Click to play videoGuwahati: Assam’s oldest immigrant group—the tea labourers, came to the state as early as 1860 from Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal.
Almost 150 years later with the tea industry going through one of its worst phases, the labourers are yet to find their feet.
Many of them feel their exclusion is entrenched because their names are missing from the Scheduled Tribe List so they lose out on benefits.
"My husband a sardar in a tea garden doesn't get enough money. So he has to do extra work for money. I have to bring up four children,” says a female labourer.
"We labourers work for six days. We get paid for three. When we protest the owners threaten to close the garden,” adds a male labourer.
The simmering resentment fuelled this procession by adivasi labourers demanding scheduled tribe status on last Saturday.
It grew violent and then turned ugly with subsequent mob retaliation. Almost a week after, the tension prevails in the gardens as their demand still finds a deaf ear.
"There is a provision which says the backward, economically, educationally and there are so many criteria which is fulfilled and if that is fulfilled they are automatically enlisted as scheduled tribe,” says President, All Assam Adivasi Student's Union (AAASU), Justin Lakra.
It is not surprising that many people are trying to unite them under a greater adivasi banner with the idea that it unites people with a common destiny.
Unfortunately Assam’s votebank politics that’s trying to revive and deepen some forgotten and some minor almost non-existent rifts between the adivasis and others in Assam and while all this happens the gardens wait in silence for better days.
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