Abstract
The objective of the paper is to highlight the growing ‘casualisation’ in the Indian labour market with special reference to the tea plantation industry in India and Darjeeling. The author begins by giving a background as to how casual labour/casualisation of labour emerged using the work of David Harvey on neoliberalism promoting free market and free trade as important features of any liberalised and globalised economy. The paper attempts to highlight some of the employment features of the plantation industry in India and highlight the vulnerabilities of the plantation workers. It was also felt necessary in this context of globalised world order to question the effectiveness of neoliberal and social justice driven international market mechanisms such as Fair trade on tea plantation workers of Darjeeling and whether international certifications ensure fairness to the workers engaged in the Darjeeling tea plantations.
The original version of this chapter was revised: The author name “Smirtima Diksha Lama” has been changed to “Smritima Diksha Lama”. The correction to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8421-9_21
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15 November 2019
The objective of the paper is to highlight the growing ‘casualisation’ in the Indian labour market with special reference to the tea plantation industry in India and Darjeeling.
Notes
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- 2.
Standing (2008), pp. 27 states that people aged 16–25 want only casual jobs and they can pay for their schools themselves also young women contemplating having children may be inclined towards casual jobs. This would also lead to the growth of what he refers to as ‘proficians’, i.e. mix of professional and technician working as consultants or on short-term contracts.
- 3.
For detailed reports Centre for Education and Communication (CEC 2003) reports on Tea plantations of West Bengal in Crisis & Crisis in Indian Tea Industry.
- 4.
Chakrabarty (2013) A new champ takes the Darjeeling cup: In the battle of the brew Jungpana pulls past Castleton. The Telegraph, Calcutta.
- 5.
Besky (2014) Foods with Terroir or ‘taste of place’ is a concept associated to artisanal foods produced by small farmers and due to the Geographical Indication (GI) tag that Darjeeling tea received in 1999 its taste too is now associated to a place.
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Interview with Mr. Harish Mukhia, Tea Consultant, Darjeeling on 7 July 2015.
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Swachha Vyapaar is the Nepali translation for the term Fair Trade where Swachha stands for fair/clean and Vyapaar is a term used for trade.
- 8.
Wage rate in West Bengal as on March 2018.
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Acknowledgements
A part of this paper was presented by the author at the culmination of the workshop on ‘Sociology of Labour & Globalisation’ at V.V.Giri National Labour Institute, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India in which the author participated from 15 to 30th January 2015 held in V.V.Giri National Labour Institute, Noida. I am grateful for the deep discussions during the course of the workshop that helped me have a nuanced understanding of the labour system in India as well as the opportunity to utilize the library at the institute. I am also grateful to Prof. Sanghamitra Acharya, my Ph.D. supervisor, with her feedback and comments in shaping this paper. All errors are my own.
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Lama, S.D. (2019). Casualisation and Tea Plantation Labour in India: Does Fair Trade Ensure ‘Fairness’ in a Plantation System?. In: Panneer, S., Acharya, S., Sivakami, N. (eds) Health, Safety and Well-Being of Workers in the Informal Sector in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8421-9_12
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