Danny Pariat tries to establish a tea link between the Khasis and the British
THE KHASIS, it seems, had been drinking tea long before the British had come to these hills. Claud Balds in his book ‘Indian Tea’ says, “Camellia drupifera and other species grow wild in the Naga and Khasi hills and are known to be actually used in making a kind of tea for local consumption among certain of the hill tribes.”
However, with the coming of the more popular tea made from the Camellia sinensis, the above practice had probably stopped many years ago.
It was probably true that the British had made efforts in the early 19th century to grow tea in the Khasi Hills possibly at the time when Charles Alexander Bruce, the father of the tea industry in Assam, was trying to establish the beverage business in the 1820s and 1830s. Bruce himself, though not directly, may have played a large part in encouraging tea planting in the Khasi Hills as he was probably the only known source of tea seeds or saplings at that time.
The first reference we hear of tea planting in these hills was during the time of David Scott, agent to the Governor General, when he was residing at Nongkhlaw in the mid-1820s. The Nongkhlaw chief then was Khasi hero Tirot Singh who, after consultations with his people, had allowed Scott to build a road through the kingdom in order to connect the British possessions lying to the north and south of Nongkhlaw.
Scott had received saplings from Bruce when the latter was running a flotilla of gunboats at Sadiya, Assam. The saplings were to be forwarded to the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta for identification. Scott probably handed over some saplings to one Bowman who was probably trying to set up a plantation in the Nongkhlaw area round about that time.
Tirot Singh, however, had a fallout with Scott and things came to a head when, on the 4th of April 1829, a group of Khasi warriors surrounded and then attacked the foreigners resulting in a near-total massacre. Scott escaped by the skin of his teeth having left Nongkhlaw just before the uprising. Bowman had got to the stage of building a bungalow so we can assume that tea must have been planted by that time and this must have been true as in 2012, tea trees were discovered at Nongkhlaw in an area being cleared for a church gathering.
Another area where tea was grown in the 1840s was in Pomreng – now known as Mawber – on the southern slopes of the Khasi Hills in the Mawkynrew block. A judge in the Sylhet High Court, one Stainforth, had a farm near Pomreng with a well built and furnished bungalow. The presence of this farm and bungalow is beyond doubt as Sir Joseph Dalton, the well known botanist, while on his travels through the Khasi Hills in the early 1850s, had written about staying in Stainforth’s bungalow. The remains of the bungalow can still be seen.
The remains of tea trees in the farm were interesting though, sadly, most of the bushes had been uprooted to make way for cultivation of other crops. Stainforth had a manager to run the farm from1847-1849. He was none other than the Welsh missionary, Reverend Thomas Jones, who had arrived at Sohra in June 1841.
Jones was a man of tremendous faith and energy and within a year or two of his arrival had invented the Khasi alphabet. The Khasi farmers were, however, under the yoke of a ruthless and uncouth Anglo-Indian business man named Harry Inglis who paid farmers a pittance for their produce. Inglis also insisted that all produce be sold only to him and non-compliance resulted in assaults. Jones took up the cause of the farmers by filing a case against Inglis but lost in the court (Inglis’ father-in-law was the judge). Inglis threatened Jones with dire consequences and sent his goons after him.
His life in danger, Jones had to flee Sohra and landed up at Stainforth’s farm at Pomreng where he took up employment as a manager. We, of course, do not know as to who planted the tea but it was probably the efforts of Stainforth as Jones was there only for two years but he must have had a hand in looking after the tea plants. I have seen the remaining trees and have, in fact pruned a few to see if we can get them going again. Plans are in hand to generate cuttings from the trees and to, in course of time, produce tea from these plants to honour the memory of Stainforth and Jones.
The question of course remains: Where did Stainforth get his planting material from? Could it have been from Bruce? Scott was an unlikely source as he had died in 1831 but Bruce was alive and well in the 1840s. The answer remains a mystery.
Many years ago when, as children, we would spend our long winter holidays with our grandparents in Sohra and, many a time when we had been too noisy, our grandmother, having got fed up, would scold us and shout “Go and play in the ‘per sha’”, i.e., tea garden. Curious, I one day asked her what she meant by ‘per sha’ and it turned out that not far from our house and where we have the civil hospital now, there once stood a tea garden. I do remember playing among the ruins of the bungalows and coming across weather-beaten household items like spoons, knives and bottles. It appears the British had also tried to grow tea in Sohra but no details of the project are known. However, the heavy and constant Sohra rain put paid to all efforts and eventually the British gave up the idea of growing tea at Sohra.
A much later effort was made by a British company in the first half of the 20th century to plant tea at Umran, a village on the Guwahati-Shillong road. Once the tea trees had started maturing the company then set out to set up a factory and funds were arranged for the purchase of machinery. One of the directors was given the responsibility of procuring the machines and the funds were handed over to him as he had to travel abroad for the procurement. This person left on the trip and, alas, that was the last heard of him – the story goes that he promptly disappeared with the funds and that was the end of the Umran tea venture.
It was not till many years later when local people themselves started to take to tea planting in the 1970s and 1980s and small plantations started appearing in the Ri Bhoi area where there are now three tea factories manufacturing mostly black tea. Some other small gardens specializing in organic and green tea have also come up and are doing fairly well but on the whole the initial enthusiasm has died off and the fledgling tea industry is struggling, the main reason being shortage of workers to pluck or work the fields. The locals do not find outdoor work in an estate attractive. Local organizations also do not allow non-Khasi workers to be brought in from outside due to a fear of influx. Multiple government schemes involving subsidies, grants, soft loans and other work guarantee schemes are far more attractive than work in a tea garden where the hours are long and hard and as a result, the industry has suffered as there has been no expansion in recent years.
Sadly, we have had cases where farmers have abandoned or uprooted their gardens. The factories are manufacturing only a fraction of what they are capable of so costs are high and long term survival is doubtful. However, some die hard entrepreneurs persist and continue to plant tea as they feel that, eventually, the day will come when the growing demand for tea will bring in attractive prices. Some of these small holdings are run by the people of a village where all work is done by the villagers themselves and outside workers are not needed and, perhaps, this is the only way that tea growing will be remunerative in these hills.
By and large, tea in the Khasi Hills, known for its good quality, does have a future especially if the government can help out. In closing, interestingly, the British connection with tea in these hills has not broken – a small tea garden near the Umiam Lake was being run by the last of the British planters, who, having married a Khasi lady, decided to make these hills his home.
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