Part I: With the nature and value of work in harmony, dignity in work no longer an ignominy. Part I by Tirumalai Kamala on TK Talk
Part II: Dignity is in work, not in the nature of the work. Part II by Tirumalai Kamala on TK Talk
Part III: Dignity is in work, not in the nature of the work. Part III by Tirumalai Kamala on TK Talk
Part IV: Dignity is in work, not in the nature of the work. Part IV by Tirumalai Kamala on TK Talk
Part V: Dignity is in work, not in the nature of the work. Part V Why a cup of tea shouldn't be anyone's cup of tea, Part 1. by Tirumalai Kamala on TK Talk
Comfort. Such a reassuring word. To each of us, it represents ambience, habits and rituals that soothe, calm and recharge. Mine is a cup of hot black tea with lemon. Nothing like the comfort of my hot lemon tea. Early in the morning, no one else awake, no one needs me. Just the ticking of the clock and the comforting, mellowing, soothing bliss of my tea. I'm certainly not alone in seeking the comfort of my daily cup of tea. Wikipedia says that after water, tea is drunk by more people world-wide than any other beverage.
Then why is this comfort denied those who grow and harvest the tea leaves? Purely wanton and avoidable, there is nothing inevitable about this denial. The unacceptably appalling conditions of tea plantation workers in India hide in plain sight. Owned by McLead Russel, the world's largest tea producer, much of the world's black tea comes from Indian tea plantations, many of them located in the North-eastern state of Assam.
As I wrote earlier, India's tea industry is governed by the Plantation Labour Act of 1951. This Act applies to any tea grower with >15 workers or operates a plantation of >5 acres (Page on teaboard.gov.in). On paper the Plantation Labour Act exudes acumen, compassion and foresight. After all it guarantees housing, toilets, water supply, recreational facilities, day care for children below 5 years of age, life insurance, medical insurance, sick leave, and educational facilities for plantation workers' children. In other words, the Act envisioned the Indian tea plantation to be a microcosm of an idealized welfare state.
In January 2014, Columbia Law School's Human Rights Institute published a 109-page report of their two-year long investigation of Indian tea estates. Their report, Page on columbia.edu, uncovered a litany of problems that include endemic 'abusive' practices. Nothing trivial about the abuses. To the contrary, no running water, toilets that are nothing but holes in the ground, drinking water sources adjacent to said 'toilet' holes, the evidence and scale of abuse is all too graphic and undeniable.
Culture certainly plays its part in local management practices. Time-tested, ingrained prejudices, even frank bigotry certainly underlie the pathetic living conditions of these hapless tea estate workers. After all, what value human rights and laws enacted by parliaments when the people to whom they pertain are considered less-than-human by management? For e.g., p.26 of the report states, 'The separation and hierarchy are inscribed in the language of the plantation and all interactions between workers and management. Even when speaking to the research team, some APPL managers referred to the workers as if they were inferior humans, or even animals. At Achabam, after intervening in an unannounced visit, the management warned the team not to trust what workers said because they were 'just like cattle', unintelligent and prone to mob mentality (25).At Namroop, the plantation’s doctor said we had to understand that the workers had lower IQs (26). At Hathikuli, the General Manager and his wife matter-of-factly commented that their own children were 'completely alone', as if the the thousands of other families around them did not exist (27)'.
25 Interview with General Manager, Achabam Tea Estate, Assam, January 10, 2012.
26 Interview with clinic doctor, Namroop Tea Estate, Assam, April 17, 2012.
27 Interview with General Manager and wife, Hathikuli Tea Estate, Assam, April 19, 2012.
This report was published in 2014. What changed after it came out? Hope, desperate hope, drives the need for closure, for the righting of age-old wrongs. Yet, when in August-September 2015, BBC World News broadcast an investigative report on the scandalously atrocious living and working conditions of tea plantation workers in Assam, India, it was as if all this were being uncovered anew (The bitter story behind the UK's national drink - BBC News). Nothing surprising about McLeod Russel's response either, typical boilerplate caught-with-pants-down, Page on mcleodrussel.com.
Tea grown on these estates is sold worldwide by reputed brands such as Lipton, Tetley, PG Tips, etc. Even more egregious, it's certified 'ethical' by the Rainforest Alliance, an NGO, which now concedes 'the investigation has revealed flaws in its audit process' (The bitter story behind the UK's national drink - BBC News). Many of the products we buy and consume are proudly stamped with such certifications of sustainability, ethics or fair-trade. Yet, even cursory scrutiny of this certification process reveals it to be little more than rubber-stamping. Only the ignorant or foolish or uncaring could take them at face value.
I feel soul-crushing sorrow about the abuse that underlies my daily cup of tea. I'm angry about my helplessness to tangibly right such wrongs. Greed is eternally in play. Greed on the part of the owners and the corporate titans who profit off the toil of those whose misfortune is to be born into privation. However, greed is a convenient straw-man. After all, greed's been with us, in us since time immemorial. What's lacking in us is the capacity and resolute commitment for developing stable, robust systems for managing greed, holding it in check and sharply punishing it when it inevitably gets out of hand. This is a global problem. I saw uncontrolled greed all around me growing up in India. I see it all around me working in the US. When we reflexively bemoan greed, we do nothing but abjure our responsibility, tacitly deflecting it by pretending the problem's unchangeable, too vast, too entrenched and our efforts too meagre, too weak and too ineffectual to effect meaningful change. We'd rather be left to drink our daily cuppa undisturbed. Certain problems are age-old, after all. We can't live our lives tilting at wind-mills. Those who consider themselves grown-up are the most proficient at wearing this particular mask. Nothing grown-up about the attitude though. No, rather it's nothing but a cheat. It's punting that has a distinctly yellow cast.
When thousands of tea estate workers on the Kanan Devan Hills Plantation, one of the largest tea estates in South India, walked off protesting their work conditions and pay (see Part 1), I was with them in spirit. I cheered when they won their much-deserved and much-denied work benefits. For once, the have-nots stood together long enough to stare down the entrenched, unjustly empowered. It will take just such effort to brick-by-brick dismantle the old constructs, mental and literal, that form the foundation of so much of the human-made world. Constructs that reek with the rottenness of our common and messily entangled colonial, imperialist past with its sharp, unforgiving and utterly superfluous divisions of class, caste, ethnicity, nationality. Brave new world? I certainly hope not. Rather, a world where the institutions we build constantly scrutinize themselves, and are scrutinized and held accountable in practice, not just on paper. A world with systems of checks and balances that don't tacitly look the other way when faced with incontrovertible proof of injustice. A world where we live in genuine, not self-deceiving, comfort.
https://tirumalaikamala.quora.com/Dignity-is-in-work-not-in-the-nature-of-the-work-Part-VI
Part II: Dignity is in work, not in the nature of the work. Part II by Tirumalai Kamala on TK Talk
Part III: Dignity is in work, not in the nature of the work. Part III by Tirumalai Kamala on TK Talk
Part IV: Dignity is in work, not in the nature of the work. Part IV by Tirumalai Kamala on TK Talk
Part V: Dignity is in work, not in the nature of the work. Part V Why a cup of tea shouldn't be anyone's cup of tea, Part 1. by Tirumalai Kamala on TK Talk
Comfort. Such a reassuring word. To each of us, it represents ambience, habits and rituals that soothe, calm and recharge. Mine is a cup of hot black tea with lemon. Nothing like the comfort of my hot lemon tea. Early in the morning, no one else awake, no one needs me. Just the ticking of the clock and the comforting, mellowing, soothing bliss of my tea. I'm certainly not alone in seeking the comfort of my daily cup of tea. Wikipedia says that after water, tea is drunk by more people world-wide than any other beverage.
Then why is this comfort denied those who grow and harvest the tea leaves? Purely wanton and avoidable, there is nothing inevitable about this denial. The unacceptably appalling conditions of tea plantation workers in India hide in plain sight. Owned by McLead Russel, the world's largest tea producer, much of the world's black tea comes from Indian tea plantations, many of them located in the North-eastern state of Assam.
As I wrote earlier, India's tea industry is governed by the Plantation Labour Act of 1951. This Act applies to any tea grower with >15 workers or operates a plantation of >5 acres (Page on teaboard.gov.in). On paper the Plantation Labour Act exudes acumen, compassion and foresight. After all it guarantees housing, toilets, water supply, recreational facilities, day care for children below 5 years of age, life insurance, medical insurance, sick leave, and educational facilities for plantation workers' children. In other words, the Act envisioned the Indian tea plantation to be a microcosm of an idealized welfare state.
In January 2014, Columbia Law School's Human Rights Institute published a 109-page report of their two-year long investigation of Indian tea estates. Their report, Page on columbia.edu, uncovered a litany of problems that include endemic 'abusive' practices. Nothing trivial about the abuses. To the contrary, no running water, toilets that are nothing but holes in the ground, drinking water sources adjacent to said 'toilet' holes, the evidence and scale of abuse is all too graphic and undeniable.
Culture certainly plays its part in local management practices. Time-tested, ingrained prejudices, even frank bigotry certainly underlie the pathetic living conditions of these hapless tea estate workers. After all, what value human rights and laws enacted by parliaments when the people to whom they pertain are considered less-than-human by management? For e.g., p.26 of the report states, 'The separation and hierarchy are inscribed in the language of the plantation and all interactions between workers and management. Even when speaking to the research team, some APPL managers referred to the workers as if they were inferior humans, or even animals. At Achabam, after intervening in an unannounced visit, the management warned the team not to trust what workers said because they were 'just like cattle', unintelligent and prone to mob mentality (25).At Namroop, the plantation’s doctor said we had to understand that the workers had lower IQs (26). At Hathikuli, the General Manager and his wife matter-of-factly commented that their own children were 'completely alone', as if the the thousands of other families around them did not exist (27)'.
25 Interview with General Manager, Achabam Tea Estate, Assam, January 10, 2012.
26 Interview with clinic doctor, Namroop Tea Estate, Assam, April 17, 2012.
27 Interview with General Manager and wife, Hathikuli Tea Estate, Assam, April 19, 2012.
This report was published in 2014. What changed after it came out? Hope, desperate hope, drives the need for closure, for the righting of age-old wrongs. Yet, when in August-September 2015, BBC World News broadcast an investigative report on the scandalously atrocious living and working conditions of tea plantation workers in Assam, India, it was as if all this were being uncovered anew (The bitter story behind the UK's national drink - BBC News). Nothing surprising about McLeod Russel's response either, typical boilerplate caught-with-pants-down, Page on mcleodrussel.com.
Tea grown on these estates is sold worldwide by reputed brands such as Lipton, Tetley, PG Tips, etc. Even more egregious, it's certified 'ethical' by the Rainforest Alliance, an NGO, which now concedes 'the investigation has revealed flaws in its audit process' (The bitter story behind the UK's national drink - BBC News). Many of the products we buy and consume are proudly stamped with such certifications of sustainability, ethics or fair-trade. Yet, even cursory scrutiny of this certification process reveals it to be little more than rubber-stamping. Only the ignorant or foolish or uncaring could take them at face value.
I feel soul-crushing sorrow about the abuse that underlies my daily cup of tea. I'm angry about my helplessness to tangibly right such wrongs. Greed is eternally in play. Greed on the part of the owners and the corporate titans who profit off the toil of those whose misfortune is to be born into privation. However, greed is a convenient straw-man. After all, greed's been with us, in us since time immemorial. What's lacking in us is the capacity and resolute commitment for developing stable, robust systems for managing greed, holding it in check and sharply punishing it when it inevitably gets out of hand. This is a global problem. I saw uncontrolled greed all around me growing up in India. I see it all around me working in the US. When we reflexively bemoan greed, we do nothing but abjure our responsibility, tacitly deflecting it by pretending the problem's unchangeable, too vast, too entrenched and our efforts too meagre, too weak and too ineffectual to effect meaningful change. We'd rather be left to drink our daily cuppa undisturbed. Certain problems are age-old, after all. We can't live our lives tilting at wind-mills. Those who consider themselves grown-up are the most proficient at wearing this particular mask. Nothing grown-up about the attitude though. No, rather it's nothing but a cheat. It's punting that has a distinctly yellow cast.
When thousands of tea estate workers on the Kanan Devan Hills Plantation, one of the largest tea estates in South India, walked off protesting their work conditions and pay (see Part 1), I was with them in spirit. I cheered when they won their much-deserved and much-denied work benefits. For once, the have-nots stood together long enough to stare down the entrenched, unjustly empowered. It will take just such effort to brick-by-brick dismantle the old constructs, mental and literal, that form the foundation of so much of the human-made world. Constructs that reek with the rottenness of our common and messily entangled colonial, imperialist past with its sharp, unforgiving and utterly superfluous divisions of class, caste, ethnicity, nationality. Brave new world? I certainly hope not. Rather, a world where the institutions we build constantly scrutinize themselves, and are scrutinized and held accountable in practice, not just on paper. A world with systems of checks and balances that don't tacitly look the other way when faced with incontrovertible proof of injustice. A world where we live in genuine, not self-deceiving, comfort.
https://tirumalaikamala.quora.com/Dignity-is-in-work-not-in-the-nature-of-the-work-Part-VI
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