South Asia: Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Islands of the Indian Ocean - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 263

Figure 9-10
Picking tea in Sri Lanka. T Typically, , supervisors
are male and the pickers are female. Photograph
courtesy of B. A. Weightman.

because of pressure from the powerful Buddhist Sangha
(a non-government group representing all forms of
Buddhism), they were disenfranchised in 1948. Since India
refused to recognize them as citizens, these Tamils were
virtually stateless.
Other minorities are the aboriginal V eddas and the
Burghers , descendants of the Portuguese and Dutch. The
Burghers are Christian and speak English. There are also
Muslims, a religious minority in this Buddhist country .
In 1931, Britain granted Ceylon limited self-government
and in 1948, full independence.
A controversial development project was launched
with British and other aid in the 1950s, an era when
dam building was at the forefront of foreign aid and
regional development. Incorporated in the Mahaweli
Development Program, the Victoria Dam was the world' s
largest aid project at the time. Although the dam was to
provide electric power and irrigation, it required the
displacement of 1.5 million people. T Typical of many
grandiose schemes, construction costs tripled and the
government was forced to raise taxes. Displacees were
settled in isolated areas with poor infrastructure and
adverse climatic conditions. They also suffered psycho-
logically from being uprooted from their traditional
homeland. Eventually they became known as Victoria' s
victims .
The Victoria Dam was part of a larger scheme for
agricultural colonies in the eastern zone. Here, the climate
was drier and the hilly land less fertile. More signif-
icantly , Sinhalese colonists clashed increasingly with
Tamil inhabitants, presaging the problems to come.

Leaves are hand picked and graded according to
size and position on a branch. The bud and top two
leaves are the best and earn the label “Orange
Pekoe.” T Tea bags contain small, broken leaves
known as “fannings.”
The flavor of tea is derived from local growing
conditions and processing. For example, Darjeeling
tea has a peach aroma and is called the champagne
of tea. Earl Grey tea is flavored with oil of bergamot,
extracted from an orange-like citrus. Jasmine tea is
green tea mixed with jasmine flowers.
There are three basic categories of tea: “black”
tea is fermented; “oolong” tea is partly fermented;
and “green” tea is unfermented. Fermentation
includes bruising, wilting, and drying, followed by
rolling. As more surface is exposed to the air, tea
juices oxidize. Hot-air drying stops the process. In
the case of green tea, the freshly picked leaves are
dried immediately .
China, India, and Sri Lanka are the world' s
largest tea producers. However, it is also grown in
Bangladesh, Kenya, Indonesia, Japan, Georgia, and
Azerbaijan. Are you a tea drinker? Investigate the
variety and origin of the types you enjoy most.

The British brought Hindu, Tamil laborers from
Tamil Nadu in India into predominantly Buddhist Sri
Lanka. These nineteenth-century plantation workers
were distinguished from the Sri Lankan Tamil settlers of
earlier times and are known as estate Tamils . In fact,