Tea Garden Workers Get Land Rights — How Land Ownership Could Change Labour Justice in Rural India

Decades after decades, tea garden laborers in India have worked and lived in the farms without owning the land the houses are built on and as a result, they are at the mercy of the owners of the plantations who provide them with shelter, wages, and other basic amenities. The result of this power imbalance has been low pay, poor living conditions, and low bargaining power. With the state governments in part of the tea-growing areas starting to give out land titles or homestead rights to the workers, the transition of the occupants to the owners may prove revolutionary. Economic security can be improved by land rights, which will enhance the voice of workers, and gradually transform labour relations in plantation belts of rural areas. For more labour rights insights and workplace updates, visit our Labour Rights page.

From Estate Dependence to Land Ownership

The classical systems of plantations linked housing, medical care, and ration to the work and this implied that without employment, one was likely to find themselves homeless and in destitution. Excluding any land under their personal title, tea workers could not use collateral as a basis to borrow funds nor could they have a bargaining power to insist on improved terms. When employees are given individual or joint land titles despite small plots of land or homestead land, they own a legal asset which is independent of the estate. This will help decrease the fear of eviction, access to credit will be opened, and families may have a more firm foundation to plan education, alternative livelihoods or retirement.

Read more: What International Examples Teach Us: Labour Rights Protections in Developed Countries & Lessons for Emerging Economies

How Land Rights Support Labour Justice

When it comes to land ownership, it turns the power equation between employees and employers. In case workers do not have full control over housing, then that makes them less susceptible to the threat of eviction during strikes or disputes. A home that is safe and secure away from management’s direct control not only helps to unionize but also to demand fair wages and confront unsafe or utilitarian conditions. This can eventually lead the plantation and the government to view the tea workers as rights-bearing rural citizens instead of captive labour. Furthermore, land rights become an asset that is transferable from one generation to another that helps to break the cycle of plantation dependence resulting from the inheritance of land.

Challenges and Limits of Reform

But land rights cannot eliminate all injustices. It is a fact that the vast majority of tea workers are allotted very small plots of land which are, at times, inadequate for farming or incapable of providing the same amount of income that is paid to the laborers. Also, the implementation may vary, as there may be delays in the issuing of titles, boundary disputes, or misconceptions about the land’s ability to be sold or mortgaged. The female workers, if not issued while in joint or female names, will be the ones who will end up getting sidelined. The combination of land reforms with the stronger enforcement of the labour laws, provision of better public services in tea belts and the introduction of policies supportive of the alternative livelihoods that lie beyond the estates is the only way to go if one is to really talk about the advancement of justice for workers.