Browsing by Subject "Plantation"

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    Locating the Workers ‘Coolies’ in the Tea Plantations of Colonial Darjeeling: A Historical Retrospect
    (University of North Bengal, 2020-03) Subba, Salim
    The labourers are the pillars of every industry. In fact, tea plantation is a labour-intensive industry in which, most of the works is done manually by the labourers. At the same time, it largely depends on cheap labour procured from the migrant population, however, such process entails structural transformations in the economy and society enabling the evolution of waged labour culture guided by the capitalist industrial model. Such arrangements facilitate the creation of a class who works in the plantation in lieu of wage i.e., the coolies. The coolies in general sense, are a well-researched topic in academia. However, tea plantation workers of Darjeeling with different anecdotal experiences cannot be homogenised with those of other plantation industries and the concerned topic requires separate analysis. Thus, this paper intends to trace the historical processes in the making of coolies in tea plantations and their consequences of Darjeeling using different methodological tools.
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    Working Class and Politics of Drinking in Bengal (1856-1900)
    (University of North Bengal, 2018-03) Mondal, Amrita
    In colonial Bengal, being the victims of economic exploitation, the working class’s idea of drinking pleasure faced the moral question of the Indian reformists, Europeans and Christian missionaries. These three groups presented three perceptions on the drinking pleasure of the working class; however, all these narratives indicated that excessive drinking led this particular class into the paths of immorality and financial distress. The paper, while revisiting all these narratives, especially colonial excise policies, finds out patterns of drinking practice of the working class and the reasons for changing the perception of the society on working-class drinking and redefining drinking pleasure of the working class in the nineteenth century Bengal.