Hopes, and Homes, Crumbling on Indian Tea Plantations

NAHORANI TEA ESTATE, India — For a century and a half, Madhu Munda’s forebears toiled on the same tea plantation that she lives and works on now. Belonging to central Indian tribes brought to what is now the northeastern state of Assam by the British in the mid-19th century, they and millions of other plantation workers survived as little more than indentured servants, even as the British Raj gave way to Indian democracy.

So when Amalgamated Plantations took over the plantation in 2008, Ms. Munda and her fellow workers had high hopes for change. The company’s investors said they planned to transform this sprawling tea estate into a model for sustainable and responsible labor policy through an employee shareholding program. The International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank partly funded by the United States government, lent the new company legitimacy with a sizable investment. In approving funding, the International Finance Corporation stated that Amalgamated promised to “create opportunities for people to escape poverty and improve their lives.”

But that early optimism has evaporated. Despite pledges of better working and living conditions, Ms. Munda, 45, finds herself living a life not dissimilar to that of her grandparents. Her family shares a cramped and crumbling house with three other families. The well outside is filled with murky water, and a nearby latrine is rank and overflowing. Ms. Munda says she has been emptying a bucket filled with the water that leaks through her roof for 15 monsoon seasons…

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