Despite it arguably not being "sattvic", the Brahma Kumaris are great tea drinkers. It's said that at one point Lekhraj Kirpalani want to prohibit tea and coffee as they were not "pure" but the resistance of his Brahma Kumari followers was so great that he had to give that idea up to appease them.
A recently report links the black tea you drink to the terrible examples of human trafficking in India. In one estimate, there was said to be 100,000 trafficked girls in Delhi alone. Some as young as 12 years old.
Now, it must be said the god of the BKs is not overly concerned about this ... despite claiming to the "The Lord of the Poor".
His chosen instruments of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, are far too busy chasing the rich, powerful, famous and good looking Bollywood stars ... or offer free and paid services to corporate executives ... to worry about such "weak" and "impure" souls (sarcasm), as the mainly indigenous tribes who make up the rural workers who pick their tea.
Indeed, those same Brahma Kumari instruments teach that those children must have done such very bad karma in their past life for it to happen to them!
But is it really so ... or it is just a combination of global capitalism, and caste exploiting marginal cultures who were themselves historically trafficked there by the British in the first place?
The simple BK solution ... "no hurry, no curry, no worry!" ... "it's the Fag End of the Iron Age and everyone has to suffer!!!" ... "don't think, don't ask, don't question" ... "just remember the BK Baba and just send them your good wishes" ... why, that will make you a "World Benefactor" and "earn you multi-millions" in the future heaven on earth to come!
All tea plantations pays the same wages. Every leaf of every box of Assam tea sold by leading brands and supermarkets is picked by workers who earn a basic 12p an hour.
Whether it says says 'Fairtrade' on the box or is certified by the 'Rainforest Alliance' or the 'Ethical Tea Partnership' etc, it makes no difference. Workers received the same basic cash payment of 89 rupees (£1) a day, a little over half the legal wage for an unskilled worker. Each worker receives about 2p in cash for picking enough tea to fill a box of 80 tea bags, which then sells for upwards of £2 in the UK.
The price for keeping wages so low is that the workers cannot afford to keep their daughters and when the traffickers come offering to take the girls away, promising good wages and an exciting new life, they find it hard to say no.
The traffickers promise excitement and glamour, instead the girls often started to work every day at 4am and work until midnight, and are often never paid; kept as prisoners, unable to leave the house or contact her family, afraid they will end up in a brothel.
Some are sold to men as a playthings and then dumped, sick and diseased, after suffering rape, torture, kidnap, abuse.
In 2011-12, Indian government figures showed 126,321 trafficked children were rescued from domestic service, a year-on-year increase of nearly 27%. According to India's National Crime Record Bureau, a child goes missing in India every eight minutes. More than a third are never found. Village traffickers receive 4,000 rupees to 10,000 rupees per girl ($70 to $160). The girls, cheated of their wages, never get their money which is withheld and taken by their agents or suppliers. Many of the traffickers are women. In Delhi, the going price for a maid can be as much as 60,000 rupees, for which middle class buyers feels they have purchased the girl.
According to the Indian Tea Association, all workers in the main Brahmaputra valley estates receive a little over half the minimum legal wage and below internationally acknowledged poverty levels. Foreign tea sellers know this and hide behind certification schemes and claims of additional benefits and food rations which are, in fact, ways of keeping workers tied into semi-feudal relations with tea garden owners. The lion's share of the price of tea ending up in their profits, companies could easily afford to ensure all tea workers are paid a decent wage.
And how much different are the young girls handed over to the Brahma Kumaris with their dowries treated? I mean, why change an "impure" system when one can just exploit it to one's own benefit? ...
There are other options if you want to make a difference in this life ... NGOs like Odanadi aim to create a global movement to combat human trafficking, child exploitation and sexual violence and to rescue, protect and rehabilitate victims of trafficking and help them lead free, independent lives. To ensure that perpetrators of trafficking are brought to justice.
A recently report links the black tea you drink to the terrible examples of human trafficking in India. In one estimate, there was said to be 100,000 trafficked girls in Delhi alone. Some as young as 12 years old.
Now, it must be said the god of the BKs is not overly concerned about this ... despite claiming to the "The Lord of the Poor".
His chosen instruments of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, are far too busy chasing the rich, powerful, famous and good looking Bollywood stars ... or offer free and paid services to corporate executives ... to worry about such "weak" and "impure" souls (sarcasm), as the mainly indigenous tribes who make up the rural workers who pick their tea.
Indeed, those same Brahma Kumari instruments teach that those children must have done such very bad karma in their past life for it to happen to them!
But is it really so ... or it is just a combination of global capitalism, and caste exploiting marginal cultures who were themselves historically trafficked there by the British in the first place?
The simple BK solution ... "no hurry, no curry, no worry!" ... "it's the Fag End of the Iron Age and everyone has to suffer!!!" ... "don't think, don't ask, don't question" ... "just remember the BK Baba and just send them your good wishes" ... why, that will make you a "World Benefactor" and "earn you multi-millions" in the future heaven on earth to come!
From How poverty wages for tea pickers fuel India's trade in child slavery ...
When the trafficker came knocking on the door of Elaina Kujar's hut on a tea plantation at the north-eastern end of Assam, she had just got back from school. Elaina was 14 and wanted to be a nurse. Instead, she was about to lose four years of her life as a child slave.
She sits on a low chair inside the hut, playing with her long dark hair as she recalls how her owner would sit next to her watching porn in the living room of his Delhi house, while she waited to sleep on the floor. "Then he raped me," she says, looking down at her hands, then out of the door.
Elaina was in that Delhi house for one reason: her parents, who picked the world-famous Assam tea on an estate in Lakhimpur district, were paid so little they could not afford to keep her. There are thousands like her, taken to Delhi from the tea plantations in the north-east Indian state by a trafficker, sold to an agent for as little as £45, sold on again to an employer for up to £650, then kept as slaves, raped, abused. There are thought to be 100,000 girls as young as 12 under lock and key in Delhi alone: others are sold on to the Middle East and some are even thought to have reached the UK.
The trade, because the money which has been earmarked for the area by the government never reaches those who need it [due to corruption].
All tea plantations pays the same wages. Every leaf of every box of Assam tea sold by leading brands and supermarkets is picked by workers who earn a basic 12p an hour.
Whether it says says 'Fairtrade' on the box or is certified by the 'Rainforest Alliance' or the 'Ethical Tea Partnership' etc, it makes no difference. Workers received the same basic cash payment of 89 rupees (£1) a day, a little over half the legal wage for an unskilled worker. Each worker receives about 2p in cash for picking enough tea to fill a box of 80 tea bags, which then sells for upwards of £2 in the UK.
The price for keeping wages so low is that the workers cannot afford to keep their daughters and when the traffickers come offering to take the girls away, promising good wages and an exciting new life, they find it hard to say no.
The traffickers promise excitement and glamour, instead the girls often started to work every day at 4am and work until midnight, and are often never paid; kept as prisoners, unable to leave the house or contact her family, afraid they will end up in a brothel.
Some are sold to men as a playthings and then dumped, sick and diseased, after suffering rape, torture, kidnap, abuse.
In 2011-12, Indian government figures showed 126,321 trafficked children were rescued from domestic service, a year-on-year increase of nearly 27%. According to India's National Crime Record Bureau, a child goes missing in India every eight minutes. More than a third are never found. Village traffickers receive 4,000 rupees to 10,000 rupees per girl ($70 to $160). The girls, cheated of their wages, never get their money which is withheld and taken by their agents or suppliers. Many of the traffickers are women. In Delhi, the going price for a maid can be as much as 60,000 rupees, for which middle class buyers feels they have purchased the girl.
According to the Indian Tea Association, all workers in the main Brahmaputra valley estates receive a little over half the minimum legal wage and below internationally acknowledged poverty levels. Foreign tea sellers know this and hide behind certification schemes and claims of additional benefits and food rations which are, in fact, ways of keeping workers tied into semi-feudal relations with tea garden owners. The lion's share of the price of tea ending up in their profits, companies could easily afford to ensure all tea workers are paid a decent wage.
And how much different are the young girls handed over to the Brahma Kumaris with their dowries treated? I mean, why change an "impure" system when one can just exploit it to one's own benefit? ...
There are other options if you want to make a difference in this life ... NGOs like Odanadi aim to create a global movement to combat human trafficking, child exploitation and sexual violence and to rescue, protect and rehabilitate victims of trafficking and help them lead free, independent lives. To ensure that perpetrators of trafficking are brought to justice.