The All Christian Minority Organisation (ACMO) has demanded that the tea industry grant holidays on Christmas and Good Friday, two major events of the religion.
Sources said the ACMO, which represents around 60 churches in the hills and the Terai, held a meeting on Saturday and formally placed their demand.
“Representatives (of the ACMO) felt that Christians working in tea gardens cannot properly celebrate Christmas as they have to work. The same holds for Good Friday,” said a source.
“We have decided to approach the chief minister with a request that these two occasions be declared holidays in the tea sector,” said the source.
The community also wants the government to conduct a survey to know the number of Christians working in the tea gardens. North Bengal has around 290 tea gardens with over three lakh workers.
The ACMO representatives said the community required proper burial grounds in the tea gardens and would request planters to earmark land for the purpose.
“At times, we have to bury our community members in different gardens because of unavailability of proper burial grounds on that particular plantation,” said the source.
The tea estates are leased out by the state government to private parties for 30 years. Usually, permission is needed from the management to undertake non-garden works like construction of shops and homestays.
The ACMO also demanded a board for Christians’welfare.
Representatives of the tea planters said they followed a set of norms with regard to holidays.
“The tea sector has drawn up its own list of paid holidays, which include some national and state holidays and some holidays to respect local sentiments,” said a tea planter.
He said Gorkhaland Martyrs’ Day, which is observed on July 27 every year, is a paid holiday for tea workers.
“However, Netaji Jayanti, which falls on January 23, is not a holiday in the gardens,” the planter added, stating that the holiday list couldn’t be open-ended.
Many planters said Britishers had good control over the tea gardens till 1974. “They (Britishers) were mostly Christians but did not declare Christmas and GoodFriday as holidays,” another planter said.
