Two leaves and a bud… two leaves and a bud…
Hands go plucking at all tea gardens. Eight hours a day, bent over the tea plantation they work with their own rhythm and professional precision. Most pluckers, as we see in movies and pictures, are women in their 30s or 40s, bent over with huge baskets on their backs. They all have families to feed. With almost no job security, no health facilities, working on the whims of managers, owners and labour leaders, they carry on their jobs all their lives, unless the garden closes, or their lifetime gets shortened due to malnutrition, poor health awareness, benefits and facilities.

Gita is one of the many pluckers at a sick tea garden (which can close anytime) in Doars, West Bengal, India. She has lost her two toddlers to untreated diarrhea and malnutrition. Her husband is ill and unemployed. Her two school going kids receive mid-day meals at a school nearby. She has a six month infant and she was not aware of government’s ICDS scheme of ration for pregnant women and pre-natal care. She plucks for eight hours a day for a tea industry which doesn’t care for her.

There are many more Gitas in the millions of dollar tea industry. In past two years many tea gardens are either declared sick or totally shut down. There is no social security for scores of men and women who toil at the garden and live in labour lines. More than 1,00,000 workers of tea industry are affected. And most affected are little children who are born to malnourished mothers and suffer malnutrition all their life (Sunita, Gita’s daughter lived only for three years).

We all enjoy a cup of tea. Tea is India’s national drink and enjoys exotic place in food and travel industry. Darjeeling tea is a souvenir carried home by tourists from all over the world. Yet hands diligently plucking those leaves are dying. Hidden, unseen behind serene beauty of gardens are the tears and fears of the workers and their bleak future. They need our help.

Next time you travel and marvel at tea gardens, be sure you ask the managers and owners what health facilities and benefits they have for their workers and families. Interact with workers and make them aware of government labour laws and health programmes. Only informed can help the uninformed about the rights and choices they have.

(Written for CRY-Kolkata Newsletter based on a research study report: NUTRITIONAL SURVEY OF TEA WORKERS ON CLOSED, RE-OPENED, AND OPEN TEA PLANTATIONS OF THE DOOARS REGION, WEST BENGAL, INDIA)