THE living conditions of workers, the Tamils on the tea plantations and the Sinhalese on the rubber plantations, and their families, has to be seen to be believed.
It is difficult to adequately describe the quiet courage and determination of these workers, particularly the women workers who refuse to be driven down and raise their families against all of the odds stacked against them.
With every possible capitalist parasite bleeding them at every opportunity, they constantly strive to improve their homes and never give up fighting for better conditions and a future for their children.
Workers work a full week, but do not have enough money to feed their families. The fight for a socialist future is a life and death question for these workers and their families.
We visited Tamil tea plantation workers on the Eskdale Estate. This estate has a population of 2,000. The houses were built in 1936 and there have been no repairs since then, except what the workers themselves have carried out.
On these plantations, workers live in the most appalling conditions. Lots of these homes still have clay floors and despite the best efforts of the families are dilapidated and run down The roofs are made from corrugated iron, all kitchens are outside, unless workers have built their own extensions, and permission has to be got from the estate management to do this. There are no in-house water facilities. Water has to be brought in, in buckets and tins.
Every home we visited had an open drain about two feet outside the front door. These drains are stinking, and attract flies and other vermin. Nevertheless parents keep themselves and their children clean, so determined are they not to be driven further into the abyss.
Their homes have no door number or street name. Your post has your name and the particular plantation you live on. They have no identity or independence, the plantation is all pervading. They are meant to be dependant and subservient. But these workers are angry and combative, all they lack is a leadership to match their tenacity and resoluteness.
They are determined to get a better life especially for their children and are prepared to fight for it.
These homes only had electricity installed three years ago. It cost each family 15,000 Rupees. Obviously they could not afford this so the estate management paid, and money is deducted from their salaries every month. It will take another year to complete the payback, four years in total.
Mr Muthu and his family live in what are called ‘line rooms’, a row of houses which share common walls with no space between each house. ‘The estate management will not do any repairs, when we have any money we do them ourselves. We have only one person working in this house, so when the electricity was being installed the estate management would only finance half of the house being electrified because they said they would not be able to recover their money in the four year period.
‘We have six people to feed and only one salary coming in. Flour and rice is our daily meal. We only have meat once a year, on Christmas Day. We usually have chicken.’
One family member, Dewathy, who is 24 years old, became blind and mentally disabled when she was seven years of age.
Mutha added: ‘The doctors don’t know or would not tell us any reason. She spent two months in Nuwara Eliya hospital and two weeks in Kandy hospital.’ Kandy is a hospital which specialises in diseases but is 120 kilometres away. We had to pay fares to and from, and still there was no diagnosis.
‘The house is very overcrowded, there are three rooms in total for everything, sleeping, cooking and washing. We do not have our own outside toilet, we have two public toilets for this line of houses. There are seven houses and 28 people sharing these two toilets.
‘We have asked many times for more space to build an extension and to have a garden to grow vegetables, but we have been refused repeatedly and as recently as two weeks ago. When we ask we are told, this is not government property, it is private.’
We also visited homes in another part of the estate and spoke to the family of Mr Muthukumar, who is 70 years old and has lived here all his life. He had a stomach operation seven years ago, and still cannot eat properly. He is in constant pain and has to attend hospital every month.
There are six members living in two rooms, the floor is just clay and is uneven. Panchawarnam is the only one working. She is 30 years old, has three children and has been a tea plucker for 15 years.
She graphically described their battle for survival and the never ending spiral of debt and abject poverty. ‘After buying food there is nothing left, most times not even enough for this. Food only lasts for 10 days sometimes, and then we starve unless we get credit from the shop, which charges 10 per cent interest.
‘Every day when I finish my day picking tea I have to go with my children collecting firewood. This is before we can cook and eat anything, and we usually have to walk at least three miles.
‘After spending 10 hours in the fields picking tea, and two hours collecting firewood, and then carrying it all the way back to our house, and then cooking, I am exhausted. It is difficult getting up each morning with aches in my neck and arms.
‘My husband lost a finger in a tea factory accident in 1994 and was not allowed to work there anymore, he only received 45,000 Rupees (£250) compensation. There is never enough money, for the children to attend school we have to buy books, pencils, school bags, shoes and replacement school uniforms. (The state provides one uniform) We also have to pay 100 Rupees, about every three months, for school activities, such as festivals, sports days etc.
‘It is very difficult to survive here. We have no water facilities, everything has to be carried. It is a life or death struggle. My whole family are undernourished, my 12 year old daughter has just spent 12 days in hospital with a fever due to malnutrition. I had to visit her every day so I could not work. Every day I needed to take her food as the hospital only supply a tasteless gruel, which is no good for someone who is ill.
‘The medicine she needed costs us 12,000 Rupees, which we had to borrow from a moneylender at 10 per cent interest. Every time someone in the family is ill we have to do this, we are always in debt.’
There is only one way out of this downward spiral for the individual, and that is death. However, for the Sri Lankan working class there is only one way forward, and that is to socialism, through a socialist revolution.
Part 3: tomorrow
