The real story of tea:

Unsung pioneers of misty mountains

The Epic of Tea: Politics in the Plantations of Sri Lanka
By A.P Kanapathypillai
Published by the Social Scientists Association
Reviewed By Aditha Dissanayake

Time after time many a writer has waxed eloquent about the misty mountains wrapped in a green blanket of tea, in the tea district of Sri Lanka; (“mild breezes, crisp air, bright coloured saris scattered among the greenery, lend the gardens of Ceylon a pleasant mien...”).

What this picture does not reveal however, is that till the mid twentieth century, behind the picturesque women in mist-shrouded fields were terrible working conditions, low wages, and coercive labor practices enforced by a capitalist mode of production.

It is satisfying to note that while many have extolled the courage and stamina of the British planters of the 19th Century, (they were compared by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the lion at Waterloo), in the Saga of Tea, A.P Kanapathypillai reveals the story of the migrant workers whose lives were a hundred times more difficult than those of their employers and on whose shoulders the entire plantation industry depended.

Through this immensely readable, ethnographic, and historical narrative of the plantations of Sri Lanka, Kanapathypillai provides a sophisticated examination of the anguish and ethos of the immigrants from India, their semi-slave conditions during the British Raj and their struggle for parity in recent times with the other communities of this adopted land.

The journey of the workers from Tamil Nadu to the coffee plantations in Dambulla, Matale and Kandy reminds one of a chapter in Alex Haley’s novel, “Roots”. “The journey to Sri Lanka across the Palk Strait was difficult and arduous. The workers, in groups, trekked through the arid sun-scorched plains of South India When they reached the port to cross the Palk Strait, they were tired, exhausted, starved and dehydrated. At the port they took catamarans or other country craft to cross to Mannar. The most popular route was the 210 mile trek from Mannar to Medawachchyiya or Puttalam.”

Though initially the workers were recruited from India for the coffee plantations, when an attack of blight, which the workers called Pooche destroyed the coffee leaves, British entrepreneurs began to replace coffee with tea plants. Yet, even though the tea industry proved even more lucrative than the coffee industry, even as the British entrepreneurs continued to invest in large scale tea plantations the conditions of the workers who arrived in Sri Lanka from India remained the same or worse.

Kanapathypillai reveals that “the relationship between planter and worker was essentially feudal, and there were little or no link between the two, other than through an intermediary, the kangany.” For many years there was no awareness among workers about organizing themselves through trade union activity to demand their just rights.

But as the years passed the kangany gradually lost his grip on the workers. “The “tundu” system whereby a kangany could transfer his work gang from one plantation to another, was abolished in 1921” writes Kanapathypillai. “The migratory nature of the plantation workers declined, and by 1920 most were permanently resident in Ceylon, thus acquiring the characteristics of wage labour”.

An interesting paragraph in the chapter on the franchise rights of the plantation workers records a quote from Agnes de Silva who was a part of the delegation from the Women’s Franchise Union to the Donoughmore Commission on Constitutional Reforms. “Lord Donoughmore asked if I wanted Indian Tamil women laborers on the estates to have the vote. I replied - certainly, they are women too”.

The book also records the significant strikes on the tea plantations beginning with the strike on Kotiyagala Estate, Bogawanthalawa in 1939. It is interesting to note that the workers had formed an association, not with the intention of demanding higher wages or better living conditions but for the prohibition of the sale of liquor and gambling on their estate. When the white superintendent refused to permit this they resorted to strike action and did not yield even when the management threatened dismissal. The strike was called off only after the authorities met the demands of the workers. The tide had begun to turn. The Tamil laborer, who had over the course of more than a century shown himself docile, amenable to discipline and diligent, though slow at first to react to the forces of “labour consciousness”, had finally begun to feel discontent with his present conditions of life and work.

In the latter chapters of the book Kanapathypillai describes the electoral reforms regarding the plantation workers, their citizenship rights and the role of their leaders to achieve reform. Among the other topics discussed are the split in plantation trade unions, the roles of the left movement and bourgeois leaders and the nationalization of tea plantations.

In his brisk, matter of fact style Kanapathypillai sums up the contributions made by the migrant workers to Sri Lanka, from 1875 to 1930, thus, “Slavery, misery, exploitation and other untold hardships were the order of the day. If not for the sacrifice of blood, sweat and tears by the plantation workers of earlier years, British planters could not have been successful entrepreneurs, and today’s tea plantations would not exist.”

“The Epic of Tea” is a tribute to all the unsung pioneers who were the kingpins in the entire episode of the tea industry.

The book will appeal to anthropologists, and historians,to those interested in colonialism and labor studies, as well as to those who are thirsty for the real saga of tea.

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