely devastates them. They also seem to be exhausted to protest against the bourgeois class. They take refuge in various narcotics to forgetting their suffering. Similarly incident like 'Hooch Tragedy' has swirled the whole of Assam. Angry, the persecuted tea labor sometimes attacked the owner's side in a frenzy. The killing of tea garden doctor Deven Dutta a few years ago by tea laborers had gained widespread buzz across the country. Analyzing this incident, some people want to say that this is an expression of anger and animosity of exploited tea laborers. But no one with a healthy brain can back the killing of a man. So, in today's context tea laborers have become known among people as rude, savage, jungle, human beings. Thus tea gardens are burning, no one knows when it will end.
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