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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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XX. - Recruitment for Assam

Collection:: Economics Books

RECRUITMENT FOR ASSAM. 36H seriously hampers the free flow of labour into Assam. The comparative immunity from abuses in recruitment which is secured by the Act is pur- chased at a very high price, not only for the industry but also for the workers it employs, for the high cost of recruitment, which is now inevit- able, must react unfavourably on the remuneration of labour. The sar- dari system of recruitment is in theory the safest method of recruitment for the worker, for it entrusts recruitment only to bond fide workers, who are best fitted to give an accurate picture of the conditions obtaining on the garden and the least likely to make any misrepresentation. In actual practice the original intention is not entirely fulfilled. We were informed of instances where workers are sent down as sardars after they have spent only a few days on the garden. In such cases it is idle to suppose that the sardars have been on the garden sufficiently long to enable them to give to their fellow-villagers an accurate or a complete picture of the conditions obtaining on it ; they are in fact, as was stated by one witness, petty recruiters who go through the formality of being sent up to Assam a8 workers in order to satisfy the conditions of sardari recruitment. Cases have also come to our notice of men who make a profession of going down as sardars to be recruited again for a different garden in order to pocket the payments which are made to new recruits. The sardari system is also quite inadequate for the needs of the industry and is obviously un- workable when new areas have to be opened for recruitment and when new gardens are being developed. As employers are debarred from em- ploying licensed contractors, they have appointed a large number of work- ers .as garden sardars irrespective of their suitability as recruiters. On an average, about 7%, of the total number of adult labourers on the books of tea garden managers are sent out as sardars each year to the re- cruiting districts. It is estimated that about one-half of this number do not bring back a single recruit to the garden, and roughly one-third do not even return to their gardens. With an average of only one recruit per garden sardar, it is not surprising to find that the average cost per recruit is as high as Rs. 150. It has been stated to us that the loss of sardars and their return without a recruit are regarded by the industry as a mode of repatriation and as a form of leave with travelling expenses paid. The industry has, in fact, made a practice of appointing everyone who goes back to his country as a sardar, because otherwise the strict letter of the law does not allow any assistance to be given to him to return to Assam, unless he is again recruited by a duly appointed garden sardar. The cost of sardari recruitment thus includes the elements of a system of repat- riation and of the grant of leave with expenses paid. We deal later with these questions but regard the present arrangement as unsatisfactory. Propaganda. Another striking defect in the Act is that it does not permit any form of advertisement or propaganda in the recruiting districts, except by the sardar himself. It is anomalous that a manager who goes down to a recruiting district to supervise the work of his garden sardars should be debarred by law from proclaiming to the villagers the particular advant- ages of his own garden. A case has even been mentioned to us in which a

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