Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 30 July 2018 | Page 12
FADING AROMA
Read Sorrow
In Its Leaves
GETTY IMAGES
by Probir Pramanik in darjeeling
T
HEY call it ‘the Champagne of
Teas’, an epithet commensurate
with its awesome prestige across
the world. But shelves stocking
premium Darjeeling at the gour-
met tea house Mariage Freres in
Paris lie forlornly empty of their aro-
matic cargo. Their famed Darjeeling
sells at euro 76 for 100 grams, or
Rs 57,200 a kilo, but suppl
ies have
shrunk lately because of events con-
vulsing the rolling hills of north Bengal
7,500 km away. Haute Parisian palate,
it seems, will have to wait.
The 105-day shutdown last year in the
hills of Darjeeling has plunged tea estate
owners and plantation workers into an
unprecedented crisis. Planters who
lost at least 70 per cent of their premium
first and second flush crop—almost
wholly exported—estimate the com-
bined value of the loss at Rs 500 crore.
The dire situation has a precedence. In
the mid-1980s, over 1,200 people per-
ished as internecine clashes and violent
government crackdowns engulfed Ben
gal’s hill districts during the ethnic Gor
khas’ agitation for a separate Gorkhaland.
The gardens suffered, along with their
workers. As the fires died down, recovery
was slow. Just when the 87 tea gardens
12 OUTLOOK 30 July 2018
Political instability, workers’ exodus and climate
change are robbing Darjeeling tea of its pre-eminence
dotting the hill slopes were enjoying an
upturn, the renewed standoff from mid-
June to end-September 2017, the longest
shutdown till now, pushed the planta-
tions closer to a precipice. The strike was
lifted 10 months ago, but not before it
dealt a body blow to the tea industry.
Estate owners and managers say the
recent shutdown forced most workers to
migrate to gardens in neighbouring Nepal.
Left unattended, the tea bushes—meticu-
lously maintained to a height to make
plucking easier—overgrew into untidy
clumps, fig
hting rampaging weeds for
nutrients.
Most gardens are now saddled with
another unforeseen calamity. Tea is a
labour intensive industry, and their
workers, permanent and casual, haven’t
returned yet. Besides losing the entire
second flush—last year’s monsoon and
autumn crop—the Darjeeling tea indus-
try is struggling with mass absenteeism,
says Binod Mohan, garden owner, expo
rter and chairman of Darjeeling Tea
Association (DTA), a lobby group.
The best part of the highly-prized first
flush—the early harvest of February-
March—was lost this year, Mohan says. “It
took eight months to restore the planta-
tions and by the time the first harvest was
ready, the estates had lost at least 30 per
cent of the annual crop. Garden owners
could not meet expenses, incurring a loss
of over Rs 300 crore.” The DTA has app
roached the Tea Board of India and the
Union commerce ministry for a ‘bailout’
package. “We have appealed to the Tea
Board for some financial support but no
help has come till now,” Mohan says.
Tea cultivation in the Darjeeling hills,
known for its breathtaking beauty and