The Tea-garden community is a term for a multiethnic, multicultural group of tea garden workers and their descendants in Northeast India (formerly the Assam province). They are primarily concentrated in the modern state of Assam, where they have been notified as Other Backward Classes (OBC) and are loosely referred to as Tea Tribes. They are the descendants of peoples from multiple tribal and caste groups brought by the British colonial planters as indentured labourers from the regions of present-day Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh into colonial Assam during the 1860-90s in multiple phases to the newly established tea gardens. They are primarily found in districts with a large concentration of tea estates, such as Upper Assam districts of Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sivasagar, Charaideo, Golaghat, Lakhimpur, Sonitpur and Udalguri, and Barak Valley districts of Cachar and Karimganj. The total population is estimated to be around 7 million, of which an estimated 4.5 million reside in residential quarters built inside 799 tea estates spread across tea-growing regions of Assam. Another 2.5 million reside in the nearby villages spread across those tea-growing regions. They speak multiple languages, including Sora, Odia, Assam Sadri, Sambalpuri, Kurmali, Santali, Kurukh, Kharia, Kui, Chhattisgarhi, Gondi and Mundari. Assam Sadri, distinguished from the Sadri language, serves as lingua franca among the community.

A sizeable section of the community, particularly those having Scheduled Tribe status in other states of India and living mainly in the village areas other than tea gardens, prefers to call themselves "Adivasi" and are known by that term in Assam, whereas the Scheduled Tribes of Assam are known as "Tribe". Many tea garden community members are tribals such as Munda, Santhal, Kurukh, Gonds, Bhumij, among others. According to the Lokur Committee (1965) they formed around 20 lakh. They have been demanding Scheduled Tribe status in Assam, but the tribal organisations of Assam are against it, which has resulted in several clashes between them and deaths.

In the 19th century, the British found Assam suitable for tea cultivation and wanted to increase their revenue by planting tea plantations, so they brought labourers from different parts of the country to clear large tracts of forest and make tea gardens. Tea garden workers were brought to the tea plantations of Assam in several phases from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century from the tribal heartland of central-eastern India as indentured labourers. During the 1840s, tribal people throughout the Chota Nagpur Division were revolting against expanding British control, and the scarcity of cheap labour to work in the expanding tea industry of Assam led the British authorities to recruit primarily Tribals and some backward-class Hindus as indentured labourers to work in Assam's tea gardens. Thousands of people recruited as labourers died of diseases during the journey to Assam, and hundreds who tried to flee were killed by the British authorities as punishment for breaching their contracts.

At the start of tea plantations in the province, the Assam company had brought in Chinese staff, around 70 at its peak, and paid them four to five times more wages compared to local labour. The former were dispensed with in 1843 and labourers from Assam were the only ones working in the plantations until 1859 which was around 10,000 vis-a-vis the requirement for 16,000-20,000 for existing cultivation. Most of these were then recruited from the Kachari tribe of the then Darrang district, and peasants from nearby villages during their agricultural slack season.

In 1841 the first attempt was made by the Assam Company to recruit labourers from outside the province. In this attempt, 652 people were forcibly recruited, but due to an outbreak of cholera, most of them died. Those who survived fled. In 1859 the Workmen's Breach of Contract Act was passed, which instituted harsh penalties for indentured labourers who broke their contracts, including flogging. It alleviated the scarcity of labourers on the plantation by recruiting from outside Assam through contracts. "Arakattis," or brokers, were appointed to recruit labour from outside the area. In 1870, the "Sardari System" was introduced to recruit labourers.

Majority of the labour force was recruited from areas such as Chota Nagpur, Santal Parganas, Bengal Presidency, Central Provinces, and Madras Presidency. Most came from the tribal communities of Chottanagpur and Santhal Parganas and constituted 59 and 50 percent of the total men and women respectively in 1878. These consisted of the Mundas, Oraons, Kharias, Kols, Bhumijs, Santhals, and castes such as Kurmis, and Murasis. This was followed by communities from Orissa, Central Provinces, Palamu district in then Bihar, and Madras Presidency. They consisted of those classified as semi-aboriginal castes such as the Ghasis, Bauris, Turis, and Goraits, A smaller number were recruited from low-caste Hindu communities like the Bhogtas, Rautias, Chamars, and Dusadhs.

Conditions of recruitment of labour from Bengal and Bihar were inhuman. Arakattis resorted to several fraudulent practices and physical force.

From 15 December 1859 to 21 November 1861, the Assam Company brought the first batch of 2,272 recruits from outside. From of the total, 250 died on the way to Assam. From 2 April 1861 to 25 February 1862, 2,569 people were recruited and sent to Assam in two batches via the Brahmaputra river route. During the journey 135 died or got drowned, and 103 absconded. Between 1 May 1863 and 1 May 1866, 84,915 labourers were recruited, but 30,000 had died by June 1866.