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 is Tamil-speaking Dalits (so-called untouchables/outcasts) who constitute the 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. Although Kerala has undertaken many reforms to address marginalised populations, those who entered into the indentured plantation labour system have remained excluded and marginalised from Indian society as a whole.