HUMANS OF BANGLADESH

Photo: Sadia Rahman

Her name is Reshmi. She is the daughter of a tea-garden worker in Sylhet, Bangladesh.
The first commercial-scale tea garden in Bangladesh was established in 1854. Currently, the country has 156 tea gardens (excluding 7 in northern Bangladesh) with more than 118,000 tea workers. The labourers who keep the tea industry alive are not Bengali. The British companies brought them from different provinces of India about 150 years back. These workers -- belonging to diverse ethnic groups -- cleared jungles, planted and tended tea saplings, planted shade trees, and built luxurious bungalows for the authorities and management. But they had their destiny tied to their huts in the “labour lines” that they built themselves. They continue to remain as people without choices and entitlement to property.