Economic crisis has pushed Indian tea workers to seek employment outside the plantations, forcing them to re-engage with the caste hierarchy from which their ancestors attempted to escape...Tea plantation workers are one of the most stigmatised and marginalised communities in India. While the majority of workers on the plantations in the northeast were originally brought from Bihar, Orissa and Nepal, it was Tamil-speaking Dalits (so-called untouchables/outcasts) who constitute majority of the labour force in Kerala, south India. Their outcast social status has combined with their identities as manual labourers—also known as Tamil coolies—to perpetuate their economic underdevelopment and social marginality.