''Red Tea'' is an English

historical novel Historical fiction is a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the setting of particular real historical events. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to oth ...

written by Paul Harris Daniel. It was published in

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

by Higginbotham's in 1969. It is based on the experiences of tea plantation workers in the

Madras Presidency The Madras Presidency or Madras Province, officially called the Presidency of Fort St. George until 1937, was an administrative subdivision (province) of British India and later the Dominion of India. At its greatest extent, the presidency i ...

during the

British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

Background

Daniel was born on May 22, 1910. Daniel was a medical doctor and had worked in a series of Assamese tea plantations in South India as chief medical officer from 1941 to 1965. He also acted as a union organiser. During that time, he had interviewed workers, obtaining signed statements, developing material from which he used to write the novel. Though a work of fiction detailing the lives of Karuppan and Valli, ''Red Tea'' was written with an "explicit documentary purpose". It details how the Madras Planters Act of 1903 led to the poor conditions of plantation workers. Debt bondage of the workers, their poor working conditions, their inability to escape their life are all captured in the novel.

Translation and adaptation

It was translated into

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

as ''Eriyum Panikaadu'' by Ira. Murugavel. The 2013 Tamil film '' Paradesi'' was adapted from the novel.

References

Indian English-language novels 1969 Indian novels {{1960s-hist-novel-stub