Lakhimpur, Assam: Rupali Tanti (47), a tea garden labourer from Assam's Lakhimpur district, is known among her family and neighbours as a borhiya randhoni or a great cook. Her son, Sonu, 20, a college student, calls his mother "MasterChef" because of her "fantastic culinary skills."

"I love everything Maa cooks. Her best dish is mutton curry with chunky pieces of potatoes floating in the meat fat," said Sonu.

Tanti, who works at Cinnatolliah tea plantation, gives credit to the maatir souka or an earthen stove on which she prepares three meals a day. “The distinct taste and flavour of food come from cooking with khori (firewood) on the souka," she said.

The souka takes pride of place in the kitchen of almost every household in labour colonies across Assam's tea plantations. These kitchens are manned by Adivasi women labourers of hundreds of plantations spread across the northeastern state.

But cooking with firewood is becoming increasingly difficult. And for women like Tanti, what was once a routine survival practice has become something closer to a punishable offence.

A woman preparing food using firewood (Photo - Maitreyee Boruah, 101Reporters)

"The management of tea gardens has become very strict. Most women avoid openly collecting even uprooted tea bushes, branches, twigs, and leaves. Those who do so are scolded and beaten, too. A hefty fine, around Rs 500, is also imposed. It has become illegal to forage in the wild," said Tanti, a native of Balijan village, close to Arunachal Pradesh.

Every day, Tanti rides her bicycle five kilometres from Balijan to reach Cinnatolliah tea garden. Her eight-hour shift of picking tea leaves begins at 8 am. She has been working for 30 years now, almost without a break.

‘It has become dangerous’

Her concerns were echoed by Kalpana Ghatowar, 32, a tea garden labourer from Gatoonga tea plantation in Jorhat district. They are separated by 85 kilometres, but their issues remain the same.

"I have learnt cooking from my grandmother. She always cooked on a chulha. So did my mother. I also do the same. Thus, it is the responsibility of women of a household to collect firewood. It has become difficult to collect firewood now. Earlier, we would find sufficient firewood from fallen trees and dead tea bushes inside our tea garden. Now that is not the case," said Ghatowar.

"Since buying firewood is beyond our means, most women on the sly pick up branches, logs and twigs from the tea garden or nearby wild areas. I know a lot of women labourers who have faced verbal abuse or beating by forest guards or sardars (supervisors of a tea garden). It has become dangerous," she added.

Milika Topno, an Adivasi research scholar and lawyer from North Lakhimpur, said access to firewood remained a concern across tea gardens. "Women labourers are facing difficulties in arranging fuelwood for their kitchen. They often tell me of being scolded by supervisors and forest guards. With the rise in demand for forest products and parallel depletion of natural resources, the vigilance inside forests has increased," she said.

Foraged branches and twigs collected for domestic kitchen fuelwood (Photo - Maitreyee Boruah, 101Reporters)

Conservation versus livelihood

The plantation areas of Assam, since their inception two centuries ago, have always used firewood to cook. Tea gardens are planted close to forests, and the abundance of tea bushes and shade trees within them forms a vital agroforestry. The inhabitants — primarily Adivasis residing in labour colonies — have always had considerable access to forest products, including timber for fuelwood and non-timber products like medicinal plants and wild edible vegetables.

"On a routine basis, women labourers walk a few kilometres or ride their bicycles to collect firewood after their strenuous work at the bagaan. They carry the collected lot on their head as they come back home. It adds another layer of burden on the women," said Topno, whose parents are also tea garden labourers.

"Adivasi women are not the destroyers of forests or nature. They are rather helping the forest to regenerate. They know what to pick and what to leave untouched. They take what they need only. It is a symbiotic relation they share with the forests. Adivasis are the worshipers of nature," she added.

There is also a formal entitlement that is increasingly failing women on the ground. At a meeting held in Shillong in May 1962, a "firewood agreement for tea garden employees" was established. Under it, the Labour Commissioner was instructed to ensure that tea estates provide firewood to labourers.

"To date, every household should get 320 kilograms of wood annually from the management. If not, workers are paid around Rs 1,200 annually. But the amount varies from one tea garden to another," said Mahavir Ghatowar, 36, supervisor at Jorhat's Gatoonga tea estate. In practice, the firewood provided lasts only three to four months a year.

Tea estate officials have said that stricter vigilance is intended to stop unsustainable fuelwood extraction. Under the Assam State Forest Policy 2004, rural people living close to reserved forests are allowed to gather dead and fallen wood for domestic use, but cannot cut trees or damage forests.

"The times have changed. Where are the resources? Most forests are gone, and those that remain have become closed entities. So tribals, Adivasis and others settled close to forest areas are finding it difficult to collect wood, vegetables and other forest products," said Bhabesh Chandra Das, an Assam Forest Department official based in Guwahati.

Das, who previously headed the social forestry wing in Assam’s Baksa district, was measured in his assessment of the women foraging for survival. "The locals have always been protectors of forests. They know the forest inside out, more than any forest official. There are some anti-social elements among them, too. But they are the anomalies," he said.

Tea garden labourers having their meal during a break (Photo - Maitreyee Boruah, 101Reporters)

Legal constraints

Assam is governed by the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and the Wildlife (Protection) (Assam Amendment) Act, 2009, among others — all of which restrict unauthorised entry and foraging inside protected areas. Critically, Adivasis and tea tribes are not considered forest dwellers under law, and do not enjoy scheduled tribe status in Assam. Their access to forest areas has been legally restricted for decades.

The risks of venturing in regardless are not only legal. Das listed encounters with wild animals, snakebites, attacks by criminals, including human traffickers notorious across tea gardens, and unpredictable weather as dangers women face when they forage.

A tea garden worker earns Rs 280 a day since April this year, up from Rs 250. Temporary workers have no work for three to six months annually. Buying firewood from the market is beyond the means of most.

Workers and their families gathering outside within the tea plantation estate (Photo - Maitreyee Boruah, 101Reporters)

Arfan Hussain, director of Sewa, a non-profit organisation in Assam's Dibrugarh, works with tea garden communities on cooking practices. "We simply can't ask workers, who earn the bare minimum, to switch to an LPG cylinder for their better health and overall environment," he said. Sewa has installed more than 1,500 smokeless earthen chulhas free of cost in eight tea gardens, stoves that use 50-60 per cent less firewood than traditional ones.

For now, Tanti is caught between an unaffordable alternative and a shrinking resource. "The food cooked on chulha tastes much better than LPG gas, but I am tired of collecting firewood. It has become scarce with each passing day," she said. "So those with an LPG connection have kept their stoves and cylinders in their storehouse."

This story was produced as a part of 101Reporters Climate Change Reporting Grant.

Cover Image - A worker cooking a meal over using firewood (Photo - Maitreyee Boruah, 101Reporters)