Abdul Munem Wasif is a talented documentary photographer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He graduated from Pathshala – South Asian Institute of Photography, and started off on his career as staff photographer for Daily Star, a leading daily of Bangladesh. He currently works in DrikNEWS as a staff photographer, and has achieved deserved notoriety through his excellent photographic work in the hills of Assam in India.
In Tainted Tea, his photographs uncover the sad lives of the tea gatherers and workers in the tea plantations of Tea Estates of Assam in India, or Sylhet and Hobiganj in Bangladesh. Part of his statement reads : "They are the tales of cornered lives, chronic poverty and chained hope. This is the tale of ‘Tainted Tea’. Sprawling green hills, petit women in colourful saris, picking tea leaves and throwing them into the tukri on their back — the image we are shown. A picture perfect tale of harmony and prosperity, as portrayed by the many tea companies, is what belies modern day slavery. "
The ill-treatment of tea workers is not new, and tea plantations, growers and companies have come under increasing scrutiny to improve conditions. It is generally the women who do all the picking....men don’t do any picking, but do the rest of the needed work by weeding, and working the machines. The women's daily wage is 27 takas (about 50 cents), and she has to feed her family with it.
All of the women and men who work on the Bangladeshi tea estates are descendants of tribes who, a century ago, had come (or were brought) from central India as slaves of the British colonists, under a system called Girmit. While the name isn't used anymore, the practices are identical. The tea estates are vitually separate ‘states within a state’, and are still carrying the practices of a century ago.
His multimedia project is extremely well done, and is brought to us by Zone Zero, You'll never drink a cup of tea again without remembering these images!
Munem's Tainted Tea is here