Closed Tea Estates: A Case Study of the Dooars Region of West Bengal, India

Abstract

Since the end of the nineteenth century, it has been found that there has been a steady trend of the closure of tea estates in the sub-Himalayan region of Bengal. Besides that, a number of tea estates in the same region have not been operating properly. All these have made workers vulnerable. But this tea-producing region is monadic, and it produced during 2016–2017 358.53 million kg of tea; whereas the total production of India was 1,250.49 million kg. Evidence shows that 16 tea estates of the Duncan Group alone had been virtually closed in 2015 in the Dooars region. As a consequence, nearly 20,000 workers became jobless and subsequently several workers of the closed tea estates died of starvation and malnutrition. Further, some records have mentioned that from 2000 to 2015, 1,400 people had died in 17 closed tea estates in West Bengal. A lion’s portion of deaths has occurred in the Dooars region. In this case, an attempt has been made to unveil the root causes of the closure of tea estates located in the Dooars region in West Bengal.