The Colonial Runaways and Contemporary Student Movement: Refusal of Work in the Tea Plantations of Assam

Abstract

The article examines the historical and contemporary manifestations of the labour movement through the refusal of work in Assam’s tea plantations. While previous scholarships have conceptualised plantations as spatially bounded enclaves with limited labour mobility, this article tries to move beyond such characterisations through a dual methodological approach combining archival investigation and ethnographic fieldwork. It traces the trajectories of absconding labourers during the colonial period alongside contemporary student association movements led by adivasi student organisations that actively demand the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status and their claim to rights, resources and self-esteem. By examining these parallel forms of everyday resistance/refusal across different temporal contexts, this article transcends the enclosed-space paradigm of plantation studies. It demonstrates how both historical patterns of refusal to plantation work and present-day organised student movements constitute significant forms of spatial and social mobility that extend beyond the presumed boundaries of tea plantations. The article traces how dispersed, everyday acts of colonial-era refusal have evolved into organised adivasi student movements in contemporary Assam, demonstrating the Special Issue’s central theme, concerned with the incipient stages of social action that mature into collective mobilisation.