The indentured system in tea gardens of Assam was abolished in

Correct — A, 1926. Indenture in the Assam tea gardens rested on a penal contract: a labourer recruited from Chota Nagpur, the Santal country or the eastern United Provinces signed for a fixed term, and desertion was a criminal offence for which the planter could have the worker arrested and returned. The machinery was built by Act VI of 1865 and the Assam Labour and Emigration Acts that followed, and it was dismantled in stages after 1908 as recruitment was liberalised under pressure from nationalist opinion and the Assam Labour Enquiry Committees. The final repeal comes in 1926, after which a tea-garden worker who left could be sued for breach of contract but not prosecuted.

• (b)1934 — By the mid-1930s the plantation question had moved on to wages, housing and the recruitment of families; the penal contract was already gone.
• (c)1938 — The year belongs to the Congress provincial ministries and their labour enquiries, not to the ending of indenture in Assam.
• (d)1946 — Two decades late. 1946 is the year of the Cabinet Mission and the interim government; plantation labour law by then was concerned with conditions of service, not with criminal contracts.

Two different indenture systems ran side by side in colonial India and are constantly confused. Overseas indenture sent Indian labour to Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad, Natal and British Guiana, and it was suspended in 1917 and formally ended in 1920 after Gandhi's campaign. Internal indenture bound labour to the Assam tea gardens under penal contract, and it outlived the overseas system by several years, ending in 1926.

Assam is the tell. If the stem says Assam or tea, the answer is 1926; if it says Fiji, Mauritius or emigration, it is 1917 for the suspension and 1920 for the end. Gandhi's name attaches to the overseas campaign, and UPSC has asked about that link directly, so the two dates get filed under the same heading and then swapped. The mechanism is also worth holding on to, because it is what made the system distinctive: not low wages alone, but the criminal liability of a worker who walked away.

• Penal-contract indenture in Assam was built on Act VI of 1865 and the Assam Labour and Emigration Acts that followed it.
• Under the penal contract, desertion by a labourer was a criminal offence and the planter could have him arrested.
• The system was progressively loosened after the Assam Labour Enquiry Committees and ended in 1926.
• Overseas indenture from India was suspended in 1917 and abolished in 1920, a campaign closely associated with Gandhi.
• The gardens drew labour largely from Chota Nagpur, the Santal Parganas and the eastern United Provinces.

• Answering with 1917 or 1920, which end overseas indenture rather than the Assam system.
• Assuming the abolition of the Workman's Breach of Contract Act settled the Assam gardens; that ran on its own legislation.
• Treating indenture as merely a low-wage contract rather than a criminal one.

A single-date item that works only if the two indenture systems — overseas and Assam — are kept apart.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The system of indentured emigration of Indian labour overseas was formally abolished in

  • (a)1917
  • (b)1920
  • (c)1926
  • (d)1930

  Answer(b) 1920 — recruitment had been suspended in 1917 and the system was abolished in 1920.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The distinguishing feature of the penal contract in the Assam tea gardens was that

  • (a)wages were paid in kind
  • (b)desertion by a labourer was a criminal offence
  • (c)only families could be recruited
  • (d)contracts were renewable every year

  Answer(b) desertion by a labourer was a criminal offence — the planter could have the worker arrested and returned.