ISBN 9789381345184|Paperback|284 pages|2016|Bhatkal and Sen
A Passage to Bondage: Labour in the Assam Tea Plantations is a translation of three plays about labour in Bengal from the nineteenth century onwards.
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A Passage to Bondage: Labour in the Assam Tea Plantations is a collection of translations of three creative plays and writings in Bangla language depicting these stories written in late nineteenth century. The first two tracts Cha-Kar Darpan (The Mirror of a Tea Planter) and Arkati Natak (Arkati: A Play) were written in by Dakshinacharan Chattopadhyay and Harilal Bandopadhyay during 1874-75 and 1897 respectively. The third Cha-Kulir Atmakahini (The autobiography of a Tea Garden Coolie- based on a True Story) was written by Jogendranath Chattopadhyay and published in 1901.
These three writers belonged to the contemporary urban educated intelligentsia in Bengal who articulated their concerns about labour from the late nineteenth century onwards. The British social reform tradition influenced some of the early Indian reformers like Sasipada Banerji in Bengal and Narayan Meghaji Lokhande in Bombay. Early nationalists and Brahmo reformers like Ram Kumar Vidyaratna and Dwarknath Ganguli published a series of articles in nationalist papers like Sanjibani and Bengalee from Calcutta between 1883 and 1887 about the ugly side of ‘coolie trade’. Through their writings the nationalists and reformers criticized and exposed the terrible working and living conditions, economic and sexual exploitation, physical coercion and ill treatment and the high mortality of workers in the Assam tea plantations.
The first play Cha-Kar Darpan depicts agrarian distress in the villages of catchment area- making livelihood a serious problem for the local peasant families as an explanation of push factor. Their distress, in turn, offered opportunities to the unscrupulous recruitment agents to lure men and women to Assam with promises of lucrative salaries with the dream of returning home with lots of savings to overcome their miseries. The play then moves to the scene in the plantations where on arrival the wile and cunning Bengali clerk connives for the sexual coercion of women labourers by the managers.
The second play Arkati Natak depicts the intricacies of village bigwigs and middle level personals conniving and conspiring to push men and women into the trap of European Arkati and his assistant to leave for Assam tea plantation employment. The play depicts the transit journey by train and steamer to Assam where the European Arkati uses his influence with the station master for ‘trouble free’ movement of human cargo who have been recruited fraudulently from their villages to Dhubri where they are registered under indenture and are bonded for 5 years under penal contract and then sent off to Assam.
The third tract is an autobiographical account the life a coolies who disserted the plantation employment and managed to escape to freedom. His dramatic escape story and experiences of being incarnated in one of the rooms in the plantations for a week and his descriptions of work process, differential wages and punishment by flogging by the manager conform to the information given in the colonial documents. His story of incarnation in one of the plantations is compatible with the use of power of private arrests runaways and recalcitrant labour and hold within the plantation erected phatak.
Authors:
Dakshinacharan Chattopadhyay, Harilal Bandyopadhyay, Jogendranath Chattopadhyay
Editor: Samita Sen
Translator: Suhit Kumar Sen
ISBN:
9789381345184
Binding:
Paperback
Pages:
284
Year of Publication:
2016
Publisher:
Bhatkal and Sen
Edition:
First
Condition:
New
Country of Origin:
India
About the Editor and Translator
The editor is Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, University of Cambridge, UK.
The translator is an independent researcher and freelance journalist.
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