In Sri Lanka, A Bitter Brew

Often described as the backbone of the economy, close to 1.5 lakh tea estate workers have been agitating for fair wages for the last three years. Ahead of Sri Lanka’s presidential election in November, which the labourers see as another season of empty promises, Meera Srinivasan reports on how they view their struggle

- Meera Srinivasan

“Half the blood in our bodies is sucked by these leeches. Can’t someone find some medicine to keep them away?” At first, it is hard to locate the voice that is emerging from the bushes. A few feet off the road margin, at a slightly higher elevation, is a worker, with her head alone visible over the lush green leaves. “They get all over us even if we smear a packet of salt,” the worker says, as she continues to pick leaves at an estate near Hatton in Nuwara Eliya district of the Central Province in Sri Lanka.

“What she says is very true. I was hospitalized because of this,” says B. Devika, another worker, pointing to the many scars on her feet ravaged by hungry parasites. “It is so painful even now,” says the 36-year-old mother of two.

Leeches are only part of the problem for hundreds of women like them who work in the tea estates located in the hill country. The women’s hands move rapidly as if in circles, picking tender tea leaves from the top of bushes. In a matter of seconds, as their palms brim with leaves, they reach out to the bags hanging from their shoulders and empty the leaves into them — a recurring action whose rhythm they have mastered, knowing well that their labor and speed is money, even though the money is far from fair. After a prolonged struggle for fair wages, the workers who sustain Sri Lanka’s economy are tired.

An elusive fair wage