Mannu: Sprouts Of Endurance

The Munnar Plantation Strike in 2015 was a labor strike organized by women plantation workers in tea estates obviating the existing trade unions from syndicating the movement, which resulted in the formation of a women organization called Pempilai Orumai ( Women’s Unity) .

The agitation led by the women plantation workers in Munnar, was an attempt to demarcate the economical and gender disparities in plantation sector. Being the cheapest, but productive, women’s labor is the bedrock of economy of production. Pempilai Orumai movement is remarkable because it reveals the political economy of a labor sector.

The plantation workers are often meted out discrimination on the basis of language besides caste and thus feel alienated. Most of them belong to the backward community of Tamil Nadu and were brought to the plantation estates by the British during pre-independence period. They are forced to carry the tag of 'migrant labourers' eternally, and since their mother tongue is Tamil, despite being born and brought up in Kerala, they are treated as 'outsiders' and aliens. This documentary is an attempt to measure the present gradient of demands corroborated by women workers, taking stock of the pursuance of movement in a political dimension and also an enterprise to berth the life of plantation workers in Munnar.

The shooting of the documentary began in the month of September, 2018 when the State of Kerala and especially Idukki District in which Munnar is situated, was reeling under the aftermath of the fury of unprecedented floods, landslides, damage and destruction of houses and loss of lives. The main reason attributed for such a massive disaster is the mindless and wanton destruction of the ecology by vast encroachment of hilly lands, unbridled construction of roads and concrete structures, legal and illegal rock mining and such insensitive intervention in the fragile nature. As a documentary film maker, I am attempting to convey the in-depth of the pain, angst and anguish I felt by closely interacting and observing the life of the marginalized plantation workers in Munnar , the neglect and discrimination they have been subjected to, how the women workers among them rose in revolt against their subjugation and slavery, how the wily corporate exploit them, while the mainstream political parties and their leaders are 'hand in glove' with and subservient to them, throwing the lives of thousands of innocent people out of gear. As a citizen of the largest democratic country in the world and a person who lives in a land of ‘unity in diversity’ , I feel it is within me to point out the blatant violation and denial of democratic and fundamental rights bestowed by the Constitution of India to these workers, their exploitation and ostracization on casteist and linguistic grounds as also chronicle the saga of resistance and struggle from among the women in their ranks for the posterity to cherish, ponder and get enthused and inspired.