INDENTURE AND ILLNESS: THE HEALTHCARE CHALLENGES OF TEA COOLIES IN COLONIAL ASSAM (1840–1900)

Abstract

Indentured tea coolies—recruited from across the Indian subcontinent since the 1840s—formed the backbone of Assam’s plantation economy, yet endured systemic marginalization and chronic health crises. This paper examines how colonial economic imperatives made coolie health a critical variable in plantation profit, tracing the trajectory from recruitment and perilous transport to daily labor under oppressive regulations. Drawing on archival records, medical reports, and planter memoirs, it maps disease prevalence, medical neglect, and structural failures of the colonial health system that fueled high mortality and enduring illness. Simultaneously, it recovers tea coolies’ voices of resistance—survival tactics, informal self care networks, and negotiations with colonial authorities—that contested their dehumanization. By situating health at the nexus of labor exploitation and colonial policy, the study argues that the wellbeing of indentured workers was neither incidental nor accidental but rather an integral component of the plantation regime’s extractive logic.