Battleground 2024: In Bengal's tea belt, climate and politics boil over

As BJP, TMC fight for dominance, tea gardens hope for a change in the weather and, perhaps, their fortunes

Standing in the middle of a tea plantation in Dooars, Santosh Barman gazes at the sky, trying to figure out if rain clouds are gathering. Hundreds of tea gardens stretching from the plains of Dooars-Terai to the hills of Darjeeling are reeling from insufficient rains. A good splash or two for the parched gardens would be nothing short of manna from heaven.
 

Barman makes a living from supplying bigha or daily wage workers to tea gardens during the peak plucking months. In a good year, he provides 500-550 workers a day. This season, so far, he has struggled to get past 150. Pointing to the tea bush, he says, there is hardly anything to pluck in most gardens. “Some are closed.”
 

Patchy rainfall until March has disrupted the ecosystem around the colonial plantations steeped in history. And it’s not just this season or the last. Climate change adversities over the past few years have resulted in losses for everyone — from the contractor to the producer. Cut to the estate. “The tea industry is sinking; it’s like every year is worse than the previous; the cost is up, prices are stagnant, and the crop is down,” says a veteran in the industry with more than four decades of experience as a plantation manager, on condition of anonymity.
 

The March crop in Dooars is lower by 30 per cent compared to last year. But there have been intermittent rains in some areas from the end of March. “We expect the second fortnight of April to be better,” says Sam Varghese, chief advisory officer, Tea Research Association (Dooars).
 

But the bhanji period is getting extended, which will impact quality, he adds. Bhanji is the resting or dormant period between flushes.

 

Poll time, tea time
 

As the tea-growing region in West Bengal — Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, and Cooch Behar — heads to polls on April 19, and Darjeeling on April 26 in the first and second phases of Lok Sabha (LS) elections, the stress in the industry looms large.

North Bengal is the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) stronghold. In 2019, the BJP had bagged 18 of 42 LS seats in West Bengal. Seven were from North Bengal.

The plantations in the Dooars region, at the foothills of the Himalayas, dot Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, and a small part of Cooch Behar districts in West Bengal. All three are BJP seats.
 

Small surprise that the town area of Siliguri, spanning Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts, is a riot of saffron — whether it’s the party flag or Jai Shri Ram. On Wednesday, Ram Navami was celebrated with much fervor – the blaring music, youths chanting Jai Shri Ram on bikes, in vintage cars, serve as a reminder of how the religious festival had gained epic proportions in West Bengal in the last seven years or so.

The importance of a tea worker

North Bengal, the second-largest tea-growing region after Assam, accounts for about a third of the country’s production. There are about 450,000 tea garden workers, including those associated with small gardens and growers, making the lot an important factor in the elections.

It was almost a clean sweep for the BJP in North Bengal in 2019, points out political analyst Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury.

“The TMC recovered some of its lost ground in Jalpaiguri in the Assembly elections that followed in 2021. But this is a general election; tea garden workers, who are a crucial factor in Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, and Darjeeling, may well vote on central issues,” he adds.

The BJP is out to hold onto its turf — Prime Minister Narendra Modi has addressed public meetings in North Bengal since the beginning of March. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, looking to make a dent in the saffron citadel, has also campaigned relentlessly. Her government has been wooing workers with land rights.

More than 2,500 acres of unutilised/surplus land of tea gardens, homestead pattas (land deeds issued by the government) up to 5 decimals have been granted to around 23,000 workers, according to the West Bengal Budget speech for 2024-25. The Cha Sundari scheme offers financial assistance of Rs 1.20 lakh for the construction of dwelling houses.

But land rights remain a sticky issue. Many workers, who have been with tea gardens for generations, are unhappy with the pattas and have labeled it ‘refugee’ patta.

Worker Mahendra Chhetri points to the surplus land identified in the estate where he works: “It’s inundated during rains; the patta should be given for the land where we now reside.” The views are echoed by Sujata Mahale.

Posters are visible in some estates – stop the anti-people program of land survey in the tea gardens land area.

The mood resonates even in Darjeeling where tea garden worker Nisha Sarki says many workers are residing on land measuring more than 5 decimals. “This means that we will have to give up the extra land. But we need to plan for future generations.”

Permanent workers are covered under the Plantation Labour Act, 1951, which guarantees wages, housing, medical facilities, maternity benefits, and other forms of social security measures — accounting for about 60 per cent of the total cost of production.

Apart from giving land rights, the Trinamool Congress is also hoping to gain some mileage with the increase in wages last year from Rs 232 to Rs 250 a day.

 

Darjeeling, cup brimming with challenges

The topography changes along the 80 km journey from Dooars to Darjeeling – the plantations are at a higher elevation, the yield lower, and the problems nearly insurmountable.

There was a dry spell from mid-October to mid-March, B K Laskar, principal scientist, and chief advisory officer, Tea Research Association (TRA), Darjeeling Advisory Centre, says.

“Even after mid-March, the rains have been ineffective and will not be able to compensate for the losses,” he says. The March crop in Darjeeling is about 45-50 per cent less compared to last year.

The lush green estates all around, however, belie the onslaught of climate challenges.

But climate change has hit Darjeeling severely. In 2022-23, production was at 6.80 million kg (mkg). Since 2009, it has been consistently below 10 mkg.

Climate change has badly impacted Darjeeling, and harvesting the first flush has become a challenge, Laskar points out. The first flush accounts for about 15 per cent of Darjeeling production but roughly 30-40 per cent of revenues for a garden.

From the poor cousin Nepal eating into its market share to weather rocking the delicate balance between sunshine and rainfall and declining prices — Darjeeling tea faces myriad challenges. But the deeper malaise in the industry is lost in the poll din.

Here, BJP MP Raju Bista, seeking a second consecutive term, is facing some heat on the long-standing demand for separate statehood, Gorkhaland. Without mentioning a separate state, in a recent interview to PTI, Bista said a “permanent political solution” for the Darjeeling Hills had begun and it would be achieved in the next five years.

The last time Gorkhaland reared its head was in 2017. The agitation over 104 days wreaked havoc on Darjeeling tea – it’s still reeling from it.

WHAT'S BREWING

North Bengal is the second largest tea-growing region in India spread over Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Cooch Behar and Darjeeling districts

Over 300 estates across Terai, Dooars and Darjeeling produced 418.84 million kg tea in FY23

450,000 workers linked to the sector, including small growers