• Dibyanjoly Hazarika

Background of the article: Across the world, the Tropical lands became scapegoat of Western imperialism which resulted in drastic alterations of the relation between human and nature that led to the massive destruction of the indigenous, native way of being on earth. Armed with military force, modern scientific knowledge, bands of botanists, surgeons, military officers and missionaries; the imperialists thrived to order the wild nature with modern method of culture known as the Monoculture. Primitive tropical rainforests were felled in Malaysia, Indonesia for Rubber plantations; in Congo, Ghana for Coffee Plantation; in Cuba, Brazil, Argentina etc. for Sugar , in Myanmar; for rice , and in Malabar and Western Ghats of India for Eucalyptus; changing the lives of the forest people forever. The case of Tea, regarded by imperialist British as object more valuable than Gold, the National drink of 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century England was the repetition of the same story of clash between western scientific knowledge and the Assamese indigenous people’s traditional beliefs, the modern cultivation based on domination over nature by commodifying it and native’s sustainable use of it by regarding it as the mother, the forceful appropriation of nature by the British for civilizing and developing the native Assamese and latter’s apparent alienation from their own lands. Thus the article tries to analyze how the capitalist Monocultural Tea plantation changed the entire ecological, economical, sociological set up of Assam turning it into a garden from a prosperous Jungle . METHODOLOGIES: Historical-analytical method has been used while analyzing the entire Tea Venture in Assam. Rather than adopting a fragmented outlook to understand the Capitalist development in Britain and Assam separately; here an integrated, post-colonial approach has been adopted to view the development of Britain and undevelopment of Assam as the effect of the same capitalistic movement of money and nature. While writing the article both primary sources like the Parliamentary papers, district Gazetteers, annual forest administrative reports, land revenue reports, along with secondary sources like books, articles, PhD thesis, dissertations, etc. have been used. Finding and conclusions: 1. Tea, as the first modern economic venture in Assam proved to be the largest destroyer of an ancient tropical rainforest which constituted the backbone of embedded economy of the local Assamese people. It was the profound strike against the biodiversity gene pool of the region. 2. It was the largest cause for alienation of lands along with forests on the parts of the locals which later resulted in massive reduction of cultivation paving the path for a post-colonial dependent economy in Assam. 3. Contrary to the usual perception of Tea as a symbol of development; in reality it was the cause of large scale transfers of native’s lands to the British and then to the Migrants from mainland India causing a relentless tension between the natives and the outsiders and the state and the Centre after independence. 4. British Tea venture was the genesis of the current inter-state border clash between Assam-Nagaland, Assam-Mizoram etc. The inner-line system that the British innovated for peaceful Tea plantation brought bloody strife to the region.

Colonialism, development, enclave, imperialism, modernity.

"“History of the Green Gold: Building of the British Tea Empire in Upper Assam and Demolition of the wild ”", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.7, Issue 8, page no.1702-1712, August-2020, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2008223.pdf

"“History of the Green Gold: Building of the British Tea Empire in Upper Assam and Demolition of the wild ”", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.7, Issue 8, page no. pp1702-1712, August-2020, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2008223.pdf