Figure 5 - uploaded by Philip Lutgendorf
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Poster by Annada Munshi for ITMEB, 1947; courtesy Courtesy Urban History Documentation Archive, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta.
Source publication
This essay examines the process by which tea, a plant and product introduced into the Indian subcontinent in the early 19th century as a colonial cash crop, became indigenized and popularized as chai, often regarded today as India’s ‘national drink’. This process mainly occurred during the 20th century and involved aggressive and innovative marketi...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... huge estates, as earners of coveted foreign exchange, were quietly exempted from land-reform legislation that set a ceiling on the amount of acreage that individuals might own, but increasing government regulation after 1953, when the industry-run ITMEB was again reconstituted as the 'Tea Board of India' and placed under the Ministry of Commerce, drove many planters to begin selling off their gardens to native families, especially the entrepreneurial Marwari traders of Calcutta. Another remarkable Annada Munshi poster, dated to the year of Independence, presciently heralds this transition ( Figure 5): borrow- ing elements of traditional Kalighat 'Pat' painting and the primitive modernism of Bengali artist Jamini Roy , it presents a chaste, sari-clad 'mother India', seated behind the iconic charkh ¯ a (spinning wheel) of Gandhian homespun, enjoying a cup of tea, against a field of little cups-and-saucers and wheels, and above the triumphant announcement -contra much nationalist discourse of the preceding half-century -that tea was now 100 percent 'indigenous' (svades´¯ ı) and hence okay to drink. ...
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Citations
... Looking at Figure 1 as a representative example, we see how protestors on the ground played with existing phrases and symbols-here modifying the phrase "make love not war"-a phrase used during the anti-Vietnam War protests in the United States during the 1960s (Fattig, 2010). We see on the protest placard activists urging the public to "make tea," a practice which is couched within the context of Indian national domesticity and an activity typically performed by women (Lutgendorf, 2012). Figure 1 demonstrates the way in which activists on the ground deployed and modified transnational political phrases and symbols for nationalist causes in the contemporary global digital age (Dumitrica, 2021). ...
In this article, we examine protest of India’s passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Registry of Citizens (NRC) which spurred instances of physical and digital protest. We study the intersections of gender, political subjectivities, and digital activism among anti-CAA-NRC activists, specifically the “Women of Shaheen Bagh.” We discuss our data collection methods, description, and analysis of the protests in the context of larger questions, including how critical, feminist researchers may engage with data tools and how forms of gendered, transnational protest are mediated and represented via individual images, texts, and videos that make up social media data. We illuminate the formation of political subjectivities in the context of transnational, digital protest movements by re-appropriating computational and data tools. This article seeks to demonstrate an interdisciplinary engagement between critical, feminist approaches to knowledge and subject formation and data science approaches to social network analysis and data visualization techniques.
... However, exogenous economic factors in the early 20th century (most notably the Great Depression) led British companies in India to seek alternative markets (Gupta, 1997). During this period, attempts were made by these firms to build domestic demand for tea, albeit with limited success (Lutgendorf, 2012). ...
The growth of emerging economies has led to a significant expansion of domestic markets in the global South. Yet, the vast majority of studies examining contemporary patterns of trade and production continue to use a global value chain (GVC) lens, therefore obfuscating important spatial and temporal shifts occurring within domestic geographies of production in the early decades of the 21st century. This article explores how a rapid increase in domestic consumption in the case of Indian tea production has transformed the industry, and how institutional and regulatory actors have responded to these changes. Using a value chain framework to explore the key actors and processes shaping the political economy of domestic production, this article identifies three processes which have driven the creation of new trade and production structures within India's domestic tea market: a significant rise in the outsourcing and fragmentation of the production process; the expansion of smallholder‐led production; and the introduction of private standards and governance programmes within the domestically oriented segment of production. These trends have important implications for the tea industry and shed light on how domestic markets in the global South are being transformed under 21st century geographies of trade and consumption.
... Initially, all Indian tea was cultivated for export. However, a number of exogenous economic factors (most notably the Great Depression) led British and Indian companies to foster a domestic market for tea in the first half of the twentieth century; albeit with limited success (Lutgendorf, 2012). During the 1960s, the introduction of new technologies within the processing of tea led to a huge increase in the availability of affordable tea in the local market. ...
... During the 1960s, the introduction of new technologies within the processing of tea led to a huge increase in the availability of affordable tea in the local market. This drove a significant growth in domestic consumption (aided through extensive marketing campaigns), which has continued to the present day (Lutgendorf, 2012). In recent years, population growth, urbanisation and rising incomes have further boosted demand for tea in emerging economies, including India (FAO, 2015). ...
Exploitative and inadequate working conditions in developing countries remain a pressing concern in an age of advanced globalisation. As a response to weak regulatory environments, multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) have emerged as a key institution of regulatory governance within globalised production networks. While MSIs governing social standards for workers and producers in North-South trade networks are well-established, the rapid growth of emerging economies raises new questions regarding the governance of production for local and regional markets in the global South. While some scholars have argued that the growth of Southern markets may lead to a “race to the bottom” for work and employment conditions, a number of recent studies have since documented the introduction of Southern MSIs governing production for local markets.
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... 3 Chandarababu Naidu served as chief minister of the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh between 1995 and 2004. He came back into power after the bifurcation of the state and is the current chief minister of the new state of Andhra Pradesh. 4 The Irani café's and hotels of Mumbai were set up and run by immigrants from Iran, and have become an integral part of what makes the city unique offering not only sweet milky tea, but also snacks and in some cases full meals (Lutgendorf 2012). These provide a space for various classes to interact, though the patrons are predominantly if not exclusively male. ...
... The main street of the settlement is about forty feet wide and most of the buildings that face the street boast shop fronts or businesses, including provision stores and meat shops, but also tailors, stationers, barbers, a printer and photocopier and an internet café. There are three 'cafes' or eatery--cum--chai shops in the settlement common around Hyderabad, which resemble the 'irani café's 3 of Mumbai, but 2 Narrow internal lanes 3 The Irani café's and Hotels of Bombay (now Mumbai), were set up and run by immigrants from Iran, and have became an integral part of what makes the city unique offering sweet milky tea, but also snacks and in some cases full meals (Lutgendorf, 2012). These provide a space for with a unique Hyderabadi flavour, and bench style--seating with Sun mica topped tables. ...
One in every four urban Indians rents residential space in the absence of a written contract with their landlord according the 65th Round of the National Sample Survey Report (2010). Only 5% of urban Indians have written contracts. With virtually no public rental system in place for private citizens, migrants to cities and those who cannot afford to buy property are often constrained to rent spaces in slums, where the ownership of land is itself under dispute. The question of how these contracts between tenants and landlords are formed and regulated is compelling and an exploration of the issue reveals fascinating insights into alternative rule systems and behavioural patterns within the complex social systems of slums in IndiaThe paper draws on fieldwork conducted in two slums in Hyderabad, India between 2014 and 2015, a representative sample survey of 135 households as well as in-‐depth interviews with key informants from civil society, academia, government and local authorities. Using an interdisciplinary approach combining economic anthropology and new institutional economics and drawing on the work of Searle (2005) and Hodgson (2006), the paper argues that rule following is predicated on habit-‐formation, informed and constrained by environmental factors that shape preferences.
This article draws from long-term research on Indian tea plantations. It argues that if the plantation is to be at all useful analytically, then enslaved people, indentured laborers, and workers who find themselves otherwise stuck on those land tenure formations called plantations need to come to the analytical forefront. One means of centering labor in these discussions is to attend to acts and processes of social reproduction. Certainly, the plantation is a space of production, but the plantation would not persist as such a space without acts of childrearing, feeding, eating, care, and maintenance. Attention to these acts centers workers’ perceptions of time, space, accumulation, and the plantation itself. Even in the context of monocultural expansion, plantation workers live not just in service to single crops but through diverse forms of provisioning. Social reproduction and nonmarket exchange, then, are not a redemptive outside to plantation production, but integral to it.
Increasing multi-polarity within global politics is understood to be a key contributor to the current legitimacy crisis facing global governance organisations. International relations scholars studying this crisis recognise that a prominent strategy to confront “Northern” dominance within this arena is through the construction of alternative governance institutions. Yet while the de-legitimation of long-established international organisations is widely discussed, there is less focused attention on how alternative institutions seek to gain legitimacy, particularly when they advance in fields where both “Northern” and “Southern” interests matter and beliefs about what constitutes proper governance may differ. This article analyses the field of transnational economic governance where the de-legitimation of pre-existing Northern-oriented governance takes the shape of new initiatives backed by Southern actors. Specifically, we focus on transnational sustainability standards governing trade and production in the global economy. This global governance arena has been transformed by the increasingly polycentric nature of global trade, in which producers governed by sustainability standards cater to rapidly expanding markets in the Global South as well as markets in the Global North. As markets have expanded in emerging economies, transnational sustainability standards must increasingly navigate and respond to actors and interests within different geographies in order to gain and establish legitimacy. The recent development of Southern-oriented sustainability standards (as opposed to established Northern-led standards) reflects the existence of diverging perspectives on the appropriateness of established rules and procedures when it comes to the regulation of trade and production. These standards are seen as partially challenging established standards but may likely seek to establish legitimacy within the wider transnational field of sustainability governance. This article examines the case of a recently established India-based sustainability standard known as Trustea to illustrate how various actors managed design and policy dilemmas to reconcile the preferences and beliefs of various audiences. The case illustrates the significance of both “Northern” and “Southern” audiences to Trustea’s legitimacy-seeking strategies in the context of broader political contestations regarding how production should be governed in relation to sustainable practices.
Selling tea to Indians became one of the most elaborate and widespread colonial marketing campaigns evolved by colonial governmental agencies like the Indian Tea Cess Committee (ITCC) and its, successor, the Indian Tea Market Expansion Board (ITMEB) during the first half of the twentieth century. Among the various marketing strategies launched by the ITCC, and later, by the ITMEB in the late 1930s and 1940s, the print medium became one of the most effective ways to popularise tea among Indian consumers. Tea was visually represented in several ways to appeal to various groups ranging from women, middle-class families and children to peasants, factory workers and soldiers. This chapter looks at how visual representations of tea during the late colonial period were instrumental in disseminating the practice of tea drinking among Indians. Print advertising in both English and vernacular mediums popularised tea as a ‘national’ drink in an attempt to create a tradition and culture of tea drinking in the subcontinent. In particular, visual representations of tea in print advertisements from an English daily like the Times of India in the 1940s are used to demonstrate how topical contexts and exigencies like World War II were exploited to increase consumption and embrace new consumer groups. Print advertisements as visual texts can serve as tools to understand how the domestic consumption of tea expanded in the Indian subcontinent.
Purpose
Throughout history, tea garden workers are treated as slaves of employers and live an inhuman life in modern society. This paper aims to provide an account of the deplorable community (workers) of the tea garden in Bangladesh.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a mixed-method research approach to conduct this study. In the first stage, using a semi-structured questionnaire, Focus group discussions (FGDs) were done by forming two groups from two districts to get a clear picture of the tea garden workers’ living standards in Bangladesh. Based on the findings of the FGD, the researchers prepared a structured questionnaire containing the basic elements of their quality of work life. In this stage, the authors collected the information from 200 tea workers about their quality of work life.
Findings
The major finding showed that the overall country’s economy is booming because of tea workers’ contributions, but their economic conditions gradually become impoverished. The workers’ are living with colossal poverty and vulnerability. Besides, the workers are supposed to get fundamental rights, including food, clothing, shelter, education and health, but the higher authorities were found indifferent to take the necessary initiative to implement these rights.
Research limitations/implications
The data was collected only from the tea garden workers. This study excluded any other parties (trade union leaders, panchayats, garden managers and owners). Thus, it is suggested that the researchers should conduct a similar study covering the opinion, including all the parties.
Practical implications
Both the workers and the higher authorities of the tea garden might benefit from this study’s findings. Workers will be more aware of their basic rights. The authorities can also prepare some effective policies to improve the overall quality of life of the tea workers.
Originality/value
To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first study on tea garden workers’ inhuman life in Bangladesh in the entire emerald insight publishers.
