Politics of Gender and Sexuality: Agony of Womanhood in Assam Colonial Plantation

Gender discrimination was the main reason of women suffering throughout the history. So, here we made an attempt to show how gender discrimination, sex based division of labour, division of work and patriarchy worked in colonial tea plantation of Assam and how it affected women socio-economic life. Attempt has also been made to focus on how women workers were used just as reproductive agents for the commercial growth of tea industry and her physical presence to fulfill sexual lust of European masters. The paper also focuses on practice of keeping coolie girl by colonial master that became a feature of plantation system of Assam who began to consider the weaker section as public property. One of the important priorities of this paper is to emphasis the reasons behind the less proportion of woman worker in cotton textile industry Bombay and Calcutta Jute industry in contrast to large number of woman coolies in Assam tea plantation in colonial context. How women become the victim of more work and less wage; less in educational cum other opportunities than boys, domestic violence on women are also covered in the paper. In addition to these, paper also tries to highlight the issue of Assam Maternity Benefit Act 1940 and how far it implemented in reality.