Family Lines in the Tea Plantations of Assam continue to be used

In April 2017, Crispin Bates toured tea plantations around Dribugarh in Upper Assam. He found that most of the tea plantation workers were living in ‘family lines’ unchanged since the beginning of the twentieth century. Even the same small family buildings were being used in some cases, although these days most were supplied with mains water and many had a satellite dish. The majority of the workers were the direct descendants of those who had migrated from Bihar, Orissa and the so-called Central Provinces in colonial times. Wages and allowances were paid regularly as per government approved rates in the better-run private estates we visited. This is not the case, however, in many of the ’sick’ plantations under federal and state government control.