I’ve just come back from northwestern Sylhet, a hilly and densely forested region famous for its tea plantations.
The poor souls who work on them could well be the ultimate definition of “displaced people.”
They were brought there from various Indian states after the British colonists set up the first tea gardens in the 1850’s. Almost all of them were landless tribespeople. They were told they would be taken to a beautiful place where they could find a home and be richly rewarded for shaking a lovely plant; a story not far from the yarn that many modern day traffickers spin.
In reality, their homes were – as they are now - unsanitary mud-walled homes called ‘worker lines.’
The daily wage is 48 taka (about 50 cents) plus a meager daily ration of food and a minimal amount of medical care. And the house is theirs only as long as one of the family has a job there. If that person dies, they face a very uncertainty future.
Some of them are Catholics and the Church has been battling constantly for the last 60 years to set up schools for them. The plantation owners positively discourage education, for fear that it will make the workers discontented.
And all the time, the business is declining. Tea, the second most popular beverage in the world after water, was once a major export of Bangladesh. But those days are gone. Out of a total annual production of 50 million kgs, only 10 million are exported. If for any reason a tea garden or factory is closed, the family has no option but to go begging.
They have no other vocational skills. And they no longer have roots. Since the partition of India in 1946 and Bangladesh liberation in 1971 most of them have forgotten their language and lost touch with their original culture.
It’s ironic that you often see photos and videos of women plucking tea leaves. They’re used in calendars and advertisements and they look colorful and charming. Very few people know what their everyday reality is.
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