The Inland Emigration Act, which allowed the recruitment of indentured labourers for the tea gardens of Assam under harsh contracts, was enacted in:

The Inland Emigration Act (Workman's Breach of Contract Act) was enacted in 1859, and allowed tea planters to recruit labourers for the tea gardens of Assam under harsh contracts.

Background:

• The tea industry developed rapidly in Assam from the 1830s and 1840s.
• The tea gardens needed large numbers of workers, but the local population was small and unwilling to work in the gardens.
• The planters therefore recruited labourers from other parts of India, especially from Chhota Nagpur, Bihar, the United Provinces, Bengal and the Madras Presidency.

About the Act of 1859:

• It made it a criminal offence for a labourer to break his contract with his employer.
• Labourers who left the tea gardens before their contracts ended could be arrested and punished.

NCERT on tea garden labourers:

• NCERT notes that the plantation workers of Assam had a very harsh life.
• For the plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant the right to move freely in and out of the confined space in which they were enclosed.
• Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave the tea gardens without permission, and in fact they were rarely given such permission.
• When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the authorities, left the plantations and headed home (1921).

Conditions of the workers:

• They worked long hours for low wages, and lived in poor conditions.
• Many died of disease, overwork and poor food.
• The planters had great power, and punished the workers harshly.

Later laws:

• Further laws (1865, 1882 and 1901) regulated the recruitment and conditions of labour in Assam; they continued the system of penal contracts.
• The system of indenture was finally abolished in the 1920s.

Indentured labour abroad:

Indian indentured labourers were also sent to the colonies, such as Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad, Guyana and South Africa (Natal), from the 1830s; this system was abolished in 1917.

Why not the other options?

• ✗1834 was when indentured emigration abroad began.
• ✗1882 and 1901 were the years of later labour laws.