EDITORIALS

Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 20, 2014 vol xlix no 38
9
T
he only information most Indians outside the tea-growing
areas have of workers in the plantations is what they
have gleaned from popular cinema of smiling workers
on rolling green hills waving to the lead pair as they sing and
dance. Nothing could be more removed from reality. Tea garden
workers, especially of West Bengal and Assam, are now experi-
encing widespread malnutrition, human trafcking and even
death due to extreme working conditions and poor wages.
Those in Kerala and Tamil Nadu work in comparatively better
conditions because the Plantations Labour Act (PLA) 1951 which
lays down norms is better implemented in the South.
A non-governmental organisation says that a survey of closed
tea gardens in Assam and West Bengal points to a hundred deaths
since the beginning of 2014 due to acute malnutrition and starva-
tion, a gure similar to that mentioned by an adviser to the
Supreme Court-appointed Commissioner on the Right to Food.
An overwhelming majority of workers in the tea plantations
of east and north-east India are adivasis from areas which are
today in Jharkhand, descendants of indentured labour of the
colonial era. There are also Odiyas and Nepalis amongst the
workers. Grinding poverty, low literacy, and lack of alternative
employment possibilities are common features in the tea gar-
dens, especially in those that have turned sick or have shut
operations. Legal wrangles and poor management practices
have adversely affected many tea gardens, reducing production
and revenues, with consequent trouble for the workers.
Unfortunately, the better-run tea plantations do not necessarily
imply better working conditions. Wages are low and working
conditions poor in these plantations as well. Citing rising costs
and squeezed prot margins, managements have held down wages,
which can be as little as Rs 95 for men and Rs 90 for women for a
days work. As labour activists working in the plantations have
pointed out, most workers are in a precarious condition because
they are temporary workers who are members of the families of
the permanent workers. There is thus pressure on both categories
of workers to fall in line and continue in the same conditions.
A number of studies have shone light on the conditions of the
workers of closed and abandoned tea gardens in the Dooars in
West Bengal. Many of the women and children have been lured
by promises of steady incomes to work as domestic workers in
the metropolitan cities. Many of these migrant workers nd
themselves caught in human trafcking, whether for the sex
trade or domestic work where they are made to work as virtual
house slaves by domestic service agencies. Not surprisingly,
their wages are low and their health begins to suffer. The media
increasingly carries reports of such domestic workers trying to
escape from their employers.
Meanwhile the usual allegations and counter-allegations con-
tinue with the Government of West Bengal claiming it has asked
the centre for a special package for the workers of the closed tea
gardens, on which it is yet to receive a reply. However, it has
denied that there have been starvation deaths.
A public interest litigation before the Supreme Court led in
2007 has detailed the life of workers of closed tea gardens.
(The columns of this journal have also published research on
the oppressive working and living conditions of the tea garden
workers in West Bengal and Assam.) The Court noted that no
steps had been taken by the central and state governments to
provide relief to workers of 55 sick gardens in Assam and
West Bengal. The petition which also claimed 240 starvation
deaths between 2002 and 2003 was led on behalf of 3,00,000
workers in the sick or closed tea gardens of West Bengal, Assam,
Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh
and Uttarakhand.
There are as many as nine labour and social welfare laws
applicable to the tea garden workers. Many suggestions to alle-
viate the plight of the workers have also been discussed: mak-
ing the provisions of the PLA relevant to the present, rationalis-
ing the wage structure, stricter monitoring of the government
agencies meant to implement laws for the workers and intro-
ducing special educational, health and social welfare schemes.
But an improvement will never take place in either execution of
the existing legislation or implementation of new schemes if the
central and state governments are not willing to take up the
case of the workers of the tea gardens beyond lobbing the blame
into each others court.
Misery in the Tea Gardens
Tea plantation workers face starvation, trafcking and political neglect.