All that Glitters is not Gold
It was the best title I
could give to India. Recently I have developed an interesting hobby of watching
international news channels whenever I could. Few weeks ago I saw a report on
the wonderful tea which comes from
India; an ambitious businessman was declaring his vision of selling Indian tea,
fresh and straight from the tea farms, to the world via internet.
Yesterday I again saw a
report on Indian tea but this time it was far from the perfect picture that was
shown earlier. Majority of tea in India is grown in Assam, there are enormous
tea estates owned by private individuals. These tea estate owners hire many
women, men and even children as their labour; these owners are responsible for
giving their workers suitable accommodations, proper salary, health, sanitation
and education facilities.
However, the reality is
farther from the truth. The workers who spent their entire lives on these tea
estates to produce the best quality tea for many of the high end companies like
Lipton, Harrods and Twinning, have never seen electricity or bathroom.
What is interesting to
note that the tea which is sold to the high end companies around the world costs
more than Indian Rupees 750, and the living conditions of the ones who harvest this perfect tea struggles to survive in deprived conditions. Approximately six people share one tiny room with no air, leaking roof, and
no sanitation.
Infants and little children
die due to malnutrition and the ones who survive labours with
adult harvesters to earn their livelihoods.
The owner/manager of one such
tea estate suddenly showed up while BBC was shooting this report, he not only
threatened the BBC crew but forcefully took them to their office and locked all
the gates- so the crew would not leave the premises with the video report.
‘So much for just one
cup of tea’, said the BBC investigating journalist.
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Reporter 'trapped' on Indian tea plantation
|
This is not limited to
tea estates but a false and highly inflated image has been cleverly engineered to
show the economic, IT and 4-G boom in India, when its population can’t even get
excess to normal internet coverage for regular mobile calls let alone 3G or 4G.
There is negligible
amount of foreign investment; the ones who
have invested are taking out their money from Indian economy. With limited progress there, most of the images and impressions which are shown to the outside world are
based on shrewd lobbying through television and films; while the inside
realities are slums, malnutrition and extreme poverty.
After watching all this
I was stunned because I believed that India is on its way to become a great world
economic power.
India wastes so much
time obsessing about Pakistan that it fails to realize that so much needs to be
done and repaired at home.
Have great Sunday!
Sonya Syed, (Day 544)
P.S. Extract of BBC Report
on 8th September, 2015 ‘Several
of the world's biggest tea brands including PG Tips, Lipton, Tetley and
Twinings have said they will work to improve the tea estates they buy from in
India after a BBC investigation found dangerous, disgusting and degrading
living and working conditions.
Harrods
has stopped selling some tea products in response.
The
joint investigation by Radio 4's File on Four and BBC News also found that some
tea estates break the law by restricting public access to workers' living
areas.
The
BBC's South Asia correspondent, Justin Rowlatt encountered obstruction from
management when he tried to access one particular estate.’
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