SociologySocial Change and Development in India: Structural Change

Which of the following is NOT true of how labour was obtained for the…

Which of the following is NOT true of how labour was obtained for the tea gardens of colonial Assam?

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 3

The correct answer is Option (3) → Planters provided financial and other incentives to recruits

Option (1) Planters had recourse to fraud and coercion — True. Unwilling to pay incentives, the planters got labour through fraud and coercion.

Option (2) Planters persuaded the government to pass penal laws — True. The planters persuaded the government to aid and abet them by passing penal laws.

Option (3) Planters provided financial and other incentives to recruits — False. Bringing workers from far away needed financial and other incentives, but the tea-planters of Assam were unwilling to offer them.

Option (4) Workers were brought from far-off homes into strange lands — True. Thousands of people were brought every year from their far-off homes into strange lands with an unhealthy climate and strange fevers.

NCERT (2026-27): “The Tea Plantations …
Since Assam was sparsely populated and the tea plantations were often located on uninhabited hillsides, bulk of the sorely needed labour had to be imported from other provinces. But to bring thousands of people every year from their far-off homes into strange lands, possessing an unhealthy climate and infected with strange fevers, required the provision of financial and other incentives, which the tea-planters of Assam were unwilling to offer. Instead, they had recourse to fraud and coercion; and they persuaded the government to aid and abet them in this unholy task by passing penal laws. …The recruitment of labourers for tea gardens of Assam was carried on for years mostly by contractors under the provisions of the Transport of Native Labourers Act (No. III) of 1863 of Bengal as amended in 1865, 1870 and 1873.”