Article Rumour and gossip in a time of crisis: Resistance and accommodation in a South Indian plantation frontier Jayaseelan Raj London School of Economics and Political Science, UK Abstract This article examines rumour and gossip among the tea workers in the south Indian state of Kerala in the context of recent economic crisis in the Indian tea industry. It argues that gossip and rumour may have distinct effects with regard to resistance and accommodation in the crisis-ridden plantations. The analysis of the gossip shows that the workers are critical of the plantation management, trade unions and the Kerala state for failing to ensure their means of livelihood during the crisis period. In this context, gossip functions as a form and agent of resistance which further shows that the workers were conscious of their exploitation. On the other hand, the ethnographic data presented in this article suggest that rumour is an effective instrument for the control and disciplining of workers in the crisis context. Keywords Gossip, rumour, plantation, resistance, India By the early 1990s, the tea plantations in India plunged into a serious economic crisis that led to the closure of many plantations. This crisis shattered the lives of thousands of tea workers and their families who relied on the plantation economy for more than four generations. In the crisis context, a significant number of workers left the closed plantations while others stayed back in partially working Corresponding author: Jayaseelan Raj, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum-695011, India. Email: jraj@cds.ac.in Critique of Anthropology 2019, Vol. 39(1) 52–73 ! The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0308275X18790803 journals.sagepub.com/home/coa