Book Review: Plantation Crisis

Plantation Crisis: Ruptures of Dalit Life in the Indian Tea Belt, by Jayaseelan Raj (2022). Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

The 1990s brought about a dramatic decline in the Indian tea industry—the world’s second-largest tea producer—with domestic wholesale prices dropping by 25 to 40 percent and export prices declining by as much as 40 percent (Mishra et al. 2012). The collapse of the Soviet Union, India’s key trading partner, along with the decreased productivity of tea bushes and increased competition from producers in Sri Lanka, Kenya, Vietnam, and Indonesia, were key factors driving this downturn. Efforts by the Indian state and domestic tea companies to mitigate losses in market share led to job cuts and reduced incomes. Plantation Crisis by Jayaseelan Raj is an ethnographic account of the experiences of plantation laborers in the wake of this crisis for India’s tea industry. Indeed, Raj documents how the state and tea companies abandoned the largely Tamil Dalit plantation laborers in South India after the crisis.

Other scholars examining this period have regarded tea plantations as merely an economic sector and their workers as abstracted labor-power (6). As Raj contends, this approach neglects workers’ concerns by framing them solely within a capitalist logic that rationalizes their abandonment as an unavoidable consequence of the crisis. In contrast, Raj focuses on the socio-economic and structural disruptions caused by said crisis and, in doing so, prioritizes the laborers and their lived experiences as central points in his analysis. Having also been raised on tea plantations, Raj often found himself in a position in which the myriad challenges facing these workers were giving him sleepless nights. This empathy is implicit in Raj’s rich ethnographic narrative of the workers, retirees, and those who lost their jobs during his six years of fieldwork (2009-15) in the Peermade tea belt.

Tracing its origins to the 1860s, the Peermade tea belt in Kerala state is one of the most important tea-producing zones in South India. The Tamil- and Malayalam-speaking Dalits and Adivasis are among the lowest caste and tribal communities in India and constitute the majority of the workforce on tea plantations. They reside within an institution-like system on Kerala’s plantations, in which their housing typically consists of one-room accommodations. Their meager income prevents them from building houses outside the plantations, meaning that they remain largely isolated from the outside world (Chapter 1). In this light, plantations operate as closed institutions defined by a rigid hierarchical structure rooted in the caste system. Upper-level positions in the tea industry—populated by owners, managers, and supervisors—are filled by upper-caste men, while Dalits and Adivasis are positioned at the lowest levels. The workers are also classified into “skilled” and “unskilled” categories as well as those who are “permanent” and “temporary.” The plumbers, drivers, and carpenters are “skilled,” while tea-picking workers are largely women and are considered “unskilled.” Communication between workers and managers is mediated through supervisors, reinforcing a hierarchical chain of command. Raj argues that this hierarchy and the workers’ lack of agency are indicative of their alienation within the plantation system.

Scholars including Mintz (1985) and Ferguson (1999) argue that in the globalized economy, the neoliberal market perpetuates boom and bust cycles due to the unfavorable terms of trade that define primary goods such as bulk tea. Referencing these classic studies, Raj locates the decline of the tea industry within the crises generated by post-1991 neoliberal political and economic transformations. He suggests that India fell behind many countries in the race to produce ever-cheaper tea, thus causing a crisis in the country’s many plantations. In the quest to save a commodity instead of the very people producing it, the tea companies instead reduced wages and fired much of the existing workforce (10). Such changes were made possible by the Indian state’s relaxation of existing labor laws, which previously had regulated wages, pension schemes, and the number of guaranteed workdays per year. In the case of the Peermade tea belt, Raj uses the term “categorical oppression” to refer to how different intersections of identity—including those involving caste, class, ethnicity, language, and gender—are stigmatized and eventually alienated in the context of the generalized crisis.

Chapter 2 describes the challenges that tea workers faced in the aftermath of the crisis. Most were reduced from permanent to temporary status, and many lost their jobs outright. Out Migration from the plantations to the cities was common, yet these workers only found precarious jobs that failed to fulfill their basic needs. Chapter 3 focuses on the disrupted social relations of the tea-industry retirees whose pensions were deferred due to the crisis. Tragically, these retirees eventually became distant from younger generations and were deemed socially unacceptable due to their lack of income. Chapter 4 discusses the youth who continue to struggle in the plantations; as unemployment rises among this population, many have fled toward urban areas in the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In cities, challenges such as securing accommodation, finding worthwhile jobs, and enduring the ethnic slur Pāndi (meaning “uncivilized”) highlight the caste-based discrimination faced by Dalit youth. Chapter 5 explores the violence that Tamil laborers have had to endure amid the disputes between the Kerala and Tamil Nadu state governments over the right to use the Mullaperiyar Dam for irrigation purposes and for the generation of hydro-power. Raj highlights that police inaction vis-à-vis the perpetrators of this injustice reveals the distaste of the Keralites towards the Tamil workers.

Chapter 6 examines caste-based hierarchical discrimination, religious polarization, and the trade-union factionalism that has ruptured worker solidarity on too many plantations. Chapter 7 discusses plantation takeover rumors and gossip initiated by tea workers, who blame the state, trade unions, and management for their uncertain plight. Raj observes that while these rumors reflect the workers’ sense of hope for better employment, their gossip also points to profound anger and resistance against the status quo. Chapter 8 outlines the labor formations after 2012, when local companies began taking over abandoned tea plantations in the Peermade tea belt. During this period, these companies confiscated the laborers’ land on the plantations, which had previously been allocated to them. The companies also reduced the workers’ wages, while pressuring the government to lower the minimum wage and assume responsibility for their welfare costs. As many laborers either retired or left the plantations, they were replaced by migrant laborers from North India, who were paid even lower wages and were offered no other benefits. The concluding chapter thoughtfully summarizes the neoliberal logic and rationalization of the state that leads to the alienation of workers on tea plantations. As the state’s focus was on revamping this industry, it perhaps unsurprisingly neglected the welfare of its workers. In this conclusion, Raj also shows that the image of Kerala as an egalitarian, left-leaning state in India is fraught, given that the government has historically catered to the state’s capitalists instead of its vulnerable worker populations.

Plantation Crisis is an important contribution to the anthropology of work in South Asia, particularly for its in-depth ethnographic study of social life in a declining tea industry. Focusing on the consequences that this crisis poses to the daily lives of workers, Raj highlights how the Marxian concept of alienation manifests itself in contemporary South Asia. Documenting workers’ lives amid a crisis may not be a new approach in the anthropology of work; however, including in this analysis attention to the intersections of caste, regional origin, and language preference in South Asia makes Raj’s ethnography genuinely original. This book will be helpful for scholars of economic anthropology as well as those in development studies. Plantation Crisis is also as much an addition to the anthropological study of plantations in South Asia as it is a tribute to Raj’s own roots growing up on tea plantations.

Works Cited

Ferguson, James. 1999. Expectations of Modernity: Myths and the Meanings of Urban Life in the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

Mishra, Deepak K., Vandana Upadhyay, and Atul Sarma. 2012. Unfolding Crisis in Assam’s Tea Plantations: Employment and Occupational Mobility. New Delhi. Routledge

Mintz, Sydney W. 1985. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin Books.

Author Biography

E. P. Sarfras is a first-year doctoral student in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ashoka University, Haryana, India. His research focuses on anthropological studies of plantations, labor, and medical disasters in South Asia.