The tea industry in Sri Lanka has benefited from its labor force, mostly Tamils whose ancestors came from India in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They remain among the most disadvantaged segments of the country’s population.
Background
In the late nineteenth century, it became obvious that large amounts of labor were needed for the tea plantations. Even today, tea leaves in Sri Lanka are plucked by hand, a time-consuming and labor-intensive task to ensure that only the tender leaves are selected. To meet the labor demands, plantations recruited many workers from India, beginning in the 1830s. Because they came from Tamil-speaking regions, the migrant workers became known as Indian Tamils, Estate Tamils, Up-country (Malaiyaha) Tamils or Plantation Tamils. They are a distinct ethnic group from the Tamils in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, many of whom opposed the country’s government during a civil war that lasted from 1983 to 2009.
Caribbean sugar plantations that used enslaved laborers had been a model of agricultural labor in European colonies. When the British abolished slavery in 1833, other systems of indentured labor developed that bound workers to plantations under conditions that were hardly better. Plantation laborers were exploited, often arriving on the island with a large debt solely as a result of their recruitment. It wasn’t until 1922 that a law was enacted that prevented migrant workers from being forced to pay for their own transportation from India to Ceylon.
Plucking Tea, Dambatenne Estate, c. 1908
The workers who emigrated to Ceylon in the colonial era faced very difficult lives in India, including potential starvation from large-scale recurring famines, discrimination because of low-caste status, and constant poverty. Moving to Ceylon to work on plantations appeared to be an option for survival, or possibly better circumstances. They were promised work and improved living conditions but the situations on the plantations in Ceylon were difficult, to say the least. Housing that was built for the workers consisted of rows of rooms no larger than 12×12 feet, sometimes with small porches, in which entire families lived. There was little in the way of sanitation, water, medical facilities or schools. Long hours, quotas and sometimes harsh overseers made the work even more burdensome.
In generations since, life has continued to be tough, often made more so by government policies. When Sri Lanka became independent in 1948, Tamil plantation workers were legally designated “temporary immigrants” and denied citizenship, and in the following year they were disqualified from voting in elections. In the 1960s,an agreement between the Sri Lankan and Indian governments led to the forced repatriation back to India for hundreds of thousands of workers, most of who had spent all their lives in Sri Lanka. As a trade-off, others were allowed to remain and could become citizens, although this process was extremely slow. In the 1980s, as a result of strikes and other labor actions, and the desire of the government to reduce the chance of workers supporting Tamil secessionists in the north and east, new legislation granted citizenship to Tamil plantation workers and equal pay to men and women. In spite of a guaranteed wage system and the provision of housing, conditions on the plantations still make the workers among the most marginalized and impoverished segments of the country’s population. Their hard work benefits the plantation owners, the country in general and its balance of trade, while the workers remain mired in poverty.
While there are few children employed in the estate sector of the Sri Lankan economy, crowded living situations are not conducive to studying outside of school. Long distances to school can discourage students. Relatively high levels of alcoholism and poverty means families do not always support their children’s continuation at school. High levels of absenteeism and lack of sufficient nutrition can cause students to fall behind. These factors combine to reproduce the lack of options for subsequent generations.
|
Tea plucking, early 20th century
Curricular Themes and Student Activities
The activities of this module include issues of immigrant and ethnic labor and exclusionary policies, comparative treatment of labor in different countries, legislative approaches to migrant labor, issues in Sri Lanka regarding treatment and conditions of Tamil plantation workers, convergence of disadvantage, the history of plantation work, campaigns for agricultural worker rights, racist attitudes toward foreign workers and the plight of refugee labor.
Toil and trouble
Up-country Tamils: The Forgotten 4.2%
A photo essay that outlines many of the problems facing Tamil workers on tea estates. (Their percentage of the country’s total population is 4.2%.)
https://sway.com/ABZh25ZeUm1sdYmC
Read this article, examining the photos as you go. What are the problems facing this community? Which do you consider the most serious issues? Which can be addressed without government intervention? Without large expenses? Which solutions require cooperation from the plantation owners? Which require major expenditures? How do you think the government should get involved in these issues? Why? If you had a magic wand, what one difference would you make?
Not just other countries
Trafficked in America
An expose of corporate farms in America’s Midwest and their smuggled and trafficked labor.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/trafficked-in-america/
Do you think that the problems confronting estate workers in Sri Lanka are “third-world” problems? Compare the concepts of immigrant labor in Sri Lanka to that in the US, detailed in this difficult-to-watch PBS video.Watch all, or part, of Trafficked in America, and compare the plights of workers on egg/chicken farms in Ohio with plantation workers in Sri Lanka. How are they the same? How are they different? What can/should be done about these situations?
Convergence of disadvantage
Just 64p a Day for Tea Pickers in Sri Lanka
A brief article about the difficult lives of tea pickers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/oxford/content/articles/2005/09/12/jenny_august.shtml
A Subset of Tamils Lags Other Sri Lankans by Almost Every Measure
Provides useful statistics that document the plight of the tea workers.
Discuss the concept of the convergence of disadvantage. In what ways do you think this term applies to Tamil workers on tea plantations? What statistics can you provide to support this contention?
Tea plantation workers vs. United Farm Workers
Cesar Chavez: Digital history
A summary of Chavez’s efforts on behalf of farm workers in the US.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=610
The Price of Tea – A Campaign for the Rights of Sri Lankan Tea Pickers
A short video detailing some of the problems facing tea workers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE-fMuSWPP8
Examine the rights of industrial farm/plantation workers in the US and Sri Lanka. What conditions did they have in common? What are their differences? What about ethnic differences/minority rights? Would solutions developed in the US work in Sri Lanka? Why or why not? If Sri Lanka could grant citizenship to its immigrant workers, why couldn’t this also happen in the US?
Henry Cave, “The sum of each plucker’s efforts passes before the eye of the superintendent,” c. 1900.
Caribbean vs. Sri Lanka plantation workers
The Caribbean and the Trade
A brief description of labor on plantations in the Caribbean.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/africa_caribbean/caribbean_trade.htm
Sugar in the Atlantic World
The relationship between sugar and slavery, including primary source documents.
http://clements.umich.edu/exhibits/online/sugarexhibit/sugar06.php
The Forgotten Brew: The Struggle for Rights and Representation in Sri Lanka’s Low-country Estates
Some of the issues of community, language, and identity facing Tamil tea workers in the low country, who are more isolated than workers in the hill country.
Compare this information about slave labor in the Caribbean with information about Tamil labor on tea plantations in Sri Lanka. What conclusions can be drawn? What are the legacies of these two forms of labor? How have plantations shaped intercultural relations in the modern world?
Times they are a-changin’ – or not
Golden Tips: A Description of Ceylon and Its Great Tea Industry
Read Chapter XII, The Tamil Coolie, in this book by Henry W. Cave, pages 212-221 of the PDF version of this publication (pages 183-192 of the original text). (Henry Cave, who wrote, published and took photographs for books on Ceylon around 1900, had been the private secretary to an Anglican bishop.) How much of what he wrote do you think was true? Which of his statements do you find particularly disconcerting? How do you think such attitudes contributed to the plight of the Tamil plantation workers? Assuming his opinions were the prevailing ones at the turn of the twentieth century, what has changed since then? What parallels can you find in attitudes toward immigrants today?
It couldn’t happen here?
Chinese Exclusion Act
A brief history of this legislation, with images.
https://calisphere.org/exhibitions/17/chinese-exclusion-act/
The Chinese Exclusion Act
A trailer for a PBS program on this legislation.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/chinese_exclusion-act-extraordinary-law/
Stateless Tamils’ long struggle bears fruit
The path to citizenship for Tamil plantation workers in Sri Lanka.
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=10064
The Chinese came to America to escape poverty and for opportunity, just as Tamils left India to work on plantations in Sri Lanka. Chinese nationals living in the US couldn’t become citizens for more than sixty years, similar to Tamil workers living in Sri Lanka. How similar are the legislative responses in their new country? Is it only about labor issues? Why do majorities feel threatened by minorities? Does ethnicity play a part in exclusionary policies? What echoes do we see today in Sri Lanka and in the US?
Weighing the plucked tea, c. 1908
Additional Information
Sri Lanka Begins Building Homes for Estate Workers
A government program plans to build housing for tea workers in areas prone to landslides.
http://www.economynext.com/Sri_Lanka_begins_building_homes_for_estate_workers-3-1725-.html
Study on Housing Rights of the Plantation Community and Gain the Ownership of Houses
A report that addresses the 65% of housing for plantation workers that is substandard and the insufficient increase in new housing. Also discusses loan problems, given that no families who fully repaid their housing loans ever received the deed to their property.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9onepGTmIGuMWZuT1BSYUVzeEE/view
From Tamil Nadu to Badulla: A Century in the Tea Estates of Sri Lanka
A brief biography of a 104-year-old-woman who came from India with her family to pluck tea. Note: EFP = Employee’s Provident Fund, similar to Social Security.
Promoting Decent Work Standards in the Sri Lankan Tea Sector through UTZ Certification
A 10-minute video that includes interviews with tea pluckers and small landholders discussing the benefits of a certification system that includes training.
https://www.isdkandy.org/index.php/digital-library/audiovideo
Promoting Youth as Active Citizens in the Hill Country of Sri Lanka
A pilot project that seeks to empower Tamil young people on plantations, particularly girls.
Roti and Rice: Examining Imbalances in Nutrition for Children in the Estate Sector
A study of food insecurity for people living on tea plantations, particularly its effects on children.
https://spark.adobe.com/page/yhoBO8PUKCoYz/
Sri Lanka Tea Plantation Workers
A video by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that interviews bureaucrats regarding plans to address problems on the tea estates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92UiSzY_kX8
The Estate Workers’ Dilemma: Tensions and Changes in the Tea and Rubber Plantations in Sri Lanka
An analysis of the factors that contribute to poverty on the plantations.
http://www.cepa.lk/content_images/publications/documents/SS11.pdf
