Why Chalans Resistance? Protests by the Tea Plantation Labourers against the Britishers in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

The occupation of Assam by the British in the first half of the nineteenth century led Assam to be connected with the rest of India. Assam under the Company’s rule had seen its political consolidation by the British and economic expansion with new industries. The Company did not waste time to look into the economic prospects of the region and initiated explorations to search for new possibilities, tea industry being one of them. The success of the experiments with the tea plantations largely depended on the quality of labour which is employed. The tea companies had to brought labourers from outside as Assam was highly depopulated at that time. This with other developments in the region had transformed the economy and society of Assam and in course of time the people of Assam developed a feeling of being exploited by the colonial rule. The tea plantation labourers were not the one to be left alone by this consciousness of anti-imperialism. There emerged a strong anti-colonial and political awareness amongst the plantation labourers which culminated into a series of protests by them in the nineteenth century.