Ramjhora's misfortunes began in July 2002. That month, the workers did not receive their salaries -- and they were never told why.
Sushil and Ayush Bagla, the father-son owners of Hanuman Tea Co since 1993, to which Ramjhora Estate belongs, and who ran www. teaauction.com, were not seen again. In August, notice was abruptly given that the estate was closed. "We never met the malik (owner) after that," says worker Prahlad Sharma.
Biswas alleges the Baglas, who also owned the Sonajuli tea estate in Tezpur, Assam, disappeared a year before the lockout. "They had taken loans from the tea board to improve the estate, but only ploughed back a part of that money into the garden. They said the garden was not giving enough returns, and wanted to shut it down even though the manager at the time, Pal Choudhary, wanted to prevent a lock out. There had been labour issues back in 1993 under the previous owner Sanjay Bansal, but for many years after that the estate had run smoothly and in 2002, it was running well."
For months together there was no word on what would happen next. And with their salaries, other benefits -- transport, electricity, free tea, rations -- also disappeared. As weeks merged into months and years, it became clear that Ramjhora had been abandoned by its management and owners.
Tea workers have long-standing relationships with the estates; families have been known to work in a particular estate for generations. The families at these gardens, who come from Nepal, Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal, are a British legacy, and quite a few of the families have been here for four generations or more.
Their homes thus serve as ancestral villages; in fact, villages in this district take the name of the tea estate. These deep down roots mean that when an estate shuts down abruptly, the workers find it difficult to pull up stakes and move on.
When work at Ramjhora dried up, the workers waited patiently for a change in the estate's fortune, making a living of sorts by selling the estate's green leaf crop or unprocessed tea (which they still do but with the estate in disrepair, the amounts have started to diminish).
When years passed with no word, around 15 per cent of the workers moved to Hyderabad, Delhi, Haryana, Sikkim and even as far as Kerala looking for work, while a few others do temporary labour outside West Bengal for a few months each year.
Image: Pharmacist Samir Biswas with the workers of Ramjhora Estate at the garden dispensary.
Also read: World's 11 best metro rail systems
Advertisement
