Muthulingam Periyasamy is the founder and Executive Director of the Institute of Social Development (ISD) in Sri Lanka. The IFWEA affiliate was initiated in 1991 and currently employs 15 people. The ISD is a long-established non-governmental organisation that works to promote social justice, human rights, labour rights, gender equality, and community empowerment, particularly among marginalised plantation and rural communities.

How did the ISD start?

Muthulingam Periyasamy: In 1989, I was given amnesty (after political activities). From 1989 onwards, I was engaged as a political columnist, writing political articles for vernacular-language newspapers, while also building the capacity of NGOs in social mobilisation and organisational development. In 1991, ISD was formed by me together with a group of people engaged in trade union, teaching, and literary activities, with the motivating slogan “Let us understand the reality in order to change the reality.”

And how did it grow?

MP: Our main activity is building the capacity of the excluded plantation community around labour rights and democracy. Taking the lessons learned from worker education, in 1992 we approached donor organisations for funds to build the capacity of the plantation working class on labour rights and democracy. SEBEMO (Netherlands) and Community Aid Abroad (Australia) supported us in continuing this labour education work. Following this, I became a full-time development activist. Later, HIVOS and Christian Aid supported the continuation of our activities.

Where did you grow up, and what influenced your choice to become a social activist?

MP: I am a city boy, raised in Sri Lanka’s second city, Kandy. My father was a skilled labourer attached to the Water Works Department of Kandy Municipality. In 1969, when I was studying in Grade 10, I visited a tea estate with a classmate who came from an estate. There, I saw the female tea workers and their hard labour during the rainy season – frail women carrying heavy baskets of green tea leaves, their bodies shivering with cold and exhaustion. It was then that I decided that, once I finished school, I would work for this community. In 1973, I joined the left-leaning Lanka General Services Union, and I have worked as a trade union representative ever since.

What are the specific challenges facing plantation workers?

MP: The entire plantation community is landless. Their wages are lower than those of ordinary unskilled workers. Families live in 10 x 12 feet line rooms which were built 150 years ago. There over two hundred fifty thousand lives in the line rooms. Currently, the plantation community faces significant challenges in winning rights to land, housing, and infrastructure facilities.

How does ISD address these challenges?

MP: ISD addresses these challenges by building community capacity around rights to access and development, and by engaging in advocacy and lobbying.

What role does worker education play in your organisation?

MP: Worker education is one of the core components of our activities. We consider it a vital part of democratic rights, so worker education is a cross-cutting theme across our work.

What kind of worker education programmes do you run?

MP: We use a study circle programme for worker education, alongside our own modules based on existing labour laws.

Are there challenges connected to the worker education programmes?

MP: Yes – it is difficult to mobilise people for in-person training. In the corporate sector, workers are often discouraged from engaging in labour activity and are instead encouraged to join worker associations promoted by HR officers of the companies.

What role does IFWEA play in your programmes?

MP: IFWEA’s modules help facilitate our worker education efforts, but a lack of funding makes it difficult to sustain these activities.

What has been one of the most successful outcomes of your work?

MP: We were able to convince the government to introduce an amendment to the Local Government Act to extend services to the tea worker community. The capacitated women workers initiate dialogue with management whenever they encounter labour rights violations.

You championed the global establishment of International Tea Day. This was to advocate for the rights of plantation workers, and the United Nations officially recognised the day in 2019, declaring May 21st as International Tea Day. Can you tell us more about this?

MP: In 2003, I participated in the preparatory meeting for the Asian Social Forum in Chennai, India, with the support of Indian Dalit women’s rights activist Ruth Manorama.

At the meeting, I tried to raise the issues facing Sri Lanka’s tea plantation workers. Trade union representatives from the organised sector said tea workers belonged in the agricultural workers’ meeting, while agricultural union leaders argued that because tea workers received monthly salaries and were covered by a wages board, they belonged in the organised sector. Tea plantation workers fell between the two, with neither group recognising their concerns.

After explaining the situation to Ruth Manorama and her husband, Pakkirisamy, they suggested I raise the issue at the unorganised-sector workers’ meeting during the Asian Social Forum in Hyderabad. There, I met Shatadru from the Centre for Education and Communication (CEC), New Delhi, who was highlighting similar issues affecting tea workers in Assam.

Following the meeting, we agreed that the concerns of tea workers should be raised at the World Social Forum in 2004. After returning to Sri Lanka, I contacted CEC Director J. John and proposed a workshop bringing together tea plantation trade unions and civil society organisations. Although funding was initially a concern, Christian Aid agreed to support the initiative.

Ahead of the 2004 World Social Forum, we organised a two-day workshop in Lonavala, India, attended by trade union and civil society representatives from India, Sri Lanka, and Kenya. There, I proposed creating an International Tea Day to give tea workers – who work in more than 50 countries but lacked a common platform – a united voice. The proposal was unanimously accepted, and I was asked, together with Shatadru, to identify a suitable date. It was announced at the Mumbai World Social Forum that the proposal would be formally adopted at the following World Social Forum in Porto Alegre.

After Shatadru left CEC, responsibility for selecting the date fell to me. Researching the history of the tea industry, I found that in December 1839, indentured Chinese tea workers in Assam staged a two-week protest after being denied promised wages. In recognition of this historic action, I proposed 15 December as International Tea Day.

In January 2005, at a preparatory meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, I presented the proposal and explained the historical significance of the date. The delegates accepted it, and Sri Lankan trade union leader O.A. Ramaiah formally proposed the motion, seconded by Comrade Ashok Ghosh of India. The announcement was then made at the World Social Forum.

The first International Tea Day was observed in New Delhi following a two-day workshop. The second was held in Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 2006, with participants from India, Kenya, Malawi, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and representatives of small tea growers from India and Sri Lanka. The observance then spread to other tea-producing countries, where trade unions and civil society organisations continued to mark the day annually.

Building on this momentum, the United Nations, through the Food and Agriculture Organization, proclaimed 21 May as International Tea Day in 2019, marking the occasion with an event at UN Headquarters.