[Reader-list] RTF (Right to Food) Articles - 12
Rakesh Iyer
rakesh.rnbdj at gmail.com
Wed Aug 12 16:43:16 IST 2009
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 13, 2004 Group Publications Business Line The Sportstar Frontline
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* Cup of misery *
The closure of tea plantations in West Bengal has led to an unprecedented
human tragedy as workers struggle to survive. SUNIL SCARIA writes of their
trials and tribulations.
AP
IT was 8.45 p.m. on March 7. Around 250 Raimatang tea estate workers were
waiting for the tribunal to arrive. The tribunal was to have come at 5.00
p.m. But workers in the five gardens the tribunal visited earlier had
endless tales of sufferings. We reach the "enclave" at 8.50 p.m. There is no
electricity. Ever since the garden was closed, the electricity has been
disconnected. Two lanterns were lit and we began recording their voices.
I moved aside to chat with 17-year-old Rakesh while the tribunal hearing was
in progress. I had heard that many children had to drop out of schools and
college. Rakesh was in his second year at a Siliguri college. I asked him if
he still went to college. His reply was that he used to go once a month, but
had stopped in the last four months because it cost about Rs. 30 a day to
travel to Siliguri and get food for the day. His family hardly earned Rs. 50
and he had to work to augment the family income. He spoke about how young
girls went to neighbouring states like Sikkim as domestic help or became sex
workers to support the family.
Twenty-five-year-old Ratia Oraon (name changed) stands out against the green
tea bushes in her pink sari and bright lipstick as she hurries down the
ribbon-like walk of Palashbari tea estate towards the dingy labour lines.
That is where her client, a labourer at Palashbari, stays. Ratia will be
paid Rs. 30 an hour. Her customers are from Chamurchi, Haldibari, Mahabir
tea estates, neighbouring Kanthalguri tea estate where she stays.
With the Kanthalguri estate closed since July 22, 2002, and starvation
deaths becoming a regular feature (400 people have already died), a section
of the women has resorted to prostitution as the only way out. "After
lockout was declared in the garden, we plucked the leaves and sold them.
Then we sold the trees for firewood and some people even sold the furniture,
doors, and windowpanes of the manager's bungalow for food. There is nothing
left now so we have taken to this. It is better than seeing my little
brother die," says Ratia. Education is not the only thing that suffers. Tea
plantations in India are witnessing an unprecedented human tragedy.
Plantations in North Bengal have been feeling the heat for a couple of years
now and the media has been highlighting the crisis, especially the plight of
the workers. In view of the persistent reports of starvation and other
abuses in the tea gardens of North Bengal, Swadhikar, a voluntary society of
Jalpaiguri, requested Indian People's Tribunal (IPT) to visit the area in
order to determine the facts and make recommendations on that basis. The
Tribunal constituted a bench under Justice (Retired) Hosbet Suresh, which
included Harsh Mander, Dr. Manas Dasgupta, Samar Nath Chatterjee, Gayatri
Singh, Virginius Xaxa and Ranjit Sarkar.
The Tribunal visited six gardens, namely Kathalguri, Dheklapara, Ramjhora,
Mujnai, Kalchini and Raimatang on March 7 and held public hearing on March
8, 9 and 10, in Jalpaiguri to record oral and written statements.
A study by the West Bengal Right to Food and Work Network showed that as
many as 22 plantations, 21,000 permanent workers and about 95, 000 people
have been affected in Jalpaiguri district alone. A door-to-door survey of
204 households in two plantations by the study team revealed an even more
frightening picture. The average number of deaths a year was increasing by
241 per cent after closure of the plantations. The death registers show that
most of the workers die due to blood dysentery and cardio-respiratory
failure. However the majority of causes are either "not given" or "others".
There is an acute drinking water problem in all the gardens after they were
shut down and the electricity and water supply was disconnected. People use
river water for drinking. This water is highly contaminated with dolomite
from the cement manufacturing factories. Even the ground water is unfit for
drinking due to large-scale application of fertilizers, pesticides and
agrochemicals in the tea gardens.
The causes for the problem are many. The most common is the fall in prices,
which is attributed to over supply. But paradoxically tea prices fall while
the demand for tea increases. It defies the supply-demand equation.
PARTH SANYAL
* Children collecting wood for fuel instead of going to school. *
Tea gardens are "enclaves", cut off from the surrounding people and
economy. During the colonial period, labourers were hired from outside,
given housing and incorporated into a new form of society dictated by the
management and designed solely to suit the needs of the plantations. Tea
plantation workers in eastern India are fourth-generation descendants of
immigrants brought by the colonial planters 150 years ago from the tribal
tracts of Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, and Nepal. Post
independence, according to the Plantation Labour Act, 1951, the planters
were to continue to provide healthcare facilities, transport, and elementary
schools. The plantation sector still operates under the colonial legacy
characterised by migrant labour, poor work conditions, low wages, and
exploitative conditions. They are treated as secondary citizens and continue
to live under sub-human conditions.
Zia-Ul-Alam, Secretary, Cha Bagan Majdur Union (associated with CITU) said,
"The nature of the present phenomenon of lock out and abandonment of tea
gardens in West Bengal during the last two years is quite different from the
earlier trends. The gardens that have faced this problem are either those
with declining productivity in terms of land (and not labour) and
over-loaned (most even more than their total asset value). These planters
have sucked the land of all its resources and have failed to invest anything
in the land. Instead, they abandon the garden when the productivity of the
land shows declining trends".
The tribunal found that there had been a large number of hunger-related
deaths, resulting from a combination of starvation, malnutrition, general
debility and disease, the number of deaths being not less than 800 in the
six closed or abandoned gardens it visited. The Tribunal, in its interim
report, came down heavily on the violations of human rights, of statutory
obligations by the plantation managements, failure/inaction of the Central
and State Governments in taking necessary action, and failure of the trade
unions in protecting the workers. The Tribunal noted that the workers' right
to food, work, healthcare and sanitation, education and decent living
conditions had been severely curtailed.
The managements violated their statutory obligations by misappropriating
huge amounts from the workers' earned wages, salaries, bonus, rations,
earned leave, provident funds, gratuity, and life insurance. They also
evaded their liabilities to the government exchequer. Many operational
gardens are also following this trend of not paying the wages/salaries in
time, not disbursing cereals in due time, not depositing the PF amount, not
paying gratuity, paying three day's wages for six days of work and are
pushing the workers and their dependants into starvation and death.
The Tribunal also noted that the inaction and indifference of the Central
Government and the Tea Board. Under the Tea Act 1953, the Central Government
has vast regulatory powers, particularly in relation to employers who have
defaulted in the payment of wages and PF dues. The Centre and the Tea Board
can initiate stringent measures against units if they are "managed in a
manner highly detrimental to the tea industry or to public interest."
The Tribunal also criticised the State Government for the indifference
showed to the workers illustrated by the fact that the 2002 Below Poverty
Line survey did not include the workers of the gardens even after their
closure for one and a half years. The Tribunal was also critical of the
trade unions. It noted that if the trade unions had been united and taken
prompt steps, the conditions of workers could have been different.
The Tribunal recommended:
Measures for medical help, food and potable water supply, transportation
needed to be taken to prevent more hunger deaths in the gardens.
Prosecution of employers in order to recover dues and called for immediate
cancellation of leases and setting up workers' cooperatives to run the
gardens.
State Government take back a portion of leased-out land for the settlement
and development of non-workers and/or temporary workers and their families.
Amendment of the PLA to provide for welfare measures under the Act, to be
supervised by the local panchayats and the Block Development Officers.
Amendment of the Tea Act to assign a proper role to the State in the matter
of proper supervision and running of the tea gardens.
The condition of workers in a land ruled by the workers' party is indeed
sub-human. And the state is yet to realise that its duty is to protect its
citizens from hunger and starvation.
* The writer is the Joint Coordinator of the Indian People's Tribunal on
Environment and Human Rights (IPT). E-mail:
iptindia at vsnl.net<http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2004/06/13/stories/mailto>
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