Against the Flow of the Brahmaputra River: Cholera and ‘Coolies’ in the Tea Plantations of Colonial Assam

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, the tea gardens of Assam were one of the major commercial developments in colonial Assam. With the expansion of tea gardens, the demography of the province was changed as large numbers of immigrants were transported to the tea gardens mainly from eastern and central India. The Assam province, tea gardens and the history of diseases and medicines are deeply intertwined, but the intersection has not yet been explored much by the historians. Recent historical writings on tea plantations in colonial Assam have reflected more on the economic aspects than on the social history of diseases and medicines. In Assam, disease and high mortality among the tea garden workers during their journey was a common phenomenon in the nineteenth century that defamed the province among the recruits. This article sheds light on the conditions of the workers during the journey and also reflects the ‘political’ nature of cholera during the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries. It also demonstrates the aetiological contestation of the disease among the colonial bureaucrats, medical personnel and the planters that were shaped in consideration of the political and commercial interests, despite the crucial superiority of the ‘germ theory’.