BATTLEGROUND WEST BENGAL - Netas bid for votes of hungry tea garden workers
From dawn till late in the day, Mongra Oraon draws 50 buckets of water from a well to irrigate a small patch of the sprawling Bundapani Tea Estate in Birpara in the Dooars. The garden has been shut for years, but Mongra diligently carries on the back-breaking work to keep the crop healthy.“If we don't water the bushes, red spiders will af fect leaf production. We'l lose our only source of sustenance. We can en dure hard labour in scorching heat but not hunger,“ the sweatdrenched labourer says. The garden is among seven in the Dooars either closed or abandoned, affecting the livelihood of nearly 1 lakh workers. Some, including Bundapani, were taken over by the state three years ago, but they are yet to reopen.
Matters are much worse for another set of 1 lakh workers in 11 gardens that are neither closed, nor operational. They function only during the plucking season and remain shut rest of the year.There is no government dole for these workers as the gardens are not officially shut.
Observers say the once-thriving tea industry is deliberately being driven into crisis by short-term profit motives. “Few gardens have their owners here. Most are operated by traders who've leased the gardens for a few years,“ says Manab Dasgupta, former head of economics department at North Bengal University .
Overuse of a deadly cocktail of fertilisers and pesticide will soon run the gardens to seed, and they'll ultimately D be abandoned, he says. Most of the 4.5 lakh workers who work in the gardens in Dooars and Terai are illiterate and dependent on semi-literate union leaders for everything from workdays to wage negotiation to any bonus. “With the worker count in each garden a few thousand, managements speak to union leaders. There used to be four-five major unions earlier, several new ones have sprung up now.It is through these unions that new owners control the gardens' functioning,“ said a tea industry official. Closure of the gardens has driven workers to near starvation -there have been nearly 200 deaths in the Dooars since September 2015 though government puts the toll at 78. Many have been driven to work as daily labour in Bhutan, breaking boulders on the river bed for Rs 45-50 a day . The lack of livelihood has meant Union leaders have a vice-like grip on their lives.
While traders use these dubi ous union leaders all year, politicians bank on them during elections. The 4.5 lakh workforce in Dooars and Terai mostly vote en bloc, 80% are tribal. For netas, getting the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad (ABAVP) on one's side is crucial for parties.
The GJM (Gorkha Jamukhti Morcha) controls a big chunk of the Nepali vote (10% of the workers) in the gardens. It is backing the CPM-Congress combine; ABAVP is leaning towards Trinamool.
That should have ensured victory for Mamata Banerjee's party in Nagrakata and Malbazar where over 70% of voters are tribal. But the equation changed this year with a split in ABAVP. John Barla, an influential tribal leader and former ABAVP president, who floated Progressive Tea Workers Union, is now a BJP candidate in Nagrakata.
Matters are much worse for another set of 1 lakh workers in 11 gardens that are neither closed, nor operational. They function only during the plucking season and remain shut rest of the year.There is no government dole for these workers as the gardens are not officially shut.
Observers say the once-thriving tea industry is deliberately being driven into crisis by short-term profit motives. “Few gardens have their owners here. Most are operated by traders who've leased the gardens for a few years,“ says Manab Dasgupta, former head of economics department at North Bengal University .
Overuse of a deadly cocktail of fertilisers and pesticide will soon run the gardens to seed, and they'll ultimately D be abandoned, he says. Most of the 4.5 lakh workers who work in the gardens in Dooars and Terai are illiterate and dependent on semi-literate union leaders for everything from workdays to wage negotiation to any bonus. “With the worker count in each garden a few thousand, managements speak to union leaders. There used to be four-five major unions earlier, several new ones have sprung up now.It is through these unions that new owners control the gardens' functioning,“ said a tea industry official. Closure of the gardens has driven workers to near starvation -there have been nearly 200 deaths in the Dooars since September 2015 though government puts the toll at 78. Many have been driven to work as daily labour in Bhutan, breaking boulders on the river bed for Rs 45-50 a day . The lack of livelihood has meant Union leaders have a vice-like grip on their lives.
While traders use these dubi ous union leaders all year, politicians bank on them during elections. The 4.5 lakh workforce in Dooars and Terai mostly vote en bloc, 80% are tribal. For netas, getting the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad (ABAVP) on one's side is crucial for parties.
The GJM (Gorkha Jamukhti Morcha) controls a big chunk of the Nepali vote (10% of the workers) in the gardens. It is backing the CPM-Congress combine; ABAVP is leaning towards Trinamool.
That should have ensured victory for Mamata Banerjee's party in Nagrakata and Malbazar where over 70% of voters are tribal. But the equation changed this year with a split in ABAVP. John Barla, an influential tribal leader and former ABAVP president, who floated Progressive Tea Workers Union, is now a BJP candidate in Nagrakata.
Source: Times of India, 19-03-2016
