Landscapes of Order and Imperial Control: The Representation of Plantation Production in Late- Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century Tea Advertising Anandi Ramamurthy Studies of colonial imagery within advertising, such as those by McClintock (1995) and Richards (1991), have so far focused on discussions about general colonial and racist ideologies that perme- ated the period of Empire. This essay aims to encourage the reading of advertising imagery within its specific political and economic contexts and highlights the particular value of uncovering the ideological interests of manufacturers and the ways in which these impacted on their production of advertising and marketing imagery. It also encourages an understanding of colonialism as ‘not a unitary project but a fractured one, riddled with contradictions’(Thomas 1994: 51). Decoding tea advertisements, for instance, with a knowledge of the interests of Empire tea producers, enables us to uncover the ways in which such manufacturers constructed their advertising images to encour- age support for a specific kind of colonial policy - in this case, direct imperial control and planta- tion production. In 1888, the import of Indian teas, the largest Empire tea producing country exceeded that of Chinese tea for the first time. It marked a significant shift in a trade which had been dominated by China over the previous two centuries. The advertising and marketing of British firms exploiting this new Empire trade, clearly sought to find new imagery to promote Empire tea which was to change the image of tea forever. Lipton’s, in particular, produced numerous images which exalted ideologies of imperialism that affirmed their interests. Images that at first sight may appear to simply document the production of tea can be understood as constructed scenes in which the or- ganization of space and workers promotes and idealizes the ideologies of direct imperial rule and vertical control over production. The affirmation of vertical control over production can be seen from Lipton’s first tea adver- tisement in The Graphic, 30 January 1892, (two years after his first purchase of tea estates in Ceylon - See Figure 1). Although it is graphically an uninteresting image, it presents a series of ingredients which were to dominate Lipton’s advertising. The image depicts a scene on one of Lipton’s plantations. There is a sense of order and serenity. In the gardens, labourers are shown plucking the tea, while on a road through the plantation, a row of women wait to have the tea they Space and Culture 4/5 160 have plucked weighed by the European foreman. A series of buildings are scattered over the pic- ture, - all bearing the name of Lipton’s on their roofs. On the left, a temple is visible, as well as a section of a port harbour, with boats and ships waiting to transport the tea . The scene is obvi- ously impossible, since no tea gardens were on the coast, but it enabled Lipton to reinforce his slogan ‘Direct from the tea garden to the tea pot’. This slogan, as well as the image, not only suggests the direct arrival of tea from plantation to European consumer, but also the total control of Lipton’s all along the way. While in the ma- jority of advertising, the social relations of pro- duction and depictions of labour are usually de- liberately hidden, in Lipton’s advertising and other tea advertising of the period it appears to Figure 1. Lipton’s advertisement, The Graphic, have become exalted. Of course the actual con- ditions of workers, their low rates of pay, the indentured system of la- bour which forced them to give up their freedom, the brutalities of planters , are not depicted, but in- stead an idealized world of produc- tion in which conflict is eliminated has been represented. This repre- sentation of vertical control over production and of an ordered workforce became one of the most dominant representations of this product and its industry. This image is even more sur- prising, since the conditions of la- bour on the tea estates in India had received significant publicity in 1890 when an article in the Madras Figure 2. Lipton’s advertisement, The Graphic, 7 March 1896. Mail of 11 September, highlighted Virtual Space & Organizational Networks 161 Figure .3 Lipton’s advertisement, The Graphic, 4 April, 1896 the high mortality, low rates of pay and the extreme punishments given to coolies working in Assam. It noted how in 1886, the Chief Commissioner of Assam, Mr. Ward had himself remarked how ‘the cooly is practically a slave for the whole period of his contract’. The writer also quoted statistics which showed mortality figures for coolies ranging from 200 in every 1,000 to 594 in every 1,000, because coolies were never able to be ill, or they would end up unable to feed them- selves. The article also mentioned how a prison, for run-away coolies and other punishments was also a regular feature on the estates. The plantation of the Lipton’s advertisement, white-washed the extremity of exploitation and hardship. There are two reasons which I would like to suggest enabled this representation of labour to be possible. Firstly and most importantly, the attitudes to India and ‘the Orient’ during this period allowed Lipton’s to present this world as one of idealized labour relations. Mill’s ideas of the ‘natural’ ability of European’s to rule and Indian to be ruled, enabled scenes like this to be read as though they were organic. Development in Ceylon appears entirely down to Lipton, almost every Space and Culture 4/5 162 structure is marked with his name. The European obsession with caste as the fundamental institu- tion in India and South Asia also naturalizes this scene. ‘Better ones duty ill performed’ Joseph Campbell quotes from a Hindu text in his Oriental Mythology ‘than that of another to perfection’. For the planters this could be interpreted as the coolies rightful place as labourer, even more so because as Campbell continued, the ‘idea of the great individual simply does not exist within the pale of the system’(cited in Inden 1986: 434) The space for individual greatness is therefore easily preserved for Mr. Lipton, who is repre- sented as having brought order and progress to a world of chaos and superstition as represented in the temple. This notion is even further eulogized as late as 1967, by Denys Forrest: The mountains may be steep and jagged, the plains luxuriant and steamy, but wherever tea is grown, at whatever elevation, there is one prevailing note- order. What the plantation pioneers evolved in the first place, and what their successors have maintained in the face of all tropical inducements to ease off, is a self disciplined routine aimed at the production of as much and as good tea as possible from a given acreage of land (Forrest 1967: 19). The notion of imposed order is clearly indicated in this and other Lipton’s advertisements through the regular spacing of the workers lined up in queues, the ordered lines of bushes, and even the three elephants on the left hand side are spaced evenly apart. Straight lines dominate the drawing, the only contrast to this is the temple and the palm trees, both symbols of the ‘other’. This key representation of order and control can also be viewed in the development of a Lipton’s advertisement in 1896 (See Figures 2 & 3). In its first appearance in The Graphic on 7 March, the key ingredients of tea garden, tea pickers, coolies, European planter, industrial symbolism (repre- sented by the steam train), and trading ships are all present, but the scene of the gardens in the central circle lacks the sense of order which can be viewed in the image discussed above. On the second and subsequent appearance of this advertisement (4 April 1896 and later), this scene changed. The regulated rows of tea plants, and ordered rows of coolies appear in this reworked image, which is also much brighter than the last one, symbolically affirming the notion of progress. The notion of order, was also clearly associated with European dominance and total control. The forefront of the previous picture had shown a man and a woman labourer picking tea from the same bush facing each other. The size of the woman is almost that of the European man standing just outside the scene. There also appeared a feeling of togetherness amongst the two labourers and this relation- ship was repeated further back with the image of two women working closely together. This scene obviously did not assert a sense of the European planters control over his labourers, since they appear to have a social interaction which excludes him. In the revised image these labourers are removed and the lines of regimented coolies appear again (See Figure 3). Each worker appears isolated in his or her task and their submission to the planter is further affirmed by a coolie who is illustrated as much smaller than the planter and stands to attention on the opposite side of the Virtual Space & Organizational Networks 163 circular frame looking up at the planter as though waiting for his orders. The insertion of this coolie also stabilizes the image. These scenes appear so static and timeless eradicating notions of conflict or a need for change. Apart from the naturalization of labour relations through imperial ideology, the second reason which I would posit that permitted this depiction of labour was the romanticized notion of the factory in the garden. In 1879, Cadbury’s opened their new factory at Bournville, which was mar- keted heavily as ‘the factory in the garden’.