The tea industry began in India in 1851. Most of the tea gardens were situated in Assam. Since Assam was sparsely populated and the tea plantations were often located on uninhabited hillsides, the 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 required the provision of financial and other incentives which the tea planters were unwilling to offer. Instead they took recourse to fraud coercion and persuaded the government to pass regressive penal laws. Thus the recruitment of labourers for tea gardens of Assam was carried on by contractor under the provisions of transport of Native Labourers Act (No 111) of 1863 of Bengal as amended in 1865, 1870 and 1873.
Read the passage given above and answer the questions:
Choose the right/correct answer.
Transport of Native Labourers Act (No 111) of 1863 of Bengal was amended in the years_____________.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → 1865, 1870, 1873
The last line of the passage settles it: the recruitment was carried on by contractors under the Transport of Native Labourers Act of 1863 of Bengal, “as amended in 1865, 1870 and 1873”.
Note: The passage of Q1-Q5 is taken from Box 1.5, ‘How were labourers recruited?’, in the NCERT chapter ‘Structural Change’. Boxes are part of the syllabus too: one careful reading of this box was worth five questions in this paper.
NCERT: Social Change and Development in India — Chapter 1: Structural Change, Box 1.5 (2025-26)
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