Sumendra Tamang
13th June 2021
PLANTATION AREAS AND THE PANDEMIC :
The Public health system of India has proven to be a complete failure in this pandemic situation. When I say failure I do not mean any disrespect to the frontline workers this is meant at the ones controlling the business of healthcare commodification. The pandemic has thoroughly exposed the inability of the private health system to cater for the needs of the marginalised sections of our society. The profit-driven motive of private hospitals was a known fact but the pandemic has exposed the hollow and falsified advertised incentives of private hospitals and has highlighted the issue of public healthcare in the forefront. The second wave of COVID 19 has hit the urban areas hard and rural areas even harder. The general awareness and information revolving around COVID 19 have been disappointing especially in the rural areas. Lack of proper sanitization, hygiene, healthcare facilities has been one of the primary reasons for increased contagion and rising death rates. Absence of solid and reliable scientific knowledge and general information about how to deal with the pandemic, the way false and consecrated information are being circulated in the online world about COVID 19, magnification of social evil such as casteism, sexism, racism etc and a general absence of helping the ones in need ( in action and not just words ) has given a sharp rise to this unprecedented state of affairs right now.
While the virus has been circulating amongst the most private of spaces and affecting almost everyone be it the rich or the poor, the elite or the marginalised, it is with utmost disheartening that the Plantation industry of tea and Cinchona was running in full swing. For the tea industry-first flush always has been more valuable to the owners and the government ( both central and state ) than the workers who pluck, produce and process packages of tea. Hydroxychloroquine made a huge advancement in the drug industry after news of it helping in COVID treatment surfaced. The drug is a product of Quinine produced from Cinchona barks and the plantation saw rampant and increasing numbers of workers getting infected in the Cinchona plantation of Darjeeling hills Kalimpong Terai and Dooars. Munsong Cinchona garden is located in Kalimpong district and it has seen five COVID deaths till date out of which one is a woman work. The garden has got more than 20 active cases. On 5th June 2021 even amidst such a critical situation the management put up the Cinchona saplings planting initiative on the pretext of environment day and the traditions revolving around it. When the local youths spoke out against it, the management simply said ‘youths should understand ‘ narrative while the workers were put under such unwanted and systematic risks. On the other hand, the value of the first flush of Darjeeling tea has been the topic of Western romanticism since the early 1800s. To be clear during the period of lockdown when all of us were inside our homes, the workers of tea and Cinchona Plantations were all working under the diktat of capital profit hegemony and as a result of which hundreds of workers have been affected till date and many have lost their lives. The blame also is upon the Bidhan sabha elections of 2021. The question however is,
Even amidst the fear of a pandemic, was it necessary for the government to keep on allowing the plantation industry’s functioning and production, at the risk of worker's lives?
Haven’t the workers done enough for this society and accumulated enough capital profit for the owners of these Plantation industry ?
We all can live without having tea at least during such pandemic, isn’t it?
Are the tea leaves more valuable than the lives of workers?
If we start asking such uncomfortable questions now the list will be humongous. From 1st Jan 2021 onward the daily wage of tea garden worker increased to rupees 202 from 176. Imagine living a life with your family for Rs 202 a day when the price of essential items like rice, potato, pulses, oil, gas has skyrocketed up high and inflation has exponentially increased. When the daily wage of workers doesn’t suffice for daily life and sustenance, how can we expect workers to avail education, health facilities for themselves and their families?
Adding on, with the pandemic and economic crisis looming around our heads it is impossible and inhuman for the workers to work for the interest of the owners and risk their lives for this first flush of tea or hydroxychloroquine with such meagre amount as daily wages and absence of basic health infrastructure in these gardens. Under the law, it is the responsibility of the owners to provide the basic level of primary healthcare to the workers but as of today few gardens have working dispensaries and most dispensaries have no doctors and proper medicines. It must be mentioned here that it is not possible to maintain distancing while at work in these gardens and even after talking about such life taking risks, many workers don’t even get ambulances from the management to ferry patients to the nearest government hospitals. Afterall these daily workers cannot afford to even think about private hospitals. All that the management does in most gardens is provide some chemicals for the sake of sanitisation. Does their responsibility end there? When a worker is inflected with COVID 19 he/ she has to stay in home quarantine ( if suggested by a doctor) for 17 days and during that period of isolation, the worker is not even paid daily wages. The question therefore is,
If the workers aren’t paid any wage, how will they sustain themselves?
If the workers aren’t provided with Ambulance ( which they should according to the law ) how will the workers without any money go to the hospital if needed? So many lives are lost due to a lack of proper health care. As tax payers of this country, should’nt everyone get equal provisions for public healthcare?
And on top of that, ambulance services and owners have created a monopoly-like situation right now. To cite an incident, ferrying a patient from Kurseong to Siliguri ( North Bengal medical college and hospital ) a workers family from Margaret’s Hope tea garden had to pay 26000 rupees ( total distance – approx 30 km ). The said patient is dead now and the patient’s family chose to remain anonymous for their own reasons. One patient while being transferred from Triveni COVID hospital, Kalimpong was charged 20000 rupees to move to a private hospital at Siliguri ( distance approx 30 km). This patient too is no more among us as we speak. With such massive charges from an ambulance, how can someone earning daily wages manage to even get to the hospital?
Why doesn’t the government and the local administration step up to put an end to such open loot and monopoly of the private ambulance?
Why is the government (both state and central) not interfering with the indifferent and dictatorial behaviour of plantation owners?
Where did we go wrong as a society?
All in all, the burden of the pandemic is put on the heads and shoulders of the working class. The absence of proper public health infrastructure is putting the final nail to the coffin of plantation workers.
CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE PANDEMIC :
The development of an active, political and helpful section of people from the existing society is very much needed in any type/form of social interaction, especially during difficult and dark times. A lot of helping hands are extending their support to these workers of plantation areas but not all rural and distant gardens are getting enough help. This pandemic has bought many different people from the Darjeeling Terai and Dooars together to standing with the workers of Plantation areas. Relief and financial aid is a temporary solution, the final solution however is always political and includes the Collective struggle of the people. However, keeping aside the motives behind different NGOs, social organisations, clubs, Political parties are coming forward to aid the distressed workers. Even if temporary, relief can provide a sense of wantedness and trust towards the existing society. Helping hands are surely better than forever sceptic lips during such times of unimaginable stress and chaos. However, the understanding behind such civil initiatives is also equally important. It is imperative to have an understanding that the government and the ruling class has proved to be futile and self-centred and due to these state of affairs, relief and social welfare plays an active role in understanding the nature of our contemporary society. It is, in particular, the lack of required initiatives by the government to avail basic rights such as healthcare to the workers and and the inability to pressurize the owners of these Plantation to do the needful. Such civil initiatives need to spring now and then. It is in one way a helping hand to the ones who build up our society from scratch and roots and in the other, a way of questioning the system constructively and collectively and make people understand the limitations of the system, and its appropriation and authority. Along with helping hands we provide them solidarity and expose this existing order of private ownership and power.
People are discontented and raising questions against the system, worldwide. Human civilization led by capitalism speaks of civilisation beyond our planet on one hand and on the other, fails to provide basic humans rights to the majority of population on earth. The pandemic has been many things. It has been a killer, a murderer, a rapist, an offender and so on. But it has also been an eye-opener and has thoroughly exposed the system as incapable of sustaining human civilization and the overall progress of all. This system is so much engrossed in profit extraction that has put a quantified ranking of value label to each one of us where more capital equals more value in its hierarchal existing society. It has reduced us to robotic consumers and doesn’t care for the downtrodden and oppressed sections of our society. It has made many realise that the system is a pandemic, Corona is just a virus. Now the question is,
Do we return to the same older order of things or do we see this pandemic as a portal to a new and just world with equalitarian grounds?
The choice is yours.
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