21/09/2025
“I left Dooars to earn for my family. Instead, I was trapped and trafficked into inhuman work with no way out.”
This is not rare. It is the direct result of how the tea industry in North Bengal continues its colonial-capitalist legacies with exploitation at its core. Many tea garden workers are forced to out-migrate because survival at home has been made impossible.
This is no accident. The tea industry in Dooars thrives on Adivasi labour but denies them dignity and rights.
🚫 Excluded from Minimum Wages Act (1948) – tea workers are denied fair wages.
⚖️ Plantation Labour Act (1951) misused – wages paid lower than even MGNREGA rates, legalising hunger and poverty.
❌ Provident Fund Act ignored – no social security for workers.
❌ Maternity Benefit Act denied – women workers stripped of basic rights.
❌ Right to Education Act sidelined – children of workers deprived of learning.
❌ Wages withheld + gardens closed – families pushed into extreme precarity.
This systemic violence breeds poverty, fuels forced migration, and turns Dooars into a trafficking hotspot.
We hope that the West Bengal government break its silence and uphold the Constitutional and statutory rights of tea garden workers.
Tea brewed on Adivasi blood and sweat can never be sweet. Justice is long overdue.
For those who do migrate in search of work, please protect yourself: inform your Panchayat member, Pradhan, and local Police Station in writing with the name, contact, and Aadhaar of your employer.
