Building a Wider
Horizon With Labour
Even as reports of starvation deaths on defunct tea estates in West Bengal keep coming in, observers are beginning to ask one crucial question-is it the end of the tea industry? And if so, can anything be done to save it and more importantly, save the millions of workers that depend on it for their livelihoods? India has seen economic liberation, the meteoric growth of its middle class, increasing industrialisation, decreasing poverty and an evolution into a global economic powerhouse. Bengal and Kerala, home to many of India’s tea plantations, saw some of the world’s most extensive agricultural land redistribution programmes.
