My dear friends who show concern for Tea. I have spent 40 years of my
life as a child, adolescent and then working in Managerial capacities.
Tea is not just a beverage. it is a way of life. Garden Owners have
indeed used the estates as milking cows, have not Re-Invested
sufficiently to keep the plantations and its workers in good health
and except for some genuine Planters / companies, most have literally
raped the properties. Please excuse my language.
But at the same time, there are estates with 10 different Labour
Unions. Estates where there is one Worker in a family living in a
Company provided accomodation and having 10 Non Working "dependants" .
The worker is usually a woman, and the rest simply eat up into the
fragile infrastructure of the estates like parasites. Can you just
imagine 10 persons using a pot which has been designed for a family
of four? When the septic tank overflows, the Manager is supposed to
get it cleaned, and if he delays, he may be hacked to death. Same goes
for stopping stealing electricity - you stop them and you are burnt
to death. This has happened in Sapoi Tea Estate of Assam where two
planters were burnt alive and reduced to footballs.
Then there are Managers who get Rehabilitation Grass cut for their
cows by the estate workers and sell the milk for personal gain, and
at the same time impound workers cows if they graze in the
plantation. And the workers and nearby villagers then take onto
grazing their cattle in hundreds in the middle of the night. Cattle
tresspass leads to infestation of Red Spider and other mites which
leads to expensive Acaricides being sprayed making the harvest toxic
and further taxing the meager resources. Traders are no less .. will
come to that later. Friends, ask a true planter ... he would say
chasing cows is his main job.
And yes, you will always find at least one Labourer, One Planter, One
Trader .... One Tea-Man once in a while, and thank God for them that
the Industry still LIVES! Yet, my heart goes out to the Bushes, to the
Workers and we must continue to do our little bits to help retain the
pristine world of Tea.
Regards.