The Assam tea industry gets its first woman manager
In a news that scripted history, the one hundred and eighty-year-old Assam tea industry has for the first time seen a woman Garden Manager.
As is the case with most of the industries in the world, the Assam tea industry is a male dominated area. The main labour is done, the picking if tea leaves are done women but are always men who governed them and held positions of power and money. Apart from the labourers, the only women working in this industry are the nurses and doctors working in the health centres of the various gardens. Ever since the British ruled India, it was men who ruled the tea estates of Assam.
All of this changed when the more than a century old Assam tea industry witnessed the appointment of the forty-three year old Manju Baruah as a garden manager. Manju Baruah will be the first “Bada Madam” in an industry run “Bada Sahabs” .
The Apeejay Tea’s estate of Hilika located outside Dibrugarh in the scenic beauty of upper Assam is the first estate in the Assam tea industry that will have a woman as the garden manager.
Manju Baruah holds a degree of Masters of Business Administration. She had joined the estate as a Trainee Welfare Officer in the Hokunguri estate of Apeejay Tea. Even at that time, the decision of the company was distinctive as it was even then a first as the Assam tea industry saw its first batch of female welfare officers.
Who is the woman who changed the history of Assam tea industry?
Growing up, Manju Baruah wanted to be an IPS officer but destiny had other plans for her. The health conditions of her father and the monetary condition of her family pushed her toward the Assam tea industry where she created history.
She is an avid biker and is happily married. The unique woman who broke all stigmas and climbed up in a male-dominated area on the basis of sheer talent is also a mother to a daughter. She is going to ensure that one more girl grows up in a slightly better world.
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