“There was a time when no government was ruling this place; we lived as workers of Chandpur tea garden since 1865, the inception year of the Duncan tea company. When our forefathers were brought here, they cleaned the jungles of the hillocks of this valley and made the land arable with their vigorous labour. Now if we are driven away from our own homes, where shall we go?”
Sitting on the verandah of a tea garden worker’s house at Chandpur tea garden of Habiganj, Swapan Santal, joint convener of Chandpur Begum Khan Land Protection Committee, vented his frustration. Aviratha Bakti, convener of Chandpur Begum Khan Land Protection Committee, joint convener Kanchan Patra, member secretary of the committee Sri Dhani Munshi, joint member secretary Surya Kumar Roy, joint member secretary Luxmi Charan Bakti and many other tea workers echoed the frustration of Swapan Santal.
The tea garden workers, pushing forward a cup of salty tea mentioned that a former 70-year-old tea labourer, Mantu Karmakar, and another middle aged tea worker named Krishna Bakti, have died of a stroke when they heard the news of imminent eviction.
“Here in the tea garden, there are workers originating from 92 different ethnic groups. Our ancestors came here from Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chattishgarh, Orissa and other provinces of undivided India in the British regime. There are Bhojpuris and Madrasis as well among other tea garden workers. This movement, hence, is a combined movement of all the workers from different ethnicity, cumulative of the Bhumij, Rajbangshi, Bakti, Pal, Santal and others; it’s our holistic movement for survival,” said Avirath Bakti.
The government’s decision to establish an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) on some agricultural land of the Chandpur and Begum Khan tea gardens is now known to all. The total amount of the area to be acquiesced by the government measures about 511 acres in total. The tea workers, however, are building a robust movement regarding this issue. Left leaning political organisations, environmental organisations, journalists, writers and cultural activists are now visiting the spot to learn the facts and convey their solidarity with the workers. A contributor visited the Chandpur tea garden in Habiganj last Wednesday from his inner yearning.
“Look, we are poor. Only one or two members per family can be a labourer at the tea factory. Many cannot land a job even after trying all their lives. Whatever large amount of tea leaves you pluck, the salary of the talap (weekly remuneration for the tea workers) is invariably Tk69 only. So this agricultural land supports us a lot in our war to survive. We can grow paddy twice a year and do winter gardening such as cultivating cabbages, cauliflowers, potatoes or tomatoes. This extra income from the agricultural land helps us send our children to schools, colleges and even in universities. Today we have some children who have passed SSC, HSC or are even doing their masters in universities. But if this agricultural land goes out of our hands, we will have no extra income to educate our children,” explained Jyoti Bakti, Namita Bakti, Alaka Bakti, Kanak Lata Rajbongshi and other female workers of the tea garden.
The dusk was falling and some of the male and female tea workers depicting their stories of survival in front of a small temple within the Chandpur tea garden. They narrated how vulnerable they felt when the news of the government initiative to establish the EEZ at the 511 acres agricultural land of Chandpur Begum Khan tea gardens first came out in the newspapers on October 5 of 2014. In response, the workers submitted an application to the prime minister on November 12 that year but received no feedback. Within a few days, the leaders of the tea garden workers were summoned in the Chunarughat TNO office. They were told that as this agricultural land is located within the tea gardens leased out by the garden authorities, the workers cannot be the owners of the land.
“We grow crops worth about Tk15 crores from this agricultural land. It carries no worth? We educate our children from that additional income, arrange their marriage and pay our loans. We had some documents or early records of this agricultural land during the British and the Pakistani regime. Soon after the Liberation War of 1971, the managing authorities of our company told us that we no longer require those records. We were advised to hand them over those papers. We did what we were told. Now we have no longer the land records in our hands. However, our ration cards are the evidence that we have been living here over the generations,” said the male workers of the garden.
“Besides, we are Hindus in our faith. However, due to poverty and lack of enough fuel wood, we perform the funeral rite by digging graves. We use the agricultural land to bury our dear ones. We call these ‘graves’ our ‘cremation grounds.’ If the EEZ is established upon this land, we will lose our ancestors’ graves along with the arable land,” they added.
About 60 percent of the families are still devoid of sanitation facilities. Some tea gardens have the power coverage while some lack it. Some workers purchase solar panels. It is the government that provides pre-natal and post-natal services to the mothers but NGOs are failing to come ahead in this regard.
Right now even the Duncan tea company is not standing by the workers for their rights. Earlier, the workers of the Rashidpur tea garden were promised economic compensation packages before installation of the Rashidpur gas field in the garden. But later the promises were not translated into actions. So the Chandpur tea garden workers no longer lured by the promises of financial packages of the EEZ scheme.
“Over the generations, the tea workers have specialised in the tea industry. If now any ceramic or tannery industry is established, will they get any job there? Apart from that, the layer of underground water will have sharp fall with establishment of various industries which may also lead to decaying of the tea gardens and thus collapse of the entire tea industry,” said Hassan, a local left leaning youth activist from Habiganj.
“Awami League had not been in power for 28 years since the tragic assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975. But the tea garden belt was the area where we have always voted for this party. We consider Sheikh Hasina as our elder sister. So we cannot even imagine that we will lose our land during her regime. This is our motherland, it’s like our guardian angel. How can we leave it?” they asked passionately. They, in addition, narrated the plights of hundreds of ravished women from the tea garden belts in the 1971 war at hands of the Pakistani army and tales of martyrdom of many tea workers.
“Four or five generations ago my ancestors came here from Uttar Pradesh of India. But I do consider Bangladesh as my motherland. By ethnicity I may be a Bhojpuri but Bangladesh is my home. So can’t we dream to live a life with dignity here?” asked Geeta Kanu, a young tea woman leader.
Thousands of men, women, children and the aged ones are now literally staying on the roads demanding for their land rights. They are holding human chains and staging demonstrations in front of the factory gate each morning from 8-10am. They stage a sit-in demonstration in the highway besides the tea garden from December 27. All the workers from 158 tea gardens and 240 branch gardens (branches of the original gardens) will join in the protest.
