Colonial government used unfair means to hire and forcibly keep labourers in the Tea plantation Industry in Assam because :

(1) The colonial government wanted labourers to live lives of luxury

(2) The colonial government wanted to increase employment in India

(3) Assam was uninhabited and possessed an unhealthy climate

(4) Assam had huge, sprawling bungalows that were surrounded by velvety lawns

3

How were labourers recruited? :Tea industry began in India in 1851. Most of the tea gardens were situated in Assam. In 1903, the industry employed 4,79,000 permanent and 93,000 temporary employees. 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.