Plantation workers in southern India are the unlikely subjects of a Tamil language film whose director said he wanted to draw attention to their struggles, which remain largely unchanged despite the country's fast economic growth.
"Merku Thodarchi Malai" (The Western Ghats), shows the daily lives of workers on cardamom estates in the hills on the frontiers of Tamil Nadu and Kerala states, and explores themes of landlessness, migration, and caste conflict.
Nothing has changed for them, even though everyone says globalisation has improved everyone's lives," explained director Lenin Bharathi who grew up in villages like the ones in the film, with his parents working on a cardamom estate. He said he was influenced by the tough lives of the labourers. "In fact, conditions are worse, because there is automation - so there are fewer jobs, and most workers have no job security. There are also more migrant workers who get lower wages and are too scared to complain," he said.
Two-thirds of India's 1.3 billion people depend directly or indirectly on the land for their livelihoods. Farmer unrest has risen recently over poor output prices and the lack of adequate government subsidies. Workers on India's tea, coffee and cardamom estates are generally indentured, and often face exploitation and harsh conditions in remote areas with limited access to welfare services, rights groups say.
Landlessness in India is tied to an entrenched caste system, Bharathi said, despite laws banning caste discrimination, and government efforts to redistribute land. More than half of India's lower-caste population is landless.
Landless Dalits are at the bottom of the age-old social hierarchy, making them vulnerable to bias and deadly attacks by upper-caste Hindus. Bharathi said keeping some of the population landless is in the interest of the wealthy class.
"If they get land, then who will do the dirty, low-paid work?" While politicians and corporations speak of improving the lives of future generations of poor people, widespread prejudice continues to hold them back, he said. "For the workers that I saw growing up - their children were never able to access better education or job opportunities because of those biases," said Bharathi.
While we can commiserate with real landless labourers and exploited populace, it is equally true that people like Lenin Bharati - this film's director are a disgrace to the society. He is speaking of labourer's children not getting access to better lives, BUT, what is he going to do for them? In all likelihood he will use his communist party influence, sow discord in that beautiful landscape, and cause more hardship to those poor people by inducing strikes/ labour union activities. The activity of communist party union criminals in Kerala asking "nokku koolie" (intimidating people who use their own staff to shift houses, and after all the work of shifting is done, asking for money in spite of doing no work). With such lazy thieves no work can be done; farm work and plantation work are hard labour - and even the owners/ supervisors in such places need to work hard - not merely the labourers. But, thugs like Lenin Bharathi won't show that aspect of rural life and will show as if all land owners oppress all landless farmhands. Live among such rural people and you will find a wonderful dynamic between the workers and their bosses - the exploitation is there in pockets but not as if it is everywhere. Those workers wont' survive elsewhere if they are brought out of those cocoons and if they are forced to compete on merit in the harshly competitive cities.
ReplyDeleteAt least one person - this director - seems to have used that background well...without any imagination he has simply taken this story and made his name as director - while in reality he is yet to learn the nuances of direction properly. When will wolves like this director reform - and do "Real service" to the poor downtrodden people instead of making money out of their miseries - by taking movies on that.
ReplyDeleteThis director was a henchman and thug working for a chettiar family and doing rowdy work in Chennai. If he was self-respecting he would have worked on the farms, saved money, bought small parcels of land there, and would have tried to employ some of those suffering people on better working terms..But no...people like Lenin Barati won't do that; they need those suffering masses - exaggerate those sufferings, and make money over the sweat and tears of those innocent people. When will these leeches change!