The Cry of the Forgotten Tea Workers: A Call for Liberation
by Bangladesh AnarchoSyndicalist Federation -BASF
In the lush green landscapes of Sylhet, Bangladesh, the tea workers of Kalagul, Charagang, Burjan, and Burjan (Factory) tea estates endure a life of relentless hardship and silent suffering. Stripped of their rightful wages for 12 consecutive weeks and denied essential rations for 6 weeks, they are not merely statistics — they are thousands of human beings battling starvation, sickness, and despair with nothing but the strength of their spirit.
While the aroma of their labor flavors cups of tea across the world, their own kitchens remain empty. While the wealth generated from these tea gardens fills the coffers of corporate owners and the state, the hands that pluck the leaves remain empty. In today’s Bangladesh, in an era of record-breaking economic growth and soaring luxury, the tea workers and their families are forced to fight for nothing more than the right to survive.
On Friday, a rally organized by the Bangladesh Tea Workers’ Federation, Sylhet District Branch, was held near the ticket counter of the Divisional Stadium beside Lakkatura Tea Garden. Led by District President Biren Singh and conducted by Shipon Pal, the event featured impassioned speeches from central advisor Ujjal Roy, Socialist Workers’ Front Sylhet convener Abu Zafar, secretary Pranab Jyoti Pal, and tea workers’ leaders Hriday Lohar, Amena Begum, Zarina Begum, and Shayon Singh.
Their demand is simple and just: immediate payment of owed wages and rations. Yet, their appeals to the district administration and labor department have been met with cold indifference. If their rightful dues are not paid promptly, they have vowed to escalate their struggle through full-fledged strikes and occupation of the streets.
This desperate struggle reveals a grim truth:
The system does not exist for the workers. It exists to exploit them.
As anarchist thinker Emma Goldman aptly said:
“The most violent element in society is ignorance.”
Today, it is societal ignorance and political indifference that allows thousands of tea workers to starve while the products of their labor generate enormous wealth abroad.
Peter Kropotkin, the great anarchist and theorist of mutual aid, reminds us:
“The worker is called free only because he is allowed to choose his master.”
The tea workers are ‘free’ to toil under different owners, different estates — but the chains of exploitation remain.
Mikhail Bakunin, the fierce advocate for collective liberation, declared:
“The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.”
The plight of the tea workers is not an isolated tragedy—it is a mirror held up to our collective humanity. Their liberation is bound with the liberation of all oppressed peoples.
The tea workers’ fight is not merely for delayed wages or missed rations—it is a battle against an entire system that commodifies human life. It is a resistance against a world order where profit takes precedence over human dignity, where governments serve capital rather than communities.
When workers labor day and night to pluck leaves for the global tea trade but cannot feed their own children, we must ask: What kind of civilization have we built?
The struggle of Sylhet’s tea workers is, therefore, a call to the conscience of the world.
It demands that we reimagine a society where workers are not servants but sovereign; where labor is not exploited but respected; where no child cries from hunger while profits soar in distant capitals.
The vision must be bold:
- Worker-owned cooperatives instead of corporate plantations.
- Collective ownership of land and production.
- Direct democracy in the workplace and community.
- The abolition of all systems that enable exploitation—whether they wear the face of the capitalist or the bureaucrat.
We must remember:
Every leaf of tea plucked by calloused hands in Sylhet is a silent scream against injustice.
It is time we listened.
It is time we stood up.
The liberation of the tea workers is not charity; it is justice.
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Source: BASFD Bangladesh