How a migrant from Odisha became Assam’s ‘oldest living tea worker’

Subhadra Nayak’s hands, once skilled at plucking tea leaves for Assam’s iconic strong brew, now tremble holding a cup. In her twilight years, she lives in a modest labour quarter of Cinnamara Tea Estate with her youngest son’s widow and family. As she reminisces, memories of her journey from Odisha to Assam’s tea estates with her mother resurface.

Though her exact age is lost to time, her eldest son’s approaching 80th birthday suggests she’s long surpassed 95. Subhadra is likely Assam’s oldest surviving tea worker.

Dhiraj Gowala, leader of the influential Assam Tea Tribe Students’ Association, praised Subhadra Nayak’s remarkable longevity. “In my extensive interactions with tea garden communities, I’ve never encountered a woman tea worker as elderly as Subhadra Nayak,” Gowala shared with this writer. “She is likely the oldest surviving tea worker in Assam.”

Women are the backbone of Assam’s tea industry, toiling tirelessly to prepare the magic brew, which is famous worldwide for its strong taste.

In the 19th century, British tea planters brought workers from eastern and central India’s tribal belts to Assam for commercial tea cultivation. Today, these migrant workers comprise over seven million, about 20 per cent of Assam’s population. Subhadra represents this legacy.

“My limbs are no longer steady; I need support to answer nature’s call. I need medical care, but there’s no money,” Subhadra said. Her approximately ₹1,000 retirement benefits were exhausted long ago. She is presently surviving on her ₹1,200 monthly old-age pension.

Subhadra arrived at Deohall Tea Estate in the eastern corner of Assam with her mother from Orissa (now Odisha) when “I had not yet attained puberty.”

“My uncle had arrived at Deohall Tea Estate much before us… As the British planters required more workers, my mother came to Assam in search of greener pastures,” she said.

Subhadra grew up at Deohall Tea Estate with her mother engaged in tea estate work. She, unlike the common brown skin of the tea tribe population, wore a fair complexion and had ‘many suitors’ as she grew up. She finally married a worker at Deohall Tea Estate a few years later.

As Assam was turning out to be a tea hub in India for the British with new areas being brought under cultivation, Subhadra and her husband Prahlad landed up at Cinnamara Tea Estate in central Assam, about 200 km west of Deohall, sometime in the early 1950s.

“I arrived here with my first child who was about three years old… My husband and I immediately got jobs at Cinnamara Tea Estate. My husband as a helper at the assistant manager’s bungalow and I as a tea leaves plucker,” she said.

The couple were provided shelter and rations by the authorities of Cinnamara Tea Estate, which then belonged to the Jorehaut Tea Company, the second oldest tea company in the world established by the British in Assam. The first was the Assam Company.

Those were happy days for Subhadra, and the couple were blessed with eight children apart from the one they already had while arriving at Cinnamara from Deohall Tea Estate.

“Subhadra, unlike the tea workers in Assam, has over-lived her life,” explains Bolin Khargharia, a renowned doctor in Assam presently working to improve the health of tea workers.

Malnutrition, poor living conditions, intake of spurious liquors, and poor medical facilities have resulted in the early deaths of tea workers in Assam. “The average life expectancy of a tea worker in Assam is 55 to 60 years… Subhadra is a special case,” said Khargharia, who heads an NGO named HERS (Health Education and Rehabilitation Society), working for the tea community.

A few years back, India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had said that tea estate areas in Assam lack proper healthcare facilities and revealed that 37.69 per cent of the maternal deaths reported during 2013–14 and 2015–16 were from tea garden areas.

A recent CAG report states that districts having a higher tea garden population in Assam contribute to the higher maternal mortality rate (MMR). It also states that an in-patient department (IPD) is not available in 45 per cent of tea garden hospitals and a functional labour room is not available in 54 per cent of the tea garden hospitals. A “functional newborn care centre was unavailable in 82 per cent of garden hospitals in Assam, while 78 per cent of garden hospitals did not have laboratory services. Doctors were not available in 38 per cent of the garden hospitals,” the report states.

The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) of Assam covered only 150 tea estate (TE) hospitals from 2015–16, thus depriving the populace of benefiting from government programmes at the remaining 643 TEs.

Moreover, in the six text-checked blocks of select districts of tea-rich eastern Assam having a significant tea garden population, only 57 out of 82 TEs had hospitals, of which only 17 were operating under private public participation (PPP) mode with the NRHM. As per the Annual Programme Implementation Plan 2016–17, there were altogether 793 TEs in Assam.

The Assam government, on its part, launched mobile medical unit services for tea labourers in 320 gardens in 12 state districts a couple of years ago.

The Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, JP Nadda, who inaugurated the service, had said: “For 70 years, the basic needs of the garden population in terms of healthcare have been overlooked. Assam is among the highest tea-growing states in the country and yet look at the status of its workers. The number of medical units will be increased if the scheme becomes successful.”

Undoubtedly, Subhadra is a remarkable exception to this dismal scene in Assam tea gardens, defying the odds of survival without access to proper medical care. Despite losing five children to medical issues and malnutrition, she remains steadfast in her optimism. “Tea will show me the way forward,” she says, her faith unwavering.

Recently, the youths of Cinnamara Tea Estate honoured Subhadra as the oldest living worker recognising her remarkable journey. This gesture was a testament to her enduring spirit and contribution to the tea community.

The Cinnamara Tea Estate, where Subhadra is spending her life in its final phase, is steeped in the rich history of Assam tea. The tea garden was set up by freedom fighter and the first commercial tea planter in India, Maniram Dewan, who was hanged by the British for his role in India’s freedom struggle; his body was cremated just behind the factory of Cinnamara Tea Estate.

History shows that Maniram Dewan had started two tea plantations—Cinnamara and Senglung—after he resigned from the post of a Dewan, land agent and chief executive, of the world’s first tea company, the Assam Company. While the Cinnamara Tea Estate still exists, Senglung got lost in time.

The Cinnamara Tea Estate was confiscated by the British and auctioned off soon after the execution of Dewan in 1858. The estate was subsequently purchased by George Williamson Tea Company, but the labourers loyal to Dewan refused to cooperate, and the estate fell into bad times. It changed hands and finally, in 1972, was taken over by Assam Tea Corporation, a state-owned tea company formed to revive sick tea estates in Assam.

Back at Cinnamara Tea Estate’s humble abode, Subhadra’s voice cracks as she recalls her husband’s passing nearly four decades ago, after retiring from the tea estate. Since then, she has found solace in living with her youngest son’s widow and grandchildren.

“My life began in tea, and it will end in tea,” Subhadra says, her eyes welling up with tears. “I have no regrets, but it pains me that the tea authorities have abandoned me in my twilight years. I struggle to find help to visit a doctor.”

Tears roll down her droopy eyes as she speaks, a poignant reminder of the struggles Assam’s tea workers faced in their golden years.

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