From the East India Company to modern Bangladesh: Why do elites repeatedly deny tea workers their rights?

The East India Company, which subjugated the people of the Indian subcontinent for two hundred years, first introduced tea to the people of India as a recreational beverage. The company imported tea seeds, seedlings, machinery, as well as labourers familiar with growing and harvesting tea, from China. Tea plantation workers were then called "coolies," a derogatory term denoting unskilled workers of Asian, usually of Chinese or Indian, descent.  Once the British stopped importing workers from China because they could not manage their recalcitrance, they decided to employ native labourers.

The Surma and Barak valleys (now Sylhet) and the Assam region were a major part of India's tea plantations. When European capitalists started establishing tea plantations in Assam in the late 19th century, tea workers were not available locally. With the help of the Assamese government, they arranged to bring thousands of tea workers from different parts of India. These tea workers were brought from Bihar, Orissa, Madras, Nagpur, Santhal Parganas, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

A separate department was also introduced to manage this. At that time, the Assamese Government implemented the "Immigration of Labour Act." This act is a unique document revealing strict government laws for tea workers and immense concessions to the owners of tea plantations. Despite the arrangement of tea workers, there was still a lack of qualified manpower in the management system at various levels of tea plantations. As a result, thousands of Bengalis were appointed to these posts.

At the beginning of the 20th century, when the Bengal-Assam railway was established, lakhs of Bangali farmers from the districts of Dhaka, Mymensingh, Noakhali, Tripura, Rangpur, etc. in East Bengal, most of whom belonged to the Muslim community, were brought under the colonial scheme to cultivate the uncultivated, forested land in different parts of Assam. From the beginning, these working people were grossly neglected.

Workmen's accounts were kept according to the type of work. These were known as the "Garden Book: Daily Kamjari Book." From this book the availability of wages was calculated against their work. Sardar and Muhuri were mainly responsible for supervising these accounts. Workers were subjected to discrimination and fraud from time to time. They were forced to endure these working conditions.

Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement in India influenced the tea workers. On 20 May, 1921, around 30,000 tea workers of the Sylhet region started a protest with the slogan "mulluk cholo" ("return to homeland"), demanding to return to their respective regions. But going back was not so easy. The railway department, in connivance with the owners of the tea industry, stopped issuing tickets to the workers so that the workers could not go back. With no other options, they started walking towards Meghna Ghat in Chandpur. The British fired on the angry workers. Hundreds of workers died and thousands were injured. Some ran away, but most were captured and forced to work in tea plantations again.

Despite their protests, there was no change in their standard of living. The sensational 1937 novel "Two Leaves and a Bud" by Mulk Raj Anand expressed the plight of tea workers. Written against the background of colonial oppression by the British, Anand describes tea as 'two leaves and a bud' and traces the struggle of an exploited subaltern family against British colonisers.

In 1947, India gained its independence and was partitioned, but exploitation of tea workers remained the same. Tea workers were and are victims of gross wage discrimination. Even after 50 years of independence, the fortunes of tea workers have not improved, so workers still have to organise in order to struggle for a living wage. At present, they are not able to survive on a daily wage of Tk120. They demand a daily wage of Tk300. Tea garden owners are reluctant to pay this money.

According to the Tea Board, there are about 1,00,000 permanent workers among the more than 5,00,000 tea communities in the country's 167 tea gardens. A worker's family, on average consisting of five people, depend on her wages for bare survival. At present, the tea workers of West Bengal are agitating to demand an increase in wages despite getting Rs232 per day. The wages of tea workers in Bangladesh are much lower than in China and Kenya, the top tea producing countries alongside Sri Lanka and Nepal.

There is supposed to be a discussion to increase the wages of tea workers every two years. The last contract expired in December 2020. According to the agreement, the wages of tea workers are to be increased from 1 January, 2021. The tea workers union demanded to sign a wage increase agreement, but the owners did not come to the discussion. In response to this situation, the tea workers' union began striking on 9 August. Workers of 167 tea estates in the country started an indefinite strike on 13 August. The program of processions, rallies, road meetings, and road blockades was held from garden to garden. 

The heartwarming Facebook status of Santos Ravidas Anjan, a student at Dhaka University, the son of a tea worker, touched everyone's hearts and sparked discussions across the country. After various quarters of the country continued to raise their voices in solidarity with the tea workers, on 27 August the wages of the workers were increased by Tk50 to Tk170.

From the side of the tea garden owner, it will be said now that the tea workers' daily wages have been increased in accordance with their demands. The accounting of the tea garden owners is rather curious. The tea workers demanded a Tk300 wage, but settled for Tk170. Was the workers' demand too extreme? Was Tk300 too much money to ask for during today's chaos of the free market and rising commodity prices?

These days, the rickshaw pullers earn more than Tk1,000 per day. Tea workers demanded only Tk300 while tea garden owners schemed how they could avoid this wage increase. Tea is one of the major export industries of Bangladesh. There is a high demand for tea around the world, and tea plantation owners and tea companies earn millions of dollars on a product made by the sweat of tea workers.

I have a simple question: is it possible to run a household with Tk170? A worker said that everyone in their family cannot even eat a handful of rice every day. Naturally, everyone in their family suffers from malnutrition. Among tea workers generally, children do not get proper education and women do not get enough maternity leave. Tea workers said that they do not have the same rights as the workers of all other industries, including Bangladesh's garment industry. Their lives are still like those of the slaves of an earlier era.

Poor people from destitute areas of central India were lured to the greenery of the tea plantations of Northeast India. In the beginning, many went to Assam to sell their labour for dirt cheap. Since then, they have been working in the tea gardens of the north-eastern part of our country for generations. The question is, why do these people do the same thing for generations? Why cannot they leave this profession and switch to another profession? Poor people of different professions often change their profession from one generation to another.

First, they are immigrants to the area. There are ethnic and cultural differences between them and the locals. Even after living in the same place for several generations, they could not blend into the mainstream of the public life of that place. In other words, they have been systematically prevented from integrating into local public life and accessing a relatively more favourable environment harbouring more opportunities, resulting in the perpetuation of social and economic differences.

These tea workers have been kept as modern slaves since the British period. Low cash wages have replaced minimum food rations at low prices. They are not getting the money they need in order to survive. The prices of products and services change according to the business owner's wishes. They don't even have a chance to speak about their rights. They were made slaves and forced to endure it. They cannot refuse, so they shed tears and whisper hateful curses behind closed doors. But if consumers and elites were vocal about workers' rights, then maybe the scenario would have changed by now.

Dr Rakib Al Hasan is a physician, author, and activist.