The Plantation as a Social System

Author(s): Sharit Kumar Bhowmik

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 15, No. 36 (Sep. 6, 1980), pp. 1524-1527
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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The

Plantation

as

Social

System

Sharit Kumar Bhowmik

The plantation has a distinct form of production organisation which gives rise to certatin specific
social relations. Most definitions of a plantation tend to overlook these relations which emerge from the
plantation as a social system.
This paper, based on the findings of fieldwork conducted among tea plantation workers in the
Dooars in North Bengal, attempts a sociological definition of the plantation system. The uniqueness of a
plantation system lies in its social and production relNtions. These no doubt have changed since the days
of pla;ntation economies of colonial times and are chaiging even now; but the change in these relations is
determined by the context of isolation of the plantantion from the wider social system, the influence of the
working class organisations among the workers and the role of the State.
TI-IE plantation has a distinct form of
gives
which
organisation
production
rise to certain specific social relations.
Most writers, while defining a plantathese relations
t$on, tend to overlook
which emerge from the plantation as a
its
social system. They either explain
production relations or they deal with
the production unit itself. In this paper
I have tried to show the inadequacies
of such definitions and have attempted
ar. alternative sociological definition of
the plantation system.
The paper is based on the findings of
my field investigation conducted among
the tea plantation workers in the Dooars
are in jalpaiguri district, West Bengal.
A majority of the workers employed in
Adivasis
plantations are
the Dooars
(Scheduled Tribes) from the Chotanagpur area of Bihar. They mainly belong
to the Oraon, Mtunda, Kharia and Santhal tribes. These workers were brought
to the Dooars at the end of the nineteenth century as indentured labour in
up
the tea plantations which sprang
cluring this time. The first tea garden
wvas founded here in 1874. At present
the tea growing area stretches to nearly
200 kilometres in length and around 50
kilometres in breath and comprises
152 tea gardens which account for a
little less than 20 per cent of India's
tea produ-iction. The labour force in the
tea gardens has settled in and around
the plantations and has little or no
contact with their places of origin.
SOME DEFNTIONS

Labour OrganisalThe International

tion1 notes that the term plantation at
first referred to a group of settlers, or
the political unit formed by it, under
British colonialism, specially in North
America and in the West Indies. However, with the colonisation of African and
Asian regions hy British and European
a broader
it acquired
entrepreneurs,
connotation and came to denote largescale enterprises
in agricultural units

and the development of certain agricultulral resources of tropical countries in

accordance with the methods of western
Hla Myint2 distinguishes the
industry.
plantation from peasant agriculture by
its large-scale enterprise which normally
requires more labour per unit of land.
William 0 joanes3 defines a plantation
as "an economic unit producing agriculand
sale
commodities... for
tural
employing a relatively large number of
un.skilled labourers whose activities are
from
supervised... [it differs]
closelv
other kinds of farms in the way in
of production, priwxhich the factors
marily management and labour are comhierarchy
bined." There is a vertical
with skilled superin the plantation
visors or managers directing production
uindertaken by unskilled labourers whose
"primary skill is to follow orders".
Historically, plantations were a product of colonialism. Their produce was
mainly for export. In some cases such
they were
as rubber and cinchona,
established to provide raw material for
for the
especially
western industry In others, such as
colonising country.
tea, coffee and sugar, their markets lay
colonising countries.
in the developed
The growth of tea plantations in India
was a result of a rise in popularity of
Indian tea in Britain: Indian tea scored
over Chinese tea, which was popular in
the early nineteenth century, because of
its thicker brew.4 Hence plantations in
the colonies were fundamentally international in character.
The development of plantations necessitated two basic requisites: large area
of cultivable
land
and, secondly, a
large labour force. However, the areas
most suited for plantations were initially
Hence, during the
sparsely populated.
faced the
formative years, plantations
problem of acute labour shortage. They
had to depend on migrant labour whose
mnigration had to be induced by the
planters. One can cite the examples of
America,
cotton plantations in North

stugar in British Guyana and Cuba,

ruibberin Malaya and tea in India. All
these plantations depended on migrant
labour. The early plantations in America
and the Caribbean Islands were run on
slave labour. After the abolition of
slavery, indenture became a common
mnode of recruitment. We therefore
find that the plantation came to be associated not only with a resident labour
force but, more often than not, "with
one of alien origin".5
SPECIFIC

FEATUREs

OF

PLANTAIION

SYSTE

In defining the plantation a mere

description of its economic features, as
Myint has done, or simply dealing with
the production unit itself, as Jones has
done, are not sufficient. A sociological
definition of the plantation cannot be
restricted to an enumeration of some
characteristic features such as scale of
production, single crop pattern, export
oriented market, immigrant labour, and
so on. These features may be common
in plantation systems all over the world
b)ut they describe, rather than define,
the plantation system.
Such descriptions overlook two vital
aspects which are important for understanding the production relations. Fitst,
how the prevalent production relations
emerge in a plantation; and secondly,
as the plantation is a part of the wider
social system, a change in that will cause
a change in the prevailing production
rielations.

In this regard, Eric Wolf takes a

broader approach. He points out that
the establishment of plantations has
always destroyed the antecedent cultural
uorms of the area concerned. Wolf
states that the plantation "is also an
instrument of force wielded to create
anid to maintain a class-structure of
workers and owners, connected hierarchically by a staff line or overseers and
The point to be emphasised
rmanagers".6
here is that coercion is an integral part

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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL

September 6, 1980

WEEKLY

of the plantation system. It results from

the nature of production relations in it.
The main limitation of Wolf's definition
is that it covers just one phase. of the
plantation
system.
Coercion
is an
integral
part of this system
but it
gradually diminishes. In order to understand whv this happens we must investigate the relations of production in thb
plantation system and how it changes.
The plantation is a labour intensive
industry.
At the same time, as noted
earlier, the most suitable places for the
establishment of plantations were areas
where labour supply was sparse. A high
wage rate could possibly have induced
workers to migrate to these areas, but
the planters
were not willing to pay
their workers well. Hla Myint notes that
the wages the planters paid were very
low, and they "tended to stick at their
initial level in spite of rapid expansion in
the production of ... plantation exports".7
Myint tries to justify this phenomenon
bv arguing that since
productivity of
labour was low, the wage rate also had
to be low. Under these circumstances,
an increase in the wage rate, so as to
attract more workers, would mean that
current wages would
be higher than
the short-run productivity of labour. In
the long-run,
however, productivity nf
labour would rise as health of the
workers would improve as a result of
wvelfare measures.8
However, Myint's argument is not
very convincing.
First, the wage rate
remained static even after productivity
of
labour
increased
significantly.
Secondly, in these same colonies, labour
Nvas attracted through higher wages in
non-plantation industries. For instance,
in 1883, in spite of the fact that the tea
plantations in Assam were facing acute
4,bour shortage, the average income of
the tea garden worker remained static
at Rs 3 per month.9 During the same
period wages of textile
workers
in
Bombay rose from Rs 7-12-0 per month
in 1860-62 to Rs 13-12-0 per month in
188.3, because the rapidly expanding industry was facing a shortage of labour.'0
Wages in the tea plantations were not
only much lower than wages in other
iridustries, but they
were also lower
than the wages of
agricultural labour
in the neighbouring areas.
The SubDivisional Officer of Karimganj wrote in
1883 that while the wage rate of the
emigrant plantation worker remained at
]Rs 3 per month "Bengalis in the adjoining villages earned without
difficulty
The wage
rupees seven per month"."
rate of the plantation workers in the
Dooars was simnilar to that in Assam.'2

W W Hunter noted that the wages for

day labourers or agricultural labourers
in Jalpaiguri district were around three
annas to four annas per day (around
seven rupees per month) in 1872,13 i e,
the first tea garden
two years before
was estab)lished in this district.
In reality the productivity of plantation labour was never a major consideration in determining the wage rate.
There existed a duialism in the plantation svstem. The plantation in its relation to the outside world was govemed
by the market principle, ie, the price
of its products was fixed through the
interaction of demand and supply. At
the same time, its own internal hierarchy
For inregulated by coercion.
was
stance. in the tea industry, the wages
workers were fixed
of the plantation
by the planters through their organisaIndian Tea Association.
tions like the
the Indian Tea Planters Association and
others. The workers had no say in the
matter. This is why the Royal Comin 1930, strongly
mission on Labour,
recommended that a wage fixing mnachinery be established in the tea induistrv,
even thouigh the planters felt that fixing
"absoluitely
of minimuim wages was
unnecessary".14 The Rage Commission
made a similar recommendation in 1944
in view of the fact that the workers had
not developed a spirit of collective bargaining and hence thev could not take
in bargaining for fair
a uinified stand
wages.'5

and immigrant
Coercion, low wages
labour were initially the three important,
or rather, inseparable, components
of
the plantation system.
These ensured
The
the planters their high profits.
plantation, being a labour-intensive ina reduction in the wage bill
dustrv,
same
At the
would increase profits.
able to
time the planters should be
have a captive labour force and extract
as much work as possible from the labourers. Employment of indentured or
slave labour ensured
for the planters
that the workers were bound to work
on the plantations
on whatever wage
In this way the
was given to them.
the
to obstruct
were able
planters
market and the
of a labour
growth
workers
of a market
were deprived
wage. In the normal course, when the labour market is relatively free, the market
wage is determined by the demand for,
and supply of, labour. When there is a
shortage of labour, wages rise in order
to attract more workers to the market.
This is what happened in the Bombay
textile industry. However, in the plantations we find that the wage rate was

not only static but it was even lower

than the wage rate of the local agricultural workers.
If at all local labour was used, the
planters made sure that they depended
only on the plantation as their means
of sustenance. For instance, in the
Caribbean countries, the entire peasantry was uprooted from land so as to
provide labour for the sugar plantations.16S W Mintz mentions a similar
situation in Puerto Rico where the
sugar plantation owners procured their
labour by coercion. The planters used
both slave labour and the local population as sources of labour supply. The
Governor General of Puerto -Rico issued
an order in 18.37 compelling "all landless workers to go to work on local
plantations and to register their names
in municipal rolls, under penalty of
fines".17
In the initial stages of the plantation
industry in India, the government adopted a position which favoured the
planters. The Assam planters, in a bid
to overcome their shortage of labour,
sought to uproot the local peasants from
their lands. They appealed to the government to increase land revenue so
that the peasantry around the plantation areas would give up their lands
and seek work in the plantations.
Consequently, in 1868, the Bengal
government double the land revenue rates in those areas. This did
not have the intended effect as the peasants rose in protest and refused to pay
the enhanced rates.18The planters then
resorted to the system of indenture.
Becruiters roamed the Chotanagpur
area to enlist impoverished tribals for
work in the plantatlons. These people
wverelured by false promises of a better
life. They had to enter into a contract
with their employers which laid down
that they would have to work for a
minimum of four years.
Isolation and an almost complete absence of legal protection had placed the
plantation worker in a position of total
dependence. These prevented the
worker from migrating elsewhere for
better wages. The planters, on the
other hand, enjoyed full protection from
their respective governments, as it was
n)oted earlier. For example, the plantation worker in Assam had no right to
leave the plantation even if he found
that conditions there were different from
those he had been promised. The planters had the Workmen's Breach of Contract Act'9 to prevent any worker from
leaving before his contract period was
over.

In the Dooars,

the conditions
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September 6, 1980

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

even though the

were almost similar
Workmen's Breach of Contract Act was
not enforced there, though the planters
occasionally thought of extending it in
their area, as is evident from the reports of the Dooars Planters' Association
for the years 1921 and 1937. However,
the planters employed guards to keep
and prevent
on their labour
an eye
Also, the isolation
them from leaving.
of the Dooars area prevented the worIt
kers from leaving the plantations.
was virtually impossible for any worker
to find his way back to Chotanagpui
once he was in the Dooars.
Thus we find that the planters were
able to maintain the plantation system
main factors:
coercion,
duie to four
and political
migrant labour, isolation
suipport. However, a definition of the
plantation system based on these four
The
points is still not comprehensive.
plantation system is not a static system.
Irn order to understand the change in
this system it is necessarv to analyse its
and its linkage
relations of production
tc the wider social system.
PLAN-TATION

AND Socio-ECONOMIC
SYSTE

The plantation is a component of the

The factors
socio-economic formation.
think are inherent in the
wvhich we
plantation system are in fact allowed to
by the larger
exist, or are protected,
socio-economic system. The production
relations in the plantation svstem change
in the wider
when there is a change
socio-economic formation.
Cuba is a 'plantation
For instance,
economvy having the superficial characteristics of other plantation economies.
revolution in 1959,
However after the
changed.
system
the
socio-economic
sugar is still the main
Even though
crop, the absence of foreign ownership
and the change in the social and class
structure shows that Cuba cannot be
plantation econoequated with other
mies in the region such as Haiti or
Banana ReGuatemala or any of the
Prior to
of Central America.
publics
1959, the Cuban sugar plantations also
lbad coercion, low wages and all the inherent features of a plantation system.
as the
have changed
These features
ownership of the plantations passed
from private owners into the hands of
the State.
In India too, though tea production
began with all the features of a classical plantation system, the change in the
State after indepencharacter of the
dlence has been affecting this system.

Hence, thotugh plantations are historically linked with colonialism, they are
not struictturallv, or inevitably,
linked
As these colonies free themwvith it.
selves and hecorne
independent countries, a new set of production relations
springs up.
Political pressures are increasinglv mounted on the government
to pass laws protecting the plantation
wvorker and
giving him a degree of
security
in his work.
Conditions for
the growth
of workers' organisations
develop, which
in turn encourage the
plantation workers to fight for better
conditions of work. The use of coercion
is relaxed and the isolation of the plantation is broken down.
In the Dooars, apart from protection
granted by the govemment in the form
of laws (such as the Industrial Disputes
Act, Minimum
Wages Act, Plantation
Labour Act, etc), improvement in commuinications helped the workers in orIt helped
ganising themselves.
break
clown their isolation and brought them
in contact with the world outside the
plantation system.
The old plantation
system could ruin successfullv as long as
the workers remained out of touch with
system and remained
the wider social
uInorganised and at the
mercy of the
The more the workers came
planters.
in contact with the wider social system.
the faster was the pace of their social
emancipation.
Earlier, the planters got the support
of the government in passing laws in
their favour.
Thev were
uinited and
economically powerful. The Rege Commission had
noted that
the planterv
were "highly organised and powerful"
and their associations
played a vital
role in deciding
all issues affecting
labour; on the other hand, the workers
were "all unorganised
and helpless".20
once the
However,
workers
started
for
organising themselves and fighting
their basic rights, they challenged this
power of the planters. They compelled
the government to modifv many of the
laws
the
which favoured
stringent
planters at the expense of the workers.
The change in the plantation system in
all parts of the world started when
plantation labour united to fight for its
rights and influence the affairs of the
State.
such as India,
In
some countries,
from
plantation labour also benefited
other sections of the
the struggles of
working class. In the initial post-indelabour in
plantation
pendence stage,
of laws which
India got the benefits
granted
protection to workers, mainly
because
of the
struggles
of other

sections of the working class which had

pressurised
the
government
to pass
these laws.
Later, as a result of this
protection, or, we can say, encouraged
by it, it was able to organise struggles
for its own rights.
CONCLUSION

The socio-economic formation of the

plantation industry, with its low level of
technology and its heavy dependence on
rrianual laboiir, is significantly diffetent
frorm that of other
industries. The
general isolation of the plantations and
its dependence on
immigrant labour
give rise to some specific characteristics
to its labour force. The social relations
among the workers which evolves out
of such system
is also bound
to be
different from that of labour in other
industries. In the Dooars, the production
rielations into which the tribal workers
enter give them the objective charactetistics of induistrial workers as they are
wage labouir selling their labour power.
However, isolation
tends to help the
workers preserve their links with their
social organisation. Hence they
carry
forward
from their tribal background
some of the social and cultural characteristics associated with a totally different
kind of production system.
Therefore,
while attempting to define the plantation
system, an elucidation of its economic
characteristics is not enough.
It does
not explain the uniqueness of the plantation.
The social relations,
and the
production relations which spring forth
from such
a system, are
important
characteristics of the plantation. Secondly, the possibility
of change in such
relations is determined by the extent of
isolation of the plantation from the wider
social system., the influence of working
,class organisations among the workers
and the role of the State.

Notes
[I am grateful to Andre Beteille for his
comments and criticism.]
I International Labour Organisation,
"Basic Problems of Plantation Labouir", Geneva, 1950, pp 6-9.
2 Hla Myint,
"The Economics
of
Developing
Countries",
London,
1973, p 40.
0
3 William
Jones,
'Plantation'

International Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences, 1968, pp 154-56.

Hugh Tinker, "A New System of

Slavery: The
Export of
Indian
Labour Overseas, 1830-1920", LondIon, 1974, p 29.
I Greaves, 'Plantations
in World
Economy' in "Plantation Systems of
the New World", Washington, 1959,
p 115.

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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL

WEEKLY

September 6, 1980

Tea Planters' Association,

Indian
in the attemnptto economise the pubAinnual General Report, Jalpaiguri, lic expenditure. We have some evi1929, p 98. This was in reply to a
dence in this regard from the review
(ltiestionnaire circulated by the Romade by the Comptroller and Auditorin
India.
yal Commission on Labour
7
('On Improving
General of India.
15 D V Rege, "Report on an Enquiry
8
in Effectiveness of Govemment Expendiof Labour
into Conditions
9
Plantations in India", Government
ture', S G Sarkar, Commerce, July 12,
of India, Delhi, 1946, p 176.
1980, p 35.)
16 Jay R Mandle, 'The Plantation EcoHowever, the author's suggestion to
nomy: An Essay in Definition'
the role of subsidies refers
examine
36,
Volume
Society,
and
Scien7ce
10
Number 1, New York, 1972, p 57. to the Report on Controls and Sub11 Ibid.
1 ) Details of the wages in the Dooars
17 S W Mintz, 'Canamelar: The Sub- sidies of the Vadilal Dagli Committee
in the late nineteenth century are
cultuire of a Rural Sugar Plantation
which also highlighted the urgent need
not available. However, Sir PerciProletariat' in "The People of Puer- for examining subsidies whose desirval Griffiths, the Political Adviser
to Rico", Illinois, 1956, p 332.
ed effects depend on the elasticities
of the Indian Tea Association,
Guha, "From Planter
18 Amalendu
which was then (and still is) the
supply and demand for subsidised
of
Struggle
Raj to Swaraj: Freedom
niost -uowerful body of the planters,
as well as for income, and subgoods
Assam
Politics in
and Electoral
m1akes this statement in his book,
9-10.
pp
1977,
Delhi,
1826-1947",
effects of subsidies.
stitution
IndusTea
of
the
Indian
"Ihistory
19 Act XVII of 1859. This Act made
try", London, 1972, p 309-10.
Subsidies should be used as a temthe worker liable for prosecution if
13 W W Hunter, "Statistical Account
subhis porary economic tool. But the
he left the tea garden before
of Bengal: jalpaigtiri, Cooch Behar
of
Government
the
by
provided
sidies
contract period was over.
and Darjeeling Districts", Calcutta,
India, through the Central Budget,
20 Bege, ibid, p 96.
1872, p 278.
have become an enduring feature of
India's fiscal policy, as is rightly obby the author. A subsidy
served
implies a reallocation of resources
within the economy. In the short
A Comment
run, it is a burden to the tax-payer
and a relief to the producers. But in
Tapas K Chakrabarty
the longer run, its objective is to
accelerate growth for the benefit of
of the
(financial as wvell as non-financial) and the masses. Any suggestion in this
IN his article 'Expenditure
Central Government: Some Issues', July to the states should be carefully re- regard should be supported therefore
by the critical analysis of the subsi5, after presenting some theoretical as- assessed.
highlighted
Chona
really
deseive dies provided and their effects on the
Chona's endeavours
pects of fiscal policy
well the broad trends in the growth and high commendation. The study is well economy.
of the Governknit and highly thought provoking.
pattern of expenditure
It is interesting that a closer look
ment of India duiring the last three deHlowever, we feel that the shortcoming
the policies providing subsidies for
at
of the study is the purely macro apcades, with a view to suggesting some
fertilisers, export promotion, etc,
food,
where economies
proach in examining the scope of econoareas of expenditure
reveal the contradictory steps
will
effected
could be
mising on public expenditure, though
and rationalisation
the government with resthe
effect on
any adverse
the author has recognised the relevance adopted by
without
the
price stabilisation policy.
to
pect
of the micro approach in this regard
growth of the economy.
some evidence by studyget
may
One
has
finally that "the ap- (p 1147). The approach the author
Ile expresses
export promotion policy
recent
the
ing
proach of examining the scope for re- adopted in the study does not proceed
sector commodities
primary
some
on
on micro lines. The approach of the
duction in expendituire in various actirice bran,
de-oiled
fish,
as
rice,
such
vities of the Govemment of India has study is to our mind controvertible.
to
decision
The
government's
etc.
The question is, first, whether the
to be esse)7tiallyJ micro. Although in the
consuof
these
the
export
puiblic expenditure undergoing pheno- encourage
short rtn there may not be much flexiconsidered
succeeded in mer commodities is to be
menal growth has
expenditure, there
bility in the public
policy.
an
anti-inflationary
as
not
of
the
people
to
providing benefits
are nevertheless certain areas both with
about
question
the
raise
can
Anyone
the country, and second, whether it is
non-developmental
clevelopmental and
of
promotion
of
export
priority
the
following the ends it is designed to
expenditure where some economy in exprice
over
commodities
consumer
about" (p serve. One should attempt to get an
can be brought
penditure
policy when the economy
appropriate answer to this interlaced stabilisation
that there exists
1151). He advocates
inflation which is
a
two-digit
facing
is
issue on macro lines (adopted in his
some scope for economy in defence ex1980-81.
in
continue
to
likely
(peinditure reallocation of fund for re- study) as well as on micro lines (assessthat the perforis
aspect
collecAnother
not
a
policies,
ment of specific
search and development), administrative
mance of almost all public undertakexpenditure on social ser- tion of policies for specific purpose).
expenditure,
Apart
It is quite common that the mode ings in India is one of the most serious
vices (education and medical).
the
that
of
implementation of policies and the deficiencies on the economic scene.
also
suggests
he
these,
from
utilisation of funds affect the volume An estimate yields 23 instances of
role of suibsidies, particularly those on
examined
be
of
expenditure. In this context, we severe underutilisation of capacity
should
fertilisers,
food and
must try and understand that the role during 1977-78 (Commerce, July 12,
and that the transfer of funds to nonundertakings,
of government machinery is significant OP 38). This is not to deny that the
departmental commercial
6

Eric Wolf, 'Specific Aspects of the

New
in the
System
Plantation
World' in "Plantation Systems of the
New World", Washington, 1959, p
.36.
Myint, ibid, p 41.
Ibid, p 43.
Sanat Kumar Bose, "Capital and
Labour in the Indian Tea Industry",
Bose has
1954, p 7a.
Bombay,
quoted from a report of the SDO
of Karimganj, Assam.
Ibid, p 75.

14

Expenditure of the Central Government

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