Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1850495947

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-233603

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Off.

Year of publication:: 1931

Scope:: xviii, 580 S.; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XX. - Recruitment for Assam

Collection:: Economics Books

RECRUITMENT FOR ASSAM. ‘361 recruitment to a single method, represented a step in the opposite direc- tion, and they were not calculated to alleviate the scarcity of labour. From this point of view, a more progressive move was the endeavour to get away from the system of indenture. In 1908, by means of a noti- fication, the provisions relating to indentured labour contained in the Assam Labour and Emigration Act (Act VI of 1901), which controlled and still controls recruitment for Assam, were withdrawn from the Surma valley and the two lower districts of the Assam valley, and in 1915 they were withdrawn from the rest of the Assam valley. From that date, the right of private arrest disappeared, and no penal contracts could be exe- cuted under Act VI. Unfortunately there remained on the statute book the Workmen's Breach of Contract Act, which dated from 1859 and was applicable to large parts of India. This Act made possible penal contracts of a slightly different type, and to it many planters, es- pecially in the Assam valley, now turned. The Act was finally repealed in 1923 with effect from 1926, and there is now no Act under which a labourer in Assam can be criminally punished for breach of contract. Character of Migration. Before going on to discuss in detail the present system of re- cruitment and the changes we advocate, it is desirable to say something regarding the character and effects of migration to Assam, particularly as we found evidence in some quarters of a desire to discourage and even to prevent such migration. Reference has already been made to two points of difference between migration to the plantations and migration to the factories, namely, the plantations desire to attract women and children as well as men, and the change of work involved is notradical. Both of these features are prominently associated with recruitment for Assam. The planters there have consistently endeavoured to build up a labour force permanently settled in Assam, and this has given an additional impulse to the recruitment of families rather than individuals. Many labourers receive from the tea gardens small plots of land to cultivate their own crops, so that they are not only labourers but also, in a small way, agriculturalists on their own account. In this and a number of other respects, which we discuss when we deal with conditions on the gardens, the life and environment of the labourer have a closer resemblance to ordinary village conditions than to the life of the big cities. The recruit to an Assam tea garden has in many cases a prospect which is not limited to employment on a garden, for there is the possibility of becoming an independent cultivator in Assam. There has been a steady movement of labour from the tea gardens to the adjoining bastis or villages where labourers have been able to acquire Government land for cultivation. This movement has been assisted by the Government of Assam which is anxious to promote the colonisation ofa sparsely populated province. Over 600,000 ex-garden labourers are settled on Government land, and in the census report for 1921 it was estimated that the total number of “ foreigners ”’ in the province attributable to the tea industry, was 1-1/3 millions, i.e., 1/6th of the whole population of Assam. We shall have occasion later to dwell on the less satisfactory features of tea garden

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