The Himalayan Beacon

BY VIMAL KHAWAS

[Vimal Khawas is a well known scholar and social scientist associated with Sikkim University. ]

Rural Infrastructure

Traditionally, tea estates in Darjeeling Hills and the villages therein have had the privilege of road communication unlike other ordinary villages scattered across the spaces of the region. The transportation of tea from the factory of respective tea estates required road network. Hence the British constructed roads and connected all tea estates with the mainstream road network. In the process garden labourers had the opportunity to avail this facility. However, as of today majority of the roads constructed by colonial rulers are in utter bad shape. The ruling establishment in the area has little or no interest to maintain roadways, not to talk of their up-gradation. The respective management of the gardens takes care of only those parts of the roads which fall within its functional jurisdiction while the rest of the stretch-s has to be looked after by the state government or Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC).

The situation of electricity supply varies across tea estates. During the British period, there was no electricity supply in the region. The supply of electricity is a relatively recent phenomenon in the region. Even at present, less than 50 percent of the region is electrified. Across the tea estates, although all the tea gardens have the facility of electricity connection there are cases where only the offices, factory and the houses of white colour officials are provided with electricity depriving the labourers.

The responsibility of providing basic health facilities falls with the management of respective tea estates as per the Plantation Act, 1951. However, majority of tea estates do not have their own health centres and other health facilities like ambulance. The occasionally functional health centres or dispensaries across tea estates lack, most of the time, basic medical facilities required by the garden labourers.

Of late, primary education does not fall within the direct responsibility of tea management. The responsibility has been transferred to the DGHC till upper primary level while the Government of West Bengal looks after the secondary and higher secondary institutes. Interestingly, majority of tea estate/garden villages are featured with fairly good number of government primary and upper primary schools compared to other agricultural villages. Further, private schools are gradually making their ways across spaces of tea garden villages in the last 10-15 years.

Levels of Educational Attainment

Looking at literacy rates across the tea estates one tends to come to a rather good conclusion with regard to educational attainment in the area. However, as one dissects the literacy into various formal levels of educational attainments a rather deplorable picture emerges altogether. Over 55 per cent of populations among labour households have studied only up to elementary levels. The figure goes on declining as we move ahead in the ladder of education. Less than 15 percent have studied up to secondary level while less than 2 percent have attended higher secondary. There are negligible proportions of population who have studied graduates and postgraduates.

There are large numbers of villages across the rural spaces of Darjeeling Hills where we do not find graduates and postgraduates. Technical/vocational and professional educations are yet to penetrate into rural Darjeeling Hills. Further, a fairly noticeable gender gap still persists across various levels of educational attainment in the area. Such levels of educational attainment in the area deconstructs the very notion that Darjeeling Hills is one of the most educated geographical region in the state of West Bengal, as highlighted by various mainstream studies.

Status of Health

Health is a dynamic situation that needs considerable amount of time and expertise to capture its varied aspects. This note, therefore, only documents the major diseases suffered by garden labourers and other members of labour households and their response in this connection. Almost 6 percent the total population suffered from one or the other health problems in the last one year. About 98 percent of the sufferers consulted doctors or some medicinal practitioner in this connection. Traditional ethno-spiritual faith healing is also prevalent in the area.

The issue of health in Darjeeling Hills has to be seen in the context of geo-environmental set up of the region. The geographical locations of human habitations and climatic constraints in the region have a deep bearing on the overall health of people in the region. To make the situation bad, irresponsibility on the part of health system with respect to proper health planning often exasperates conditions of health. Majority of the villages located across tea gardens/estates and other rural spaces are devoid of proper health centres and medical facilities.

In case of health situations of labour households it is the responsibility of tea management. Tea companies and other legal custodians of tea gardens/estates are legally responsible to protect the health of the workers as per the Plantation Act 1951. Many of the health problems sustained by the labourers are the results of the improper health planning and medical facilities in the area. Although people across the garden villages are quite aware of medical advice to be taken in recent times, poor accessibility of health centres often proves to be costly. Moreover, tea management in the pretext of falling production, productivity and market value of Darjeeling tea, in recent times, has withdrawn many of the health entitlements hitherto provided to the labourers.

Economic Condition

The economic activity and the nature of work across tea gardens in Darjeeling Hills have been gradually diversifying with time. This is to a large extent the result of degrading state of affairs of tea gardens followed by rising population and their increasing economic aspirations. The fact that major chunk of garden populations are outside the economic responsibility of tea management demands that garden population opt for some other economic pastures. Further, tea labourers who are directly associated with the gardens are also not quite satisfied with the paltry economic entitlements provided to them. To make the situation worse many of the traditional socio-economic entitlements previously provided to the garden labourers have been withdrawn by managements across tea estates in Darjeeling Hills in recent times under the pretext of ill health of tea industry. Majority of garden labourers are not satisfied with prevailing wage structure and want a serious revision of the same in view of increasing market inflation in present times.

The closed down gardens that were subsequently abandoned by respective company managements had to pass through difficult situations and economic hardships. Although, there were no reports on starvation deaths or suicide cases, there were copious instances when the labour households experienced a near starvation situation. Gradually, however, the abandoned labourers learned to adapt in the situation and sought for other alternative livelihood pastures. Agriculture and allied activity including livestock, agriculture labour, and other forms of economic activities became the backbone of their economy. Further, incase of Peshok the abandoned garden labourers also evolved informal committee and sub-committees to maintain their garden and hence supplemented their alternative livelihood options.

Mention should be made here that there are at least 3 to 5 tea gardens in the region that are always closed down/locked up at a given point of time. These gardens are different from abandoned gardens as they start functioning after sometime. It is not that the same garden keeps on closing and opening every time. Any tea estate may be locked up at any point of time if the company management feels the garden needs to be locked up. According to trade union leaders, “the management of a particular tea garden/estate does this simply to pressurise the workers to work and not bargain. This is one of the cruel techniques of the management to control garden labourers from raising their rightful voice”. The frequent closure/lock up syndrome of the tea estates is a serious concern in the context of the socio-economic health of the garden labourers. While the gardens are locked up the labourers are reportedly not paid their wages and other associated entitlements are also not provided.

Livestock constitutes major household asset across tea garden/estate villages. Ownership of vehicles including two wheelers is a rare phenomenon in rural spaces of the region. In recent times television is gradually penetrating rural Darjeeling Hills. Tea garden villages are not exceptions in this respect, but the proportion of households having television varies from village to village depending upon the economic health of the same. Similar is the case with regard to maintenance of bank accounts. The average income of labour households across garden villages are not very impressive with a major chunk shared by household expenditure, leaving reasonably less amount for saving.

Housing and Sanitation Situation

A large proportion of garden labourers still reside in kutcha and semi-pucca houses. Open field defecation is still widely practiced in the area making them vulnerable to numerous health complexities, notably worm infestation. Similar is the situation with regard to safe drinking water and clean fuel. Majority of labour households still depend directly on natural springs, as there is no provision for domestic and drinking water.

Further, firewood still remains the only major source of fuel in the area. Traditionally, garden management used to provide subsidised firewood and kerosene to garden labourers. This facility has, however, been stopped in many of the tea gardens while in several gardens the quantity have drastically been reduced. The labourers, particularly women, have to walk a considerable distance to fetch water and fuel wood.

The gradual degradation of rural ecology has increased the burden as the labourers have to travel increased distance in this connection and the situation is worsening with time. The management often violets the principle of adequate and decent housing and sanitation outlined in Plantation Act 1951 to the labourers under the pretext of one or other reasons. Further, the Act itself has become outdated in the recent context and needs a through revision.