The Mysterious History Behind The Precious Tea Garden

The most interesting thing I have done as a local guide has to be that time when I added my absolutely gorgeous tea estate in the Google map which is Lalchand Tea Estate that was created in 1860, Habiganj District, Sylhet Division in Bangladesh. It’s known as the largest tea factory in Asia. Tea is a popular beverage all around the world. There are many kinds of tea that people like to drink. I was born and raised in a tea garden area. Therefore, I have been blessed with the beautiful nature of the tea garden, have met with people that work here every day and heard many of their stories. 

Caption: The beauty of nature was captured while sun was rising

Since then, I had a passion for knowing the history behind this precious tea garden and how it all started. After doing some research and talking with the people those live here, I got to know some valuable information about this place. Back in the days, Tea was so much popular in China. Indian Subcontinent was ruled by British Government at that time. East India Company wanted to cultivate tea and so they hired some of the workers from China but they ended up not wanting to work for the Company. After that, they decided to continue the cultivation work with the help of native workers. In the end of the nineteenth century, many workers from Bihar, Odisha, Chennai, Nagpur, Santhal Pargana, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh were brought here with the help of Assam Government as there were not enough native workers here. They were called "Kuli" and the Assam Government even started "Immigration of Labour Act" in that time. They put their heart and soul into work and their wages were written in a book called “Garden Book: Daily Kamjari Book". Unfortunately, even there was also corruption in that section and they were not paid properly from time to time.

There is a book called "The Economic History of India under Early British Rule" published in 1901 in which the writer Ramesh Datta said, " A special law which is called the slave law by the people of India, still exists for providing labourers for the cultivation of tea in Assam ; ignorant men and women are bound down by penal clauses, upon their signing a contract to work in tea gardens for a number of years and the utmost endeavours of the present year (1901) have failed to secure for these poor labourers an etiquette pay during they are enforced to stay in the garden."In a nutshell, it took a lot of people's effort to create such a stunning tea garden that we look at now and still they are working very hard to provide us tea. After knowing all the history about it, I was even more thrilled to add the place in Google map. Now, the more and more people will have the access of this beautiful place.