Sunday Times 2
Plantations: A key colonial inheritance
View(s):By Malinga Gunaratne
During the colonial era and even much later, the plantations were well structured for effective management. The owners, mainly in the UK, entrusted the management of the plantations to an Agency House in Colombo which recruited the managers and assistant managers through a strict selection criteria. The manager was answerable to the Colombo Agent who rigorously monitored operations on the plantations. The Colombo Agent also appointed a Visiting Agent to inspect the plantations and report to the Agency House and the overseas directors.
Most importantly, the British established an auction system handled by brokers to sell the tea. Auctions were held every Tuesday and the tea was paid for by the next Tuesday. If payment was not made on the stipulated date, the errant buyer was barred from future auctions.
The estate bungalows, built very much like the spacious houses of the better-endowed British, had rolling lawns complete with architecturally perfect but inexpensive swimming pools that were the envy of the rest of Sri Lanka. The planters played rugby and cricket while the rest of the country played football and volleyball.
The British developed the most elegant clubs in all plantation districts where the rest of the world were told ‘thou shall not enter’! Indeed the Hill Club in Nuwara Eliya restricted membership to the white planters and did not even allow their womenfolk to enter through the front door! They had to enter through the rear – the original notice is displayed even today.
Then there was the Hill School in Nuwara Eliya exclusively for Caucasian students that prepared the children of the planters for boarding schools in the UK. Unlike the wives of today, the British plantation wives never left the plantations; they were by their husbands’ side, their whole lives devoted to the plantations without any distraction.
No tribute to tea is complete without reference to the man who made Ceylon tea the symbol of quality in the furthest outposts of the world – Sir Thomas Lipton, the master marketer. Of course he gave the impression that he owned most of the tea lands in the island, an exaggerated claim though not in any way, a harmful one.
There is also an amusing anecdote of British discrimination practised not only against the brown-skinned members of the Plantation Raj but also against their own. Lipton who created the brand ‘Ceylon tea’ was denied membership at the elite Colombo Club because he was a ‘shoppie’ (belonging to trade)!
Yet, for all their faults and foibles, the British created an industry that was the principal foreign exchange earner in real terms for this island. More importantly, the tea industry is the single largest employer of the national workforce. Sri Lanka was the largest exporter of tea in the world and Sri Lanka tea was, and still is, the highest priced tea in the world.
The plantations in British times (Pic courtesy www.historyofceylontea.com)
But nationalisation disturbed the equilibrium of this sensitively managed industry.
Today we are only the fourth biggest exporter. However, our teas continue to fetch the highest prices in the world, due to the wonderful climate, the rich soil and the different climatic regions producing pleasingly different teas, which no country in the world could match.
The tragedy now is that the crops are declining badly due to the government’s ill-conceived decision to ban the use of chemical fertilisers and weed control inhibitors.
Almost 500 tea factories have been shut down and abandoned. Significantly massive acreages of lush tea land have been lost to plantation companies due to unabated politically motivated encroachments.
The management of plantations rests largely on gentle but firm authority and a high degree of discipline. The Manager’s bungalow once symbolised such authority but without the Manager’s presence, there is an invisible but incalculable loss in authority. A loss in authority brings about a loss in production and management. These are indefinable but may account for the decline. Plantation bungalows in most areas have been converted into ‘ boutique hotels’ and those that have not are in a dilapidated condition.
The workforce on the plantations too is diminishing. Estate youth are manning supermarkets in Colombo and other cities or seeking employment in the Middle East. The manifold reasons for this migration include poor wages, sub-standard living conditions and now with the current economic crisis, the rising price of essential foodstuffs, acute malnutrition.
It must never be forgotten that if Sri Lanka was the world’s premier tea producing country, it was possible only because of the labour and toil of the plantation worker. However, they have not benefited from all the progressive measures taken post-Independence like free schooling, health services and State-sponsored housing.
It is thus imperative to begin the process of absorbing the plantation community to all the nation’s programmes. There are acres and acres of uncultivated areas where the plantation worker could grow vegetables and engage in cattle and goat farming. The reverse migration will then begin and the plantations could ensure the continued welfare of these innocent people befitting their contribution to the land.
The tea industry is 136-150 years old. It provided direct and indirect employment to 3.5 million souls and a livelihood for many thousand smallholders. It is sliding rapidly but the decline of this most robust plantation crop can be arrested and restored to its original grandeur. It has also the potential of securing the foreign exchange so essential for the country’s economic recovery.
The process of recovery is not difficult but it needs hard, dedicated work, passion and commitment. The tragedy is that ‘those who care do not matter and those who matter do not care’.
(The writer is a senior tea planter and proprietor of Herman Teas at Handunugoda Estate, Ahangama. He was Regional Manager of the State-owned JEDB – Nuwara Eliya region, in charge of 100,000 acres of tea lands in the country and Deputy Chairman, Kahawatte Plantations (Dilmah). He is the author of the book ‘The Plantation Raj’.)