How Indian-origin Tamils in Lanka are quitting tea estates to carve a new identity

Community leaders highlight the profound transformation in the socio-economic profile of Indian-origin Tamils in Sri Lanka—once confined almost entirely to plantation work and treated for over a century as little more than bonded labour, despite the tea industry being one of the country’s biggest foreign exchange earners.

Breaking free

In recent years, members of the community, whose forefathers hailed from south India, have branched out to become teachers, doctors, engineers, accountants, traders and industrialists, creating a new corps of Sri Lankans who are breaking free from a vicious cycle of debts and penury.

“We are no more just a labour segment in Sri Lanka,” said Mano Ganesan, one of the most popular leaders of the Tamil plantation community, in a telephonic interview. He spoke to The Federal days after holding extensive talks with President Anura Dissanayake over issues confronting this particular ethnic group.

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“Ninety per cent of the Tamils are out of it (tea industry). New successful groups of people have emerged in different fields," said the four-time MP, who heads the Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA). "Today, just about 10,000 Tamils work in the tea estates compared to one million earlier although much of the community still lives within the tea-producing region,” he added.

Plight of Indian Tamils

The British began shipping poverty-stricken indentured labourers from south India to Ceylon in the 1820s to work on initially coffee – and later tea and rubber – plantations, as Sinhalese peasants were unwilling to pursue the harsh, low-paid manual work in the country’s central highlands.

Also, called “Malaiyaha (Hill) Tamils”, they worked for long decades under harsh and restrictive conditions, widely regarded as a form of bondage rather than free labour. Many died due to malnutrition, diseases and displacement.

The Sinhalese, Sri Lanka’s majority population, traditionally looked down upon the “Indian Tamils”. Even elite leaders of the indigenous Tamils populating the country’s north and east did not treat them as equals notwithstanding a linguistic affinity.

Despite their backbreaking labour in Sri Lanka’s lucrative tea estates, the Indian Tamils were paid a pittance and condemned to lives of grinding poverty. Generations endured crushing debts, harsh working conditions, poor health, and minimal access to education, leaving them trapped in cycles of deprivation.

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Ganesan said that schools to serve the community came under the national grid only in 1977 – almost three decades after independence. Many ‘Indian Tamils’ lacked citizenship for decades, the 'disgraceful' situation not changing even after Sri Lanka became a free country.

Although, they largely kept away from the blood-soaked Tamil separatist campaign that raged in Sri Lanka’s north-east for a quarter century, the ‘Indian Tamils’ were attacked by Sinhalese thugs for being Tamils. They were often perceived by many in Sri Lanka as belonging to a lower rung of society, positioned beneath the comparatively more prosperous indigenous Tamil population.

Birth of fourth ethnic group

"No more," asserted Ganesan, 66, who like his parents was born and raised in Sri Lanka. However, his ancestors were never indentured workers.

Further, he pointed out that many in his community have given up the life of drudgery their parents and grandparents had and have become professionals, entrepreneurs and the like. In the process, most ‘Indian Tamils’ outside of the tea estates are now tri-lingual and can speak English, Sinhalese and Tamil. Ganesan calls them the fourth ethnic group in Sri Lanka, after the Sinhalese, indigenous Tamils and Muslims.

“There is a call within the community to identify themselves more as Sri Lankans and to be recognised as a core part of the country. And, it helps that there is gradual change in outlook towards India in Sinhalese society," he said.

Challenges for Tamil workers

However, life for the estimated 10,000 Tamil workers, mostly women, who continue to slog in the tea estates, remains daunting.

Firstly, wages remain low, despite being increased only this year to SLR 1,750 a day from Rs 1,350. The hike has taken place in tea estates run by large as well as state-owned companies but not in privately-held small tea estates.

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At the same time, the workers have been told to pluck a minimum of 25 kg of tea leaves a day, up from 18 kg until recently. “Even if they fall short by one kilo, the wages are cut by half,” said Ganesan, also a trade unionist. “I conveyed this to the (Sri Lankan) president. How can people cope with such meagre income?” he asked.

He pointed out that while the ongoing Iran war had severely impacted foreign exchange earnings from tourism and garment industries besides reduction in remittances from the Gulf, the tea industry was keeping the national economy afloat. Tea exports alone generate $1.2 to 1.3 billion in foreign exchange annually in Sri Lanka.

But very little of this wealth percolates to those who make it happen, forcing more and more workers to quit the arduous part of the industry for good. Like the Sinhalese in earlier times, younger ‘Indian Tamils’ aware of better opportunities outside of the estates refuse to do this work.

Ganesan and his colleagues complain that decades of underinvestment in infrastructure, housing and early warning systems had led to colossal deaths and destruction, when the November 2025 cyclone ravaged Sri Lanka, disproportionately affecting the ‘Indian Tamil’ community.

Ganesan has urged the government to ensure that land rights are given to the community besides legal ownership of the houses where they live. Both are long-term demands reiterated regularly by Tamil leaders but ignored by successive Sinhalese-dominated governments.

OCI states for Indian Tamils

While proud to be Sri Lankans, Ganesan says the community’s Indian identity cannot be ignored. So, he wants New Delhi to give the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status to all eligible Indian origin Tamils, on the lines of India's rollout in Mauritius, where the process was made easier.

“OCI status will be very useful,” said Ganesan, who presented a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he last visited Colombo. “While we are Sri Lankan citizens, we want the OCI status."

This, he added, will make it easier for the community to travel to and from India. Most ‘Indian Tamils’ enjoy familial links with Tamil Nadu, in particular, the districts of Tiruneveli, Tuticorin, Virudhunagar, Madurai, Salem, Tirichirapalli and Thanjavur.

Further, he added, “Poverty for the tea workers is not just about lack of money. It also relates to issues over lack of education, housing, health and food. The tea workers need dignity and respect. They deserve it.”

Caste, a sore factor

The economics apart, caste remains a sore factor.

The ‘Indian Tamils’, who migrated to caste-conscious Tamil regions of Sri Lanka’s north after violence by the Sinhalese, are not generally considered as equals although many, over time, joined the Tamil Tigers.

In the process, many of them died in the final battles between the Sri Lankan military and the Tigers in 2008-09.