- Sri Lankan rubber plantation workers’ sad truth of 200 years
Harmony and conflict between estate and village
Most of the estates located near the wet zone are in the middle of Sinhalese-majority villages. There is a clear ethnic base here, as there are Tamil workers who live in line rooms of estates and Sinhalese workers who come to work in the estates from nearby villages. Therefore, the attitudes and actions of the people in the surrounding villages are very influential in every task of the daily lives of the workers.
“There is a long-term relationship between the Sinhalese people of Moratenna and Gonagaldeniya and the Tamil people of the Moratenna Estate. There is no scarcity of participation and support from both these communities in all the cultural and religious activity of the village as well as in the work of the estate,” said P. Devaraja, a social activist at Moratenna Estate.
An example of this is the struggle of rubber workers in Rambodagalla, Delhena-Raddalgoda, which was launched in the recent past, where the cooperative existence between village and estate was demonstrated. The generous support of residents of surrounding villages was of immense assistance in leading the 45-day struggle to victory.
After plantation managers cut the workers’ food rations, nearby villagers intervened to satiate their hunger. Out of 544 people from 101 families, 144 labourers were working in the estate, 66 of whom were female workers. The United Democratic Estate Workers’ Union and the Progressive Women’s Front were at the forefront of this struggle.
However, the situation is slightly different in the rubber estates of the Kalutara, Ratnapura, Monaragala, and Matara Districts. The experiences over the years of estate workers from Matugama have been described in chilling terms.
“The Matugama, Agalawatta, Kalutara, and Horana electorates used to be occupied by Leftists like Colvin R. de Silva, Cholomondeley Goonewardene, and Anil Moonesinghe. They received the votes of estate workers, but after 1977, this situation changed. Racism is now being practised openly. Not even Tamil songs are allowed to be played at the Lathpandura Junction in Baduraliya,” said a worker who wished to remain anonymous.
Estate workers have had few positive feelings towards recently-deceased former State Minister Palitha Thewarapperuma, who was the United National Party (UNP) Organiser for Matugama. His unleashing of coercion and violence against estate workers in the area had contributed towards a sense of inferiority among them.
It is with apprehension that rubber estate workers from Monaragala traverse surrounding Sinhalese villages in order to travel to Tamil-majority areas such as Passara and Lunugala on the border of the Badulla District. As they have claimed, they only feel peace upon passing the Sinhalese villages as soon as possible.
Violence against workers
Violence has been perpetrated against workers throughout history through economic and working conditions as well as ethnic and racial oppression. The situation has grown more serious following independence from the British, with a violation of labour rights being reported recently on the Dumbara Estate owned by Dunhinda Plantations Ltd.
“On 6 May, the Deputy General Manager, Field Officer, and watchman of the estate attacked a female worker for not reporting to work. Due to this attack, she was treated at the Horana Hospital for about three days. Despite a complaint being lodged at the Police station in Kiriella, the Police avoided arresting the accused, giving various false reasons until four days had passed.
“However, due to the influence of civil organisations, political authorities, and villagers, the accused surrendered to the Police. After being produced in court, they were released as the Police did not oppose bail,” said Chandrakumar, a political activist, noting that the trial filed against the accused would continue.
A similar incident was recently reported from the Delathura Estate adjoining the Dumbara Estate. The watchman of the Delathura Estate and two accomplices had brutally beaten a labourer’s husband because his wife had not reported for rubber-tapping duties at the estate. Subsequent to Chandrakumar’s protest, however, the accused had not been released on bail, instead being remanded for two weeks.
“The watchman and his thugs hit this man with a beer bottle. He was treated in hospital for five days. The Police did nothing for three days. Later, the three accused were arrested and brought to court. Unlike in Dumbara, they weren’t released because we presented the facts through lawyers and objected to the bail.”
Estate workers have had to constantly face such abuse from plantation administrators. In recent history – in 1977, 1981, and 1983, for instance – they were the most common victims of State-sponsored anti-Tamil violence.
The Sansoni Commission, appointed by President J.R. Jayewardene, revealed much information about burning of line rooms, attacks on kovils and churches, looting, sexual coercion of women, injuries, and killings at estates in Ratnapura, Kiriella, Nebada, Matugama, Galle, Kurunegala, and Kegalle. According to the report, nearly 500 Tamils were killed in the August 1977 violence.
P. Perumal, a rubber tapper at the Pindeniya Estate in Kegalle, described his suffering before the Sansoni Commission as follows: “On 19 August, a gang came and attacked the line rooms, which was followed by another attack by another gang the next day. Four rows comprising 41 line rooms were the targets of these attacks. They were looted and family members were attacked.”
Selvarani Kulendai, a female labourer residing in Gasnawa Estate, Nelumdeniya, was gang-raped by a group of villagers, she told the Sansoni Commission. On 19 August, the Estate Superintendent had told workers to seek a safe place as there was a possibility of an attack. Accordingly, she had accompanied her mother to the residence of a certain Gunapala at the edge of the estate.
That night, a mob had broken into the house and attacked Selvarani and her mother. They had taken them behind the house where six men had raped Selvarani. When she went to her line room the next day, it had been plundered. On 22 August, she had complained to the Police, identifying those who had committed sexual crimes against her. All of them lived near the Gasnawa Estate and were 20 years old.
K. Egambaram, a labourer at St. George Estate, Matugama, said that when a mob attacked the line rooms on 23 August, frightened workers had fled, but his uncle Gurusamy, who had been attacked, had died of his injuries the next day.
Testifying before the commission, Egambaram said that even though he had informed the Police both before and after his uncle’s death, the Police, who did nothing, had said: “When our Police officers are being killed in Jaffna, what does it matter that your people are getting killed as well?”
Subsequently, he had been compelled to bury his uncle’s body without a postmortem. A worker named Velu, who had been in another line room nearby, had also been shot and injured, and had received treatment in hospital for four days.
In 1981, estate workers in the Sabaragamuwa Province especially were victims of anti-Tamil violence. The attacks had started with the motion of no confidence brought by the Government against Appapillai Amirthalingam, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament at the time.
Armed gangs boarded buses belonging to the Ceylon Transport Board and entered estates in Kahawatte, Rakwana, Nivithigala, Pelmadulla, and Balangoda and attacked workers, damaged and burned property, looted, sexually assaulted women, and killed people. About 15,000 workers became refugees after the attack on 43 rubber and tea estates.
According to the report issued by the National Council of the Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC) on 29 August 1981, women and men, together with their children, had fled to safety from Balangoda to Bogawantalawa, traversing rubber plantations and forests in order to survive.
Antony Masilmani survived a series of violent attacks at the age of eight. He shared his traumatic experience with the media for the first time.
“In July 1981, 30 children from surrounding estates came to the Saint Anne’s Church in Kahawatte for Holy Communion. I too came from Nivitigala. When a group of thugs came from Kahawatte and started beating the people in the church, all 30 of us children huddled together in a small room behind the altar until they left.”
By the time the thugs had finished their operations, they had hacked to death seven individuals, as well as a small child who had been involved in the activities of the church. The shock that Masilmani and his colleagues had felt upon seeing corpses scattered across the churchyard continues to traumatise him.
“People on estates were attacked mostly in ’77 and ’81. In ’83, it was Tamil people in cities who were the most targeted, although this is not to say that estates weren’t attacked,” said Mehala Shammugam from the Pinkanda Estate in Kegalle, an activist for the Home for Human Rights organisation, adding that justice had not been meted out to victims in any of these instances.
“Rubber tappers live in the Pinkanda Estate. It was attacked in ’77, ’81, and ’83. My father was a Field Officer on this estate. In 1977, when a group of thugs entered our house, we escaped to the forest. A group of people, including a tractor driver at the estate, gang-raped a girl on the estate.
“Everyone knew about this crime but was afraid to complain. Even the Police protected the criminals. Many such incidents were heard of in those days. Such sexual crimes were planned under the guise of providing protection,” Mehala added, noting that such crimes could not be forgotten even if they had been suppressed over time.
Pointing out that racist sentiments were yet to disappear in plantation areas of the Kegalle District, she said: “A boy from the plantation is still not allowed to park his auto rickshaw at a designated parking space. Even if he manages to do so, he won’t be allowed to hire it out. We need to build harmony between plantation workers and village people first.”
Expulsion through Citizenship Acts
In the elections of 1947, it was the vote of estate workers that led to the election of many representatives of these workers in the upcountry and Leftists in areas predominated by lowcountry labourers.
As a result, capitalist leaders passed the Ceylon Citizenship Act No.18 of 1948 to reduce the power of plantation workers. Certifying that the father or guardian was a native of Sri Lanka was a condition for plantation workers’ citizenship. The Citizenship Act No.3 of 1949 was subsequently passed, making the conditions more stringent.
Due to these acts, many other people, including plantation workers of Indian and Pakistani origin, lost their citizenship, voting rights, and other legal statuses, creating a serious crisis. To resolve this amicably, an agreement was signed in 1954 between Ceylonese Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
“Since the issue could not be resolved with this agreement, 10 years later, 975,000 plantation workers who lost their citizenship on account of the Sirima-Shastri Pact in 1964 were divided between the two countries. India accepted 525,000 while Ceylon accepted 300,000. Another 10 years later, the remaining 150,000 were divided between the two countries with 75,000 each under the Sirima-Gandhi Pact of 1974,” said M. Kandaiya, the convenor of an organisation of estate workers cast out of Ceylon. A political and trade union activist, he migrated to India after Black July in 1983.
“Those who came to India found work on rubber and tea plantations. About 4,000 families work in rubber plantations in the Kanyakumari District and in the States of Karnataka, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh,” he continued.
According to the aforementioned agreements relating to citizenship, the number of plantation workers who were expelled from Sri Lanka was 461,000. Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and the Andaman Islands have become their places of residence. It is common for them to travel to Sri Lanka at least once a year to visit their relatives and friends.
According to Kandaiya, the number of plantation workers who fled to the Northern and Eastern Provinces in order to survive the attacks of 1977, 1981, and 1983 exceeds 200,000.
Impact of estate nationalisation and privatisation
The United Front Government, which came to power in 1970, took over many major tea, rubber, and coconut plantations that were owned by the British under its policy of nationalisation.
State institutions such as the Janatha Estates Development Board, State Plantations Corporation, and Upcountry Estate Development Board were established to manage the estates. Since the management of these nationalised institutions consisted of Government allies, the lives of plantation workers saw little improvement.
Tea, rubber, and coconut plantation workers collectively demanded a monthly wage instead of daily wages. However, this request was rejected by United Front Government Minister of Plantation Industries Dr. Colvin R. de Silva, himself a union leader of plantation workers and a Left-wing vanguard.
Compiling a book on the history of plantation workers, S. Nadesan, a trade union leader of the Communist Party, noted that Minister de Silva had claimed that no country paid a monthly salary for estate workers anywhere in the world.
Although steps were taken to discard some of the rules and regulations imposed by British plantation employers concerning workers’ line rooms and trade union leaders entering the estates under the policy of nationalisation of estates, the issue of housing and land ownership continued. Three-hundred estate schools that had been under the control of companies were brought under the Ministry of Education decades after the introduction of free education policies.
With the support of the CWC, a leader in estate trade unions and politics, the UNP Government in 1992 acted to privatise the estates due to weaknesses in their management under State control.
According to the 1992 Annual Report of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 449 estates controlled by the Janatha Estates Development Board and the State Plantation Corporation were brought under the control of private companies under the Government’s privatisation programme. Of these, 131 rubber estates were owned by the Government.
During the privatisation of estates, a condition was placed upon companies to provide workers an allowance of Rs. 20 per day in order to match the increasing cost of living. However, the managers of estate companies displayed reluctance to fulfil these conditions. In addition, agitations commenced among workers against the deprivation of benefits they had been entitled to until then.
The People’s Alliance Government that came to power in 1994, which continued the plantation privatisation programme, introduced a tripartite agreement to settle disputes between workers and plantation employers. Every two years, union representatives and estate companies would mediate on behalf of workers to sign the agreement with the Labour Commissioner who represented the Government, where the two sides negotiated and reached an agreement on workers’ wages and other concessions.
Despite some relief being obtained through it, the collective agreement process collapsed, leaving plantation workers in immense distress. The situation at present is a monopoly of estate companies that not even the Government can control.
The future of the rubber worker
The rejection of the Government’s decision to increase workers’ daily wages to Rs. 1,700 by estate companies has created a grave crisis. Although the companies have indicated their inability to provide such an amount to workers due to an increase in production costs in the rubber industry, reports from the Ministries of Finance and Plantation indicate that rubber exports have increased in the past few years.
State Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya has said to the media that the export income related to rubber has increased by 39% in 2022 compared to 2021. In 2021, the income from rubber production was $ 1,050 million, while the income in 2022 was $ 1,463 million.
According to the Master Plan 2017-2026 announced in 2017 targeting the next few years, an income of $ 3 billion is expected from rubber exports by 2026, according to Minister of Plantation Industries Dr. Ramesh Pathirana.
However, it is questionable whether it is possible to reach these goals without having done justice to the demands of the workers, who expect an increase in wages commensurate with the rising cost of living.
“Underweight children are being born in estates at present because their labourer parents lack the income to provide nutritious meals,” said Devaraja, noting that along with an increase in wages, a cooperative system should be implemented in the estates to obtain essential food items at subsidised prices.
Low wages, cutbacks in other benefits, and job insecurity are among the reasons why most workers are tempted to leave the estates.
“Not only women, but men have also become accustomed to looking for jobs in the Middle East for a long time now. Young people are trying to find jobs outside the estate. Often, it is the children who have left the estates who work at shops, supermarkets, garment factories, and as domestic workers,” says Velu Jeevaratnam, a rubber tapper at the Moratenna Estate. His wife has migrated for employment as a domestic worker in the Middle East, while he continues to work on the estate along with his children.
The fact that the area under rubber cultivation is shrinking for a variety of reasons is also a serious problem. Among these reasons is the fact that many rubber plantations in the wet zone are cleared and used for other projects; companies’ preoccupation with obtaining an income from existing rubber trees instead of showing interest in the cultivation of new rubber; and the fact that some companies replace rubber trees with other economic crops such as oil palm, dragon fruit, and vanilla.
According to Rubber Research Institute reports, as of 2014, Kegalle, considered to be the district with the largest extent of rubber cultivation, had 34,453 ha of rubber cultivation, while Kalutara and Ratnapura had 24,195 ha and 22,065 ha, respectively. In terms of land, this represented a decrease in rubber cultivation by 15,466 ha in Kegalle, 12,316 ha in Ratnapura, and 8,449 ha in Kalutara compared to the previous year.
In 1989, the Gam Udawa programme was conducted under President Ranasinghe Premadasa in the Buttala area by clearing rubber plantations. In addition, large rubber estates in the Horana area have been sacrificed for the construction of industrial parks and many requests have been made to give abandoned estates to workers for cultivation or for animal husbandry.
Rubber estate workers, who have sunk to the depths of poverty despite having contributed significantly to the country’s economy, should be given a living wage, housing and land ownership, and basic facilities such as education, health, water, and transport, as well as the status of respected citizens, fostering brotherhood and cooperation, enabling them to uplift their lives at least to a certain extent.
The rubber industry will not be able to reach its desired goals or achievements if it continues to exploit the labour of workers without providing them adequate wages and by depriving them of relief. This will only lead to workers’ struggles against such oppression.
(Part I of this article was published in The Sunday Morning last week and can be seen at https://www.themorning.lk/articles/YEzkXdquLHKoHkywtVMk)
(The writer is a freelance writer and trade union activist. She can be contacted at ishanka.singhe@gmail.com. The original article in Sinhala was translated by Rimaza Hussan)
(The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication)