Faculty Profile

Rinju Rasaily has done her M.A. (Sociology) and PhD (Social Medicine and Community Health) from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her thesis entitled “Labour and Health in Tea Plantations: A case study of Phuguri Tea Estate, Darjeeling” examined the social aetiology of health and working conditions of tea plantation labour. She works on questions of labour with a focus on plantation labour, workers’ health, exclusion based on identities and issues of livelihood and development. She has extensively worked on labour in the tea plantation sector and also has taken keen interest in studying labour history and issues around social exclusion of the labouring poor along the markers of caste, ethnicity and gender. She was also engaged in research on occupational safety and health of workers in the manufacturing sector in Delhi and in understanding labour relations and organising activities in the brick kiln sector in Punjab. Currently she is engaged in a research study with V.V.Giri National Labour Institute on “Family labour in the small holding plantation sector in South India”.

She was a faculty member at V. V. Giri National Labour Institute, (Ministry of Labour and Employment, GOI), NOIDA from December 2010-July 2014. She has also worked with the non-government sector with organisations like PRIA, Centre for Education and Communication (CEC) and SAMA- Resource Group for Women and Health in Delhi for over six years.

She has been a member of a sub-group on ‘Policy Recommendations for the Tea Plantations Sector workers’ at the National Advisory Council (NAC), GOI, 2013. She was also the Member-Convener- National Sectoral Innovation Council on Occupational Safety and Health (NSIC-OSH), GOI, 2013 while at VVGNLI. She recently presented a paper on ‘Hierarchies at Work and Health: Case of the Tea Plantation sector in Darjeeling” at the British Sociological Association’s (BSA) Conference on Work in Crisis held at Leeds Business School, University of Leeds, U.K. 5-8th September 2016 and a paper on “Changing forms of collectivisation in the tea plantation sector: Case of North Bengal” at Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata; Conference on Negotiating Globalisation, Trade Unions and Labour in Contemporary India, September 22-23, 2016, Kolkata.

• “Breaking the Bondage: Organising Brick kiln workers in rural Punjab” chapter in in S. George and S. Sinha (Ed.): Redefined Labour Spaces: Organising Workers in Post-Liberalised Era, Routledge Publishers, 2017. ISBN – 13-978-1138201194
• “Workplace Health and Safety: A study of select small scale manufacturing Units in Delhi”, NLI Research Series No. 128/2017. V.V. Giri National Labour Institute, NOIDA. ISBN: 978-93-82902-54-6
• “Women’s Labour in the Tea Sector: Changing Trajectories and Emerging Challenges”, chapter in K.J. Joseph and P.K. Vishwanathan (Ed.) Globalisation, Inclusive Development and Labour: Case of India’s Plantation Sector, Routledge Publishers, 2016.
• “Whether Contractualisation Adds to Health Hazards: A study of select Manufacturing units in Delhi in Labour and Development, 22 (2), Special Issue on Labour and Health, V.V. Giri National Labour Institute, NOIDA, December 2015
• Book Review: Meta Deka: Women’s Agency and Social Change: Assam and Beyond in Social Change Vol 45 (3), pp 502- 504, Council for Social Development, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2015.
• “Vulnerables in the Small Tea Grower Sector: Locating Ethnicity and Gender interface in the STGs Value Chain in North Bengal”, Discussion Paper No. 48, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, under the National Research Programme on Plantation Development (NRPPD), sponsored by Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, GOI, 2015.
• “Women’s Labour in the Tea Sector: Changing Trajectories and Emerging Challenges” Discussion Paper No. 31, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, under the National Research Programme on Plantation Development (NRPPD), sponsored by Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, GOI, 2014.
• “Regulatory Frameworks on Health and Safety: An Overview” in Helen Sekar and Dhanya M.B. (Eds.): “Workers’ Rights and Practices in the Contemporary Scenario: An Overview”, V. V. Giri National Labour Institute, NOIDA, 2013
• “Identity and Politics of Exclusivity in the North Bengal Tea Plantations: A Few Reflections” in Labour and Development, Vol 20 (1), June 2013, pp 77-88
• “Changing Land Utilisation Patterns in the Tea Plantation Sector in West Bengal: Some Policy Imperatives”, Discussion Paper No. 22, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, under the National Research Programme on Plantation Development (NRPPD), sponsored by Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, GOI, 2013.
• Book Review: Kancha Ilaiah: Post-Hindu India A Discourse on Dalit –Bahujan, Socio-Spiritual and Scientific Revolution, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2009. Accessible at http://dalitssouthasia.org/download/kanchailaiah.pdf http://dalitssouthasia.org/download/kanchailaiah.pdf
• “Nexus of ‘Crisis’ and Reduction of Labour Cost: Contextualising Workers’ Strike in North Bengal Tea Plantations” (Darjeeling Times News Magazine, August Issue, Darjeeling 2008)
• An Exploratory Study on Housing and Land Rights in Closed and Abandoned Tea Gardens, Dooars, West Bengal- A Case Study of Kathalguri Tea Estate Working Paper, Centre for Education and Communication, New Delhi 2008. Accessible at
• http://www.cec-india.org/images/stories/pdf/CECWork_paper/Housing%20_Land%20Rights.pdf
• “Nimble Fingers Unheard Voices Trade Unionism in the Tea Sector: A Gender Perspective”, Labour File, Volume 5 No 5&6 September-December 2007