The manager: Building a community
A few dozen kilometres from the plains of the Dooars sit the green, misty hills of Darjeeling, home to one of the most prized teas in the world. Darjeeling is known as the “Champagne of teas.” Among the most famous Darjeeling brands is Makaibari, whose tea estate sits on a hilly ridge near the village of Kurseong. Last year, Makaibari tea sold at a record price of $1,850 (U.S.) per kilogram.
Headed by the flamboyant and energetic Rajah Banerjee, Makaibari has long made quality its priority. The tea estate, which was the first in the world to be certified organic in 1988, is renowned for its holistic approach to tea cultivation and preservation of the surrounding rainforest.
Moreover, Makaibari prides itself for having created a harmonious environment between the management and its workers, thanks to a series of social initiatives aimed at empowering women and local communities. Among them are the employment of women as field supervisors, the provision of scholarships, libraries and community centres, and village homestays that allow some local families to earn money by hosting tourists visiting the estate.
From its wooden office, whose walls are covered with travel articles about the estate, Banerjees likes to say those employed at Makaibari “are not workers, but community members.”
Workers at Makaibari appear to be better fed and clothed than their colleagues in the Dooars. But just a few hundred metres from the main road where most of Makaibari social initiatives are concentrated, in the nearby village of Thapathali, a group of pluckers agree to talk about their living conditions if their identities will be kept secret for fear of repercussions.
“From the outside, Makaibari looks very nice, but it’s only us who know how we are surviving here,” says one, a 40-year-old woman. She says the houses are not being renovated and payments have at times been irregular. Moreover, Thapathali lacks a proper road and there are no water pipes to connect it to the closest spring, three kilometres away.