By Bhogtoram Mawroh
“Tea is us. Tea is not ours”. This is the name of a film made by Ugyal Tshering Lama Yolmo, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at SRM University Sikkim, which encapsulates succinctly the trap in which the people of Darjeeling find themselves in relation to an important part of their heritage: tea. He shared this during a group activity with participants (including myself) at the academic workshop “Temporalities of Futuring: Heritage, Custom and Tradition in the Himalayas,” which was followed by a two-day fieldwork-based ethnographic workshop titled “Sensing Darjeeling: Experiential Ethnographies across Time” in Darjeeling. These workshops were part of the annual program jointly organized by Leiden University (the Netherlands), Ashoka University (Haryana), and RV University (Bangalore) under the project “Futuring Heritage: Conservation, Community and Contestation in the Eastern Himalayas”. As part of the workshop, we visited the Phoobshering tea gardens, established around 1856, to understand how the community residing in this estate perceives tea cultivation—an activity that has become synonymous with the region and its people.
Considering the high value of tea from the region, I was greatly surprised by the poor condition of the roads leading to the tea estates. Except for a few short stretches near the army encampments, the road was narrow and full of potholes, made even more risky by sharp switchbacks with no railings along the edge. This neglect was symptomatic of the longstanding apathy suffered by that most crucial to this highly lucrative industry: the tea garden workers. Eventually, we reached the house of our local interlocutor, who took us to meet a few women workers pruning the tea plants.
The workers belonged to the Nepali-speaking community and were descendants of migrants who arrived in the region as part of the labor force for the tea estates in the 1860s. Despite having lived in the region for more than 150 years, they do not possess land rights. Their fortunes are tied to the tea estates and the companies that lease the land from the Government of West Bengal for a period of 99 years. If a tea estate changes ownership from one company to another, the workers are transferred along with the tea gardens to the new owners. They are, therefore, treated as commodities to be traded, with little or no ability to resist this process.
The plight of the tea garden workers is therefore similar to that of landless people. They possess no assets other than the wages they earn, which amount to a paltry 6,000 rupees per month—well below the minimum wage prescribed in West Bengal. Low wages and the lack of land rights are persistent complaints of the workers and has remained a source of constant tension. However, conversations with the workers and the interlocutor revealed the existence of an informal land tenure system that allows workers to hold certain assets, which they can dispose of for cash if required.
An important asset the workers have is the forest surrounding the settlement, which appeared to be mostly natural but, as we were told, some parts of it were planted by the workers for extracting fuelwood, fodder, water, and some amount of wild food. Workers could even harvest timber from these forests to build their houses. With wages being very low, this helps offset some of the costs that would have been incurred if the items were bought from the market. What was surprising was that, although the land on which the forest stood belonged to the tea estate, the parts of the forest planted by the workers became their private property, which they could use as they saw fit. This informal form of ownership was also seen in the case of the land on which the workers had built their houses.
A few of the workers’ houses clearly showed signs of the substantial investment made in improving the dwelling. Some had multiple stories and wore a freshly painted look, with vehicles parked in front of the house. They did not look like the houses of workers who earned only 6,000 rupees per month. We were told that these houses belonged to families who had family members working outside the tea estate in different jobs, which included the Indian Army. So, the houses were built using remittances. The houses and the land on which they are built are the private property of the family, which can even sell it to others. However, since the sale is restricted only to people from the surrounding region, the prices received are very low. Vacant lots near the house can be used to build a new house for extended family members if needed. So, while formally the tea workers have no legal land rights, there exists an informal land tenure system where they enjoy private property rights. But since it is informal, it is also highly precarious.
The ownership of the house and the land depends on the whims of the estate managers. Well paid and living in a bungalow provided by the company, they could restrict any new building or ask existing ones to be dismantled, with the workers being helpless to comply with the order. If the family no longer has any member working for the tea estate, they would lose the right to reside within it. So, despite the high investment and effort made in improving the land, they would have to leave the estate, making them homeless. The family of one of the participants and a member of my group faced such a dilemma. Her father had got a government job. However, he was told that if he joined it, he would have to leave the estate. Worried that the family would be rendered homeless, he declined the job and remained with the tea estate. The risk is more acute for families who may not have any member working outside the tea estate and for whom the paltry wage is the only source of income. This highlights the highly precarious condition in which many tea workers find themselves, where they have no choice but to allow themselves to be exploited by the tea estate.
According to Ugyal, people from outside Darjeeling derive a false sense of romanticism about the region and its people from popular Hindi songs like “Mere Sapno Ki Rani Kab Aayegi Tu” from the 1969 film Aradhana. The tea estates became an object of heritage imposed upon the region and the community. But, in reality, the train in the song is a symbol of the extraction of the resources and wealth of the region—the revenue from tea—while leaving the local community impoverished and trapped by that romanticism. The tea estates do not allow them to escape the precarious situation in which they find themselves, i.e., lack of land rights and low wages. But without the tea estates, they would be thrust into a more precarious situation, i.e., homelessness with no income. In recent years, the government has embraced the romanticized narrative of tea being a heritage symbol and has begun supporting tourism in the tea estates. Gardens are being uprooted for constructing resorts, with no transparency and no guarantee that the existing workers will be absorbed and provided with decent wages. Heritage has therefore become a trap from which the people cannot escape, at least not without hurting themselves in the process.
Whether to preserve heritage or dismantle it to create something new and, maybe, better is a question that is being asked in Meghalaya as well. Recently, there have been rumours circulating that the iconic Presbyterian Church at Police Bazar, which was built in 1876 and rebuilt in 1902, is slated for destruction to make way for a mall. Unlike the tea gardens in Darjeeling, the loss of the church will be keenly felt by many, and not just Christians (I have enjoyed sitting on its lawn). Here, the question raised is different: is conservation more important than commerce, particularly when the heritage in question is still providing a very important service? In Darjeeling, the tea workers are trapped by their circumstances and, in a way, are helpless to change their situation. What about the worshippers in Shillong? Are they also helpless? I am guessing we will find out in the future.
(The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not reflect in any way his affiliation to any organisation or institution)
