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January 2016 | Justice Prize 1st Place Winner

Network Member Spotlight

Justice in the Tea Gardens - Battling ‘Generational Servitude’ in Assam, India

★ WINNER OF THE 2015 NAMATI JUSTICE PRIZE ★

Nazdeek is a legal capacity-building organization committed to bringing access to justice closer to marginalized communities in India.

Nazdeek partners with grassroots activists and lawyers to build community-based legal networks to increase accountability in the

protection of social and economic rights.

Founded 2012

nazdeek.orgCommunity members trained as paralegals in Assam by Nazdeek and its partner organization PAJHRA. Photoghraph: Rajan Zaveri

Among the many unacknowledged crimes of the British Empire, the treatment of indentured laborers in Assam’s tea

plantations ranks among the least well known, and yet is one with very contemporary consequences.

Starting in the 1840’s, hundreds of thousands of tribal people, commonly known as Adivasis in India, were forcibly brought from the Chota Nagpur Plateau in central-eastern India to work in the tea plantations of Assam. Tens of thousands perished of disease and maltreatment on the journey.

The passing of the 1859 Workmen’s Breach of Contract Act made these tea pickers little better than slaves. They needed to seek permission from the planters to marry or travel. Punitive violence and barrack living were the price they paid for the British taste for tea. And despite decades of Adivasi

activism, the tea garden workers of Assam remain one of modern India’s most vulnerable populations.

“Tea workers and their families live in a state of ‘generational servitude’,” says Sukti Dhital, co-founder of Nazdeek. “Contrary to the law, tea garden workers, more than 50 per cent of whom are women, are paid below minimum wage, earning a Rs 115 ($1.72) per day as compared to the state minimum wage of Rs 177 ($2.65) per day..”

The poverty and lack of access to services means Assam State has the highest maternal mortality in India – the world’s leader in preventable maternal death – and one of the highest infant mortality rates. These health indicators persist, despite the right to safe motherhood protected by the Indian Constitution and guaranteed under national laws and policies. “Insufficient budget allocation, weak

NETWORK MEMBER: NAZDEEK

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Global Legal Empowerment Network • Member Spotlight

medical care, ambulance unavailability, and undue hospital referrals. The program captured 11 reports of newborn deaths, and 4 incidents of preventable maternal deaths. The information proved essential for future advocacy and litigation actions.

“Initially, there was a lack of awareness about laws and policies among the women volunteers,” says Sukti. “Since the majority of the volunteers hailed from tea garden areas, a significant amount of time was spent in building up capacity on a rights-based approach to safe motherhood. Through trainings, the women volunteers began seeing entitlements as rights. They then began sharing this information with women in their respective communities to start demanding health benefits and services from state officials and frontline health workers.

For many of the volunteers, it was their first time using a phone or texting. Further, many paralegals and women were hesitant to report violations for fear that the reports would go directly to the authorities, so Nazdeek developed an anonymous reporting system.

A historic meeting was held in February 2015 between 25 volunteer paralegals and the district officials including the Deputy Commissioner, the District Joint Health Services and the Medical Inspector of Plantations. It was very empowering

implementation of policies and poor monitoring and oversight contribute to a tragically high number of maternal and infant deaths,” says Sukti.

Unlike other Indian States, Adivasi communities living in Assam do not enjoy Scheduled Tribes status. So the Government does not collect disaggregated data on the Adivasi community, the large majority of whom are tea garden workers. Conditions are exacerbated by low literacy and awareness of health rights among Adivasi women, which affects their ability to report and monitor violations.

In recognition of the need for grassroots justice, Nazdeek began its legal empowerment work in Assam in 2013 in partnership with PAJHRA, an Adivasi rights organization. Following a series paralegal trainings with PAJHRA’s staff, they identified a range of barriers that tea garden women face in accessing their health and labour benefits. In April 2014, the NGO Nazdeek began a project called End Maternal Mortality Now in partnership with PAJHRA and ICAAD, a international organization focused on addressing structural discrimination across the world. Together they with PAJHRA identified and trained a group of 40 women volunteers living in Balipara and Dhekiajuli Blocks in the Sonitpur District of Assam.

Project volunteers attended a series of training sessions on issues of maternal and infant health and rights and entitlements under the NRHM. From May to November 2014, volunteers collected and reported incidents when pregnant and lactating women could not access health and nutrition services and benefits required by the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the Plantation Labor Act, the Public Distribution System (PDS), and MOUs between the Central Government and tea gardens. Through a coding system, the volunteers reported 70 incidents via SMS.

The most commonly violation was the charging of fees for medical services that should be free to pregnant women. Other violations were: lack of

More than 50 per cent of tea garden workers are women. Photograph: Rajan Zaveri

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Nazdeek

Key LessonsWhen activists and community members are armed with legal tools, structural changes – whether at the state level or at a local level – can and do emerge.

Legal advocacy must be tiered - ground impact follows interventions at various stages of the accountability ladder. While an impact case at the High Court offers great potential for systemic relief, the effect on the lives of everyday people is dependent on activists and community members aware of the litigation, and monitoring implementation of the court order.

There must be a sustained, continuous program of capacity building that extends far beyond a one or two trainings. The work takes time.

Engagement by paralegals may fluctuate be due to a host of factors: differences in participants’ background, social status, gender, occupation and literacy levels. Monthy meetings have been crucial to address issues that volunteers face, which hinder the reporting of violations.

Coordinating programs in partnership with a local CBO makes the programs much more sustainable.

Participants and community members need to know that their efforts are resulting in action. A recent report and meeting with district level health officials galvanized commitment in the program by the paralegals.

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for the women, with most of them sitting across the table from officials for the first time as equals, voicing demands on behalf of their community. As a result of the meeting the local authorities have agreed to hold periodic Citizens Grievance Forums, and have placed first priority on establishing a functional blood bank in the project area.

“Throughout my life I have seen pregnant women die, but I didn’t see these deaths as violations of rights. I didn’t think there was something I - or we as a community - could do to stop these deaths. But I’m learning that we can demand better services and medicines from the government. This is our right.”Joshila S. mobile health participant, Dhekiajuli

As one of the few projects that is fusing social accountability, legal empowerment and technology with health, Nazdeek believe there is potential for

scalability within India and around the world.

In addition to its legal empowerment work, Nazdeek undertakes strategic legal and advocacy support to local organizations to bolster their efforts to demand higher wages for tea garden workers. It also supports a human rights clinical program focused on addressing human rights cases through the Assam district courts and is supporting three partner organisations to file a complaint on behalf of tea workers at the World Bank Group’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman against plantations owned by Tata Global Beverages.

In Delhi, Nazdeek has launched an urban empowerment project with a collective of 25 paralegals from slum communities. The paralegals are advancing the rights to maternal health and other basic services in slum areas.

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