Daily News Editorial

Empowering the estate community

27 January 2017

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has said that the government was planning to provide a seven perch land plot to each estate family. This is with a view to settling this community in the same estate environment they have been living for generations, performing their labour. The estate workers, sad to say, are still confined to their hovel like line rooms from the times of their colonial masters. More often than not, large families live in cramped conditions, confined to a few square feet, with nothing to call as garden space. Hence this indeed is a welcome move that would give these toiling workers some breathing space.

The Premier also said, steps are also underway to improve the education standards of the plantation youth and science teaching facilities would be upgraded to the students in the estate schools since they don't have access to science subjects. Addressing the fourth Ministerial Consultation of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue in Colombo the Premier said the government wants to motivate youth in the estate sector to move out from the estates and look for other jobs.

Premier Wickremesinghe is perhaps the first Lankan leader who spoke on the need for upward mobility of the estate youth by breaking out of their cloistered and drab existence. He may perhaps not have won many friends among the plantation sector politicians for his forthright views. These politicians have been able to hoodwink the estate community all these years primarily due to the ignorance and backwardness of their community. The estate community has long been taken for granted by these politicians who know very well that their humble brethren could be fooled easily with empty rhetoric. Any moves to enlighten them by imparting an education, no doubt would be frowned by these politicians. What they desire is to keep their minions in unenlightened darkness, lest they get wise to their crafty machinations.

The estate workers down the years have been an exploited lot, both by the British colonialists and the brown sahibs that took their place. They took good care to ensure that these pathetic souls remain tied to the estates and thus remain in perennial bondage. They feared any type of exposure to the outside world, lest this gave them “ideas”.

This was the same modus operandi pursued by plantation sector politicians of the post Independence era. Exploiting their ignorance and poverty, these politicians portrayed themselves as Messiahs who had come to deliver their community out of their predicament. In this way they were able to hold the estate community to ransom and what is more, as bargaining chips during national elections. The community was sold to the highest bidder, so to speak. These wretched souls were virtually kept in thrall of their political masters and what is interesting is they were ready to be the willing tools of the machinations of these politicians - all because they were uninitiated and kept in the dark.

The Messiahs of the Thottams of course thrived on the ignorance of this segment of our community who worked their hands raw day in day out to keep the wheels of the economy running. They exploited the workers to acquire ministerial office, under all regimes, always justifying their treacherous actions to ensuring the welfare of their community whereas in actual fact the power of office was used for self advancement and other indulgences, all at the expense of the ignorance of their charges.

It is time that the estate community were delivered out of their bondage and redeemed from their present status as supplicants. All the opportunities should be made available for their emancipation from the state of a backward and exploited community. They should be allowed to live with dignity and self respect, banishing altogether the public image of them as serfs and vassals. It is a fact that the estate community had all along lived in isolation, cut off from the mainstream activity. They have been living largely shunned and unsung quite in contrast to their contribution to the country's economy.

Only during an election that the estate community comes into the equation for their bloc vote sought by the main political parties. This fact is exploited by the estate politicians for personnel gain. Little or no efforts have been made to uplift their lives by these politicians who dish out the votes for lucrative returns. Hence the estate workers have been condemned to live like pawns of the politicians.

The Government's plans to uplift the lives of this community who are inextricably linked to the country's economy should therefore be appreciated. The estate workers, particularly the youth, should be made to think out of the box. There certainly are talented, industrious material in the estates who have fallen by the wayside due to lack of opportunity. We hardly hear of doctors or engineers being produced by the estates, unlike their counterparts in the North. The government's measures to provide the necessary wherewithal to the estate community to stand up on their feet, it is hoped, would come to fruition, undoing the shackles that has placed them in bondage all these years.