Dehradun: When former Ut-tarakhand chief minister Ha-rish Rawat’s flock of Cong-ress MLAs had gone to Cor-bett National Park on March20, to insulate themselves fr-om BJP that had got nine re-bel MLAs into their camp, achopper carrying the loya-lists had allegedly landed inthe wildlife reserve or stray-ed dangerously close to it.

BJP — which was itselfprotecting its brood, takingits MLAs from one place tothe other — quickly filed acomplaint with the forest de-partment, charging that thechopper had no business lan-ding in the sanctuary.

Soon the National TigerConservation Authority, too,sought a report from the chiefwildlife warden asking if the

helicopter indeed landed in-side Corbett Park, and, if yes,where exactly it had droppedthe MLAs. Also, if and whatviolations of environmentaland wildlife protection lawswere committed.

Now, a report by the forest

department on the ragingcontroversy has said that theCongress MLAs, who werehoused in a farmhouse some-where in the park’s periphe-ry, were dropped in a “privatestrip” in the buffer zone of thetiger reserve, where the fo-

rest department has no cont-rol. While no movement is al-lowed in the core area of thesanctuary, permission fromthe district magistrate is stillneeded to land somethinglike a chopper in the buffer zo-ne. TOI tried to get in touchwith DM Chandrasekhar Ya-dav but he did not take calls.

Congress state unit chiefKishore Upadhyay said therewas no question of landing ahelicopter in the reserve andthe allegations were “totallyfabricated”. He said: “Whywould be do something likethat? There is no question.”

A highly placed source inthe forest department toldTOI that Corbett Tiger Reser-ve director Sameer Sinha, inhis report submitted to chiefwildlife warden DVS Khati,has made it clear that thechopper landed on a privatestrip in the buffer zone.

Did Cong copter land in Corbett? Sharma.Seema

@timesgroup.comLINE OF NO CONTROL SANDEEP ADHWARYU

New Delhi: Congress onThursday announced itwill legally challenge theordinance that the Centreplans to promulgate to aut-horize expenditure in Utta-rakhand beyond April 1, re-placing the budget “clea-red” by the state assembly.

It said any such ordi-nance about state financesbeyond April 1would be un-constitutional. The partyalleged the move was ai-med at justifying the illegalimposition of the Presi-dent’s rule in the hill stateand to avoid a test of majo-rity in the assembly.

Congress member Ka-pil Sibal said finance mini-

ster Arun Jaitley had manyfirsts to his credit and thiswould be yet another. “It isfor the first time in 68 yearsthat the Centre will decideif the appropriation bill ispassed in an assembly ornot. The speaker said it waspassed and it is his domain,

not of governor or the Cent-re. There is no petition ororder of the court againstit,” he argued.

Sibal attacked BJP formaking a common causewith rebel Harak Singh Ra-wat, whom it had accusedof molestation and whosedismissal it had sought forholding an office of profit.

Cong to challengeU’khand ordinance

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

‘MOVE ILLEGAL’

Imphal: A day after a Delhicourt freed Irom SharmilaChanu, acquitting her ofcharges of attempt to commitsuicide, she was flown to Imp-

hal on Thursday only to be ar-rested by Manipur police as acase on a similar charge ispending here. At the airport,Sharmila iterated that she wo-uld continue her struggle tillAFSPA is scrapped.

Sharmila arrested again in Manipur K Sarojkumar Sharma TNN

Chai pe charcha heats up poll kettleShenoy.Karun@timesgroup.com

In Nagrakata constituency in Bengal’s tea-growing Jalpaig-uri district candidates of all major parties share a legacy

— they are from the tea workers’ community, a vote bank no party dares ignore. Far away, in Kerala’s tea country at Devikulam and Peer-made an independent women’s organisation Pempilai Orumai is fi elding candidates. Tea is the com-mon thread that binds poll-bound Assam, Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Between them, they have 8.8 lakh permanent plantation workers.

Sumanta Guha Thakurta, sec-retary, Indian Tea Association (Dooars), says: “At Nagrakata, TMC’s picked Sukra Munda. Fighting him is Congress’s Joseph Munda, who the Left is backing. BJP has fi elded John Barla — all from the tea community.”

Assam’s 2.6 lakh tea workers are more politically aware now than ever before. Former general secretary of All Assam Tea Tribes Students’ Association Kamakhya Prasad Tasa is Jorhat BJP MP. An-other party MP, Rameswar Teli, from Dibrugarh, too hails from the community.

The United Planters’ Associa-tion of South India says TN has 2.7 lakh workers in the gardens of Nilgiris, Coimbatore, Tirunelveli and Madurai. As in the other states, workers here are political-ly ambitious. “This time, several community members are trying for tickets,” says AIADMK’s MP KR Arjunan. “The community has a strong presence in Coonoor and Gudalur.”

Wages Of PluckingLow wages bother tea workers across states. Recently, Pempilai Orumai (Women United), forced the Kerala government to raise the daily wage to Rs 301 from Rs 232. The organisation will now fi ght for Devikulam and Peeru-made of Idukki district. “Apart from implementation of the package CM Oommen Chandy promised, we want fi ve cents of land and a house each for workers, a government hospi-tal at Munnar and roads to the estates,” says Lisy Sunny, who heads the outfi t. Between Idukki, Wayanad and Thrissur, Kerala has 92,000 tea labourers.

Bengal’s Jorhat MP Tasa ech-oes the sentiment. “Daily wages are Rs 150 per day that govern-ment increased to Rs 170 but didn’t implemented. Planters must provide foodgrain, medical help and water,” he insists. Tasa says implementation of the Plan-

tation Act and wages will be key poll issues.

Planters say sliding prices don’t allow them to increase wag-es. “Manpower accounts for 60% of the cost the industry incurs, a wage hike will push plantations into losses,” says C Vinayara-ghavan, chairman, of Kerala’s planters association.

Kerala’s tea estates now face a double whammy —“High wages and low price realisation”, he says. Wages here are high com-pared to other states but the cost of living is high, which causes discontent. “Kerala tea fetches the lowest price among all Indian tea varieties. If the tea market doesn’t look up, plantations here will col-lapse,” he says.

Things in the Assam gardens are just as grim. “Government is trying to raise wages and the in-dustry has taken it to court. If we increase wages, we’ll be forced to close down. Such high wages can’t be sustained,” says Raj Barooah, chairman of Assam’s tea planters association.

Killer CompetitionPlanters blame competition from Lankan and African tea for the slumping prices.

“Tea from Malawi, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania is akin to South Indian teas. And they’re fast replacing us in markets like Pakistan and Egypt,” says N Dharmaraj, president, United Planters’ Association of South India. Orthodox Indian tea faces stiff competition from Lanka, which affects markets in Russia, west Asia and North Africa.

Most Indian tea companies are either losing money or barely breaking even, says Dharmaraj. “Before the 2015 wage revision, our production cost in Kerala had touched Rs 105 per kg and after a 30% wage revision, production cost ballooned to Rs 120 – Rs 125 per kg. Now, 90% of the estates are struggling,” he says.

Naresh.Mitra@timesgroup.com

Guwahati: As the sun sets on Batashipur, a hamlet created by clearing forests in 1990s in Assam’s Sonitpur district, the village market winds up. In one corner, Sukra Orang and his friends relish their handia (rice beer), tipple time for these tea workers. Setting aside a tiny sum for groceries, they drown the rest of their meagre earn-ings in liquor. Sukra and his colleagues are paid Rs 126 a day.

The Batashipur weekly market is a good place for a peek into the lives of Assam’s Adivasis — descendants of motley tribes from the Cho-tanagpur Plateau settled here by British tea planters in the 19th and early 20th century.

Known as the tea tribe, As-sam’s nearly 60 lakh Adivasis are a dominant chunk of voters in 800-odd tea gardens spread across 126 Assembly seats. Many among them are petty farmers now. The Adivasis live in grinding poverty, their lives hardly different from their an-cestors’, social worker Ananta Bagh says. Last year, an NGO conducted a survey among 10,000 Adivasi children from 10 Sonitpur tea gardens. It threw up alarming fi ndings: About 50% of them don’t go to school regularly, some 40% school management committees aren’t even functional.

Similarly, a National FamilyHealth Survey found over 90%of adolescent girls anaemicAnd, most worryingly manyAdivasi teenagers end up getting traffi cked.

In election season, politicaparties routinely do the roundsof the Adivasis areas. In successive elections, they were mostlyCongress supporters. Thingsare different now. The commun i t y is more politically asser

tive. And, it’s looking foroptions, especially after

the anti-foreigner movement from 1979 to 1985

Buoyed by victoriesof two Adivasi MPs in

the 2014 LS polls, BJPhopes to make inroadsin areas dominated by

the Adivasis.“The literacy rate among

Adivasis is low. But the community is far more politicallyaware now. They are looking atmultiple options,” says AssamTea Tribe Students’ Associationgeneral secretary Poban BediaOne of their key demands isthey be given ST status — in Assam they are OBCs, everywhereelse they are STs.

Congress minister AtuwaMunda, an Adivasi, says: A lotmore needs to be done for thecommunity, but asserts that theAdivasi’s life has changed, albecause of the Congress. TheBJP can’t claim the support ofthe community only because ithas MPs from the communityhe argues.

Pratiksha.Ramkumar@timesgroup.com

Coimbatore: D Ramakrishnan worked as a tea and vegetable farmer in Coimbatore’s Kotagiri suburb almost a decade ago. Once the tea prices fell and he slipped into debt, he sold a portion of his ancestral land and shifted to the plains. He is a member of the 2.5 lakh-strong Badaga community, which is indigenous to the Nil-giris — primarily Ooty, Coonoor and Kotagiri. He works as a se-curity guard in a restaurant in Thudiyalur now.

It is for Badagas like Ram-akrishnan that the community, considered one of the more so-cially advanced in the Nilgiris, has been demanding scheduled tribe status since the 1970s. Rec-ommending their inclusion in the list of STs was one of CM J

Jayalalithaa’s promises during her 2011 election campaign. Al-though their demand is far from getting fulfi lled, community leaders have given an all-clear to the state government.

“The state has kept its promise and written to the Centre, but the Registrar General rejected it,” says professor T M Kullan, president, Nilgiri Tribal Solidarity (NTS). “Now it is in the Centre’s court.” Kullan has also fi led a petition in the Madras High Court in this regard.

Despite there being no offi cial proof that the commu-nity was one of the seven tribal community who inhabited the hills centuries ago, the commu-nity was classifi ed as “primitive” in the census in 1921 and 1931. But the survey in 1941, when

World War II was on, wasn’t a very exhaustive one and missed including the community under the same bracket. “Somehow this omission was never followed up on,” says Kullan.

The community feels its population is dwindling rapidly

— from 2.85 lakh to 2.5 lakh in the last 25 years. “This is leading to our land and settlements, known as Hattis, being sold off gradually,” says

social activist and community member Ramesh Raman, who moved back to Nil-

giris after 20 years in Australia. That the community is social-

ly and economically advanced “is a misconception”, Kullan says. “Badagas walk around in coats and sweatshirts because of the British infl uence on us and be-

cause it is cold here,” he addsST status will also lead to properdocumentation of the Badagaculture, says Ooty-based architect K Balachander.

But the demand is being opposed by the other six Nilgirtribes — especially the Todasand Kothas. “Currently we aresix tribal groups in Nilgiris, andour population is not more than30,000. Now, if Badagas, who arenot in the tribal sub-group listget ST status, other communitieslike Bedars will also demand it,”says B Pushpakumar of PrimitiveTribals Council.

“They do this only for the reservations and benefi ts. As it iswe have one seat in the government hostel and get a few housesevery year, now even that wilbecome more rare if more communities’ stake claim to our benefi ts,” he said.

Plantation Hands Form Crucial Voting Blocs In Assam, Bengal, Kerala And TN, And Netas, Predictably, Are Gunning For Their Support

BATTLEGROUNDASSAM

No party can take Adivasis for granted

Nilgiris’ Badagas reiterate ST status demand

Grim gets grimmer in tea country across four states

Assam

Kerala

35LWORKERS

0.9LWORKERS

Idukki LDF 3

Wayanad UDF 2

Thrissur LDF 1

Palakkad LDF 1

Thiruvananthapuram UDF 1

Jorhat (10)

CONG 10

Kaliabor (10)

CONG 7AIUDF 2 AGP 1

Dibrugarh (9)CONG 8BJP 1

Tezpur (9)CONG 7AGP 2

Cooch Behar (9)

Left Front 4TMC 4CONG 1Jalpaiguri (7)

Left Front 3TMC 2CONG 2

Darjeeling (6)GJM 3CONG 2TMC 1

Alipurduar (5)

LDF 2TMC 1CONG 1Ind 1

8 OF 141 SEATS

A CRISIS BREWS IN BENGAL

In Bengal, as many as seven gardens in the Dooars are either closed or abandoned, affecting nearly 1 lakh workers. Though government took over some three years ago, they are yet to

reopen. Eleven more gardens with a lakh workers more function only during plucking season, shut down rest of the year.

Most of the 4.5 lakh workers in Dooars and Terai are unlettered and entirely dependent on semi-literate union leaders — from workdays to wage negotiation to bonus. Closure of gardens has driven workers to near starvation. There have been nearly 200 deaths in the Dooars since September last. Government, though, acknowledges just 78. Many tea workers were forced to migrate to Bhutan where they work on riverbeds breaking boulders for Rs 45 to Rs 50 a day. TNN

West Bengal

4.5LWORKERS

27OF 294 SEATS

BATTLEGROUNDTAMIL NADU

3Tamil Nadu

2.7L*WORKERS

NilgiriDMK 2AIADMK 1

OF 235SEATS

➤ At Devikulam, sitting MLA S Rajendran (CPM), winning margin was 4,078 votes over AK Moni (Cong) in 2011

➤ At Peermade, incumbent ES Bijimol (CPI), won by a 4,777 margin over EM Augusthy (Cong)

➤ At Nagrakata, incumbent Joseph Munda (Cong) narrowly won by 763 votes over his rival Sukhmoith Oraon (CPM)

38 OF 126 SEATS

30% of total voters are tea-workers. The state has more than 800 tea estates

*Bulk in Nilgiris, includes workers in Madurai, Coimbatore and Tirunelveli

HOW THE TEA SEATS VOTED IN THE LAST

POLLS2011 RESULTS

Kum

ara

pura

m

15THE TIMES OF INDIA, KOLKATAFRIDAY, APRIL 1, 2016 DANCE of DEMOCRACY