Early in the morning on 14 November, Malu Paik, a 42 years old permanent worker of Dumchipara Tea Garden near Madarihat in Dooars, died. The cause of death is termed as ‘cerebral attack’; the BDO refuses to admit that Malu died of starvation. Malu’s elder son confirms that their family went without food for the last couple of days as nothing was left from the government dole of 5 kilos of rice distributed to them the previous week. For the last couple of days the family survived only on drinking water. Even jungle tubers and tea flowers remained scarce. Malu’s wife Gita and the other son Dipraj had already left to get menial jobs in Delhi. Malu sold off his bicycle and utensils, but even that wasn’t enough to keep starvation from the door.
Yet Malu is not an exception. Since April 2015, 17 emaciated workers of the same tea garden died of diseases that resulted from prolonged stints of starvation. In Bagrakot Tea garden near Malbazar, perpetual hunger caused by corporate plunder claimed the lives of workers – Ranju Kharia, Sushila Oraon, Parvati Lohar, Madhumaya Kami, Padamlal Bhujel, Mukti Santhal, Etowa Oraon, Kanchhi Rokeni, Satish Khadkar, Rajen Pradhan and Ratni Goala – since September this year. On 17 December, within 24 hour, three different tea gardens in the Dooars – Hantapara, Demdima and Red Bank Tea Gardens – reported 4 deaths. Chandra Saru (aged 50 years), a female worker from the Upper Coolie Line of Hantapara tea garden died at North Bengal Medical College. Her old father says that his daughter fell sick from hunger and he lacked the liquid cash to get her treatment in time.
Let us look at the figures corresponding to the revenue stream from 72,920 hectares tea cultivation solely in Dooars. In 2010 total tea production was 144,567 tonnes and it reached as high as 189,020 tonnes by the end of 2014. Dooars CTC average price realization through auction remained Rs. 113.80 per kg. in 2010 and 4 years down the line it obtained Rs.138.96 per kg. We have also to reckon with the fact that so far as production-consumption ratio of tea is concerned, the demand increases by 3% per annum while the supply lags to only 1.5% per annum. Simple economics also blasts the myth of ‘industrial crisis’ peddled so much by the tea corporations and the Government!
These figures are from two of the 16 gardens owned by the largest corporate house in Bengal tea sector, namely Duncans Industries Limited. The other gardens under the same management are Rangli-Rangliot, Marybong in the hills; Nagaisuree, Killcott, Tulsipara, Lankapara, Hantapara, Birpara, Garganda, Dimdima and Madarihat Land Project in Dooars and Goaligachh and Patagora in North Dinajpur district. These gardens – with a workforce of more than 29000 permanent workers along with their dependents – have neither been abandoned, nor declared closed, yet have been left completely non-functioning by the formidable tycoon G P Goenka.
Goenka has siphoned off the entire capital and huge profits from tea to the fertilizer industry in UP. Goenka acquired the erstwhile ICI India Ltd which became a naphtha-based fertilizer plant in Kanpur in 1995. After posting substantial loss due to changes in government policy over fertilizer subsidy, the plant was mothballed in 2002 and eventually transferred to the Jaypee Group in 2010. Apart from depriving the workmen of their legitimate due wages, bonus, subsidized rations, fuel, medical facilities, this unscrupulous management is also accused of defalcation of nearly Rs. 18 Crores against workers’ PF and Gratuity dues. To top it all, the same management had also hoodwinked several frontline banks by borrowing money to the tune of crores during the last 4-5 years.
The present liability of Duncan Industries Ltd is calculated as Rs. 450 Crores. But the Goenkas remain immune from punitive actions like incarceration and property confiscation by the State Government as they are pretty much counted among the privileged few corporate houses having a close liaison with the powers that be.
And most of such gardens have been grounded by BIFR (Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction) invariably to delay all due payments; the famished permanent workers cannot even claim the FAWLOI (Financial Assistance to the Workers of Locked Out Industries) amount of Rs. 1,500 per month as the gardens are not declared closed as yet by the management. Despite persuasion by the operating trade unions, this management remained callous and spiteful, even to the demand of part payments of fortnightly wages to the dying workers during the first official parleys.
A similar bleak reality prevails in the Dheklapara, Bandapani, Madhu, Red Bank, Surendra Nagar, Dalmore, Rington, Kanthalguri tea gardens; all of them remaining either abandoned or locked out by speculator-owners for years together excepting Lower Fagu, Sree Dwarika, Kohinoor and Panighata tea gardens were declared closed in recent months. The lure to migrate out to places with ‘better’ job opportunities in search of subsistence wages resulted in rampant activities of embedded traffickers. Minor girls, aged between 10-17 years, are being whisked away to faraway places like Delhi, Bangalore or even to Middle-Eastern countries and sold into slavery, getting abused and raped in many instances like Bijita Ekka (aged 15 years) of the closed Bandapani Tea Garden near Birpara.
Even in the functioning tea gardens the present oppressive wage structure and living conditions of the toiling workers, and the absence of any alternative forms of livelihood, have resulted in widespread distress, including the creation of famine conditions in the closed tea gardens.
In this context, in July 2014 five non-profit organizations of North Bengal under the stewardship of Dr. Binayak Sen had undertaken a preliminary survey among the workers of then closed Raipur tea Garden near Jalpaiguri Town, which had reported death of 6 persons prior to the visit. That survey revealed an alarming proportion of people with a low Body Mass Index, to the extent that the international criteria for the existence of famine could be said to prevail in the affected communities. The findings of a repeat BMI census of the same garden in February 2015 remained shocking. Out of 1272 subjects surveyed, 539 (42%) had BMI values of less than 18.5. This is well above the critical value needed to bring the community within the category of famine affected population.
Similar surveys conducted in Dheklapara, Red bank, Bandapani, Diana, Kanthalguri found communities whose sources of food and nutrition are seriously compromised, children who are unable to attend schools, and communities who have no access to health care. The only access to alternative livelihood is paltry sums of money obtained by crushing stones on the riverbed.
During this dismal winter months more deaths due to sheer hunger would continue to occur.
Interestingly, Sanjeev Goenka, the owner of Kolkata Electric Supply Corporation (CESC) also owns few tea gardens in Munnar and he had to accede to increase the daily wages of tea workers from Rs. 232 to Rs. 301 along with Tata where tea workers even from functioning tea gardens here get only Rs. 122.50 as daily wage.
CPI(ML) has planned to obstruct both the State and National Highways at several points of 6 districts of North Bengal, coupled with a civil disobedience demonstration on 5 January 2016 in Siliguri demanding the arrest of GP Goenka and immediate opening of all 32 closed tea gardens in North Bengal. A State Rally in Kolkata on 21 January 2016 would also garner support for the protracted struggle of the tea workers here.
Corporate plunders are legion. Where are the voices of conscientious citizenry?
(The author is Working President, Terai Sangrami Cha Shramik Union, and a Central Committee member of the CPI(ML)