It is proudly said that Malaiyaha Tamils have a history of 200 years in Sri Lanka. But, even though we have fourteen Grama Niladhari divisions in this area we still have the same four feet rooms as houses. In the same line houses, we are still living as a society that has been experiencing various…
Indian-Sri Lankan temporary citizenship was granted during my father’s time. I worked in the plantation as a tea plucker. Ordinary share certificate was given to us in 1997. This document was proof that we have worked in the plantation. We do not have land ownership. If we have land ownership, we can renovate this house….
Before coming to this hut, we were living in the line houses. There was no facility there and we used to stay in a rented house. There was no electricity and no toilet facilities either. This place belongs to the estate. Another person was living here and we paid money to buy this place. We…
There are five of us. I have three children. My wife goes to work in the estate. I go to work in the private vegetable estate here. When we say income, it is only the day’s work. My wife gets 1500 rupees, out of which she spends 500 rupees on bus transportation and the remaining…
Both me and my wife are working in the plantation. Our community has lived over 200 years but we can’t enjoy most of the rights mentioned in the laws of this country, since we belong to the minority. Even if we have lived 200 years we don’t have our own land. We are unable to…
The letters we receive are posted to the name of the estate since we don’t have our own personal address. People have lost university opportunities, job opportunities etc because we do not have permanent addresses. It is a big problem for us since we are unable to receive the letters posted by the school for…
Unlike other people in the country, we do not have a formal identity. We are called Indian Tamils. But we identify ourselves as Malayagam Tamils. We cultivate tea which is a major economic source for this country. However, we are not getting proper pay and till date we do not have our own address. We…
Our first Line residence was uninhabitable, so the estate supervisors told us that they would build new houses. This work started in 2018. The houses built were not completed and there were many shortages. Even though these houses are built, we do not have the deed to this land. An old man was recently taken…
We were given a certificate of temporary citizenship. We don’t have house ownership, land ownership, or citizenship rights. If we were given house ownership, we would have been given an address and a house number. We still don’t have our own address. The letters we are receiving are sent to the estate administrative office. Everything…
We get wages only on the day we go to work, we have to compulsorily pluck 20 kgs of tea leaves for 1000 rupees per day. If we take less than 20kg then we are given a wage of only 500 rupees. On a monthly basis if we work for 22 days we get only…