Luxury hotel chain Jetwing has come under fire for selling a ‘line room experience’ as part of its Jetwing Warwick Gardens experience in Ambewala.

Named ‘Meena Amma’s Line Room Experience’ the offer is designed to ‘immerse you into the lives of Sri Lanka’s iconic tea pluckers’.

The attempt has been widely condemned on social media for romanticizing a colonial labour built on the harshest conditions.

Social media users have also drawn attention to the fact the to date, Sri Lankan tea pluckers are some of the most marginalized sections of society.

‘The conditions in which Indian-Origin Tamil plantation labourers live are some of the worst in the island with poor access to basic sanitation, healthcare and are actively excluded from the state welfare system and left to the whims and mercies of plantation companies, Facebook user Vindhya Buthpitiya wrote. 

'Many remain in a sense bonded, because they are obliged to ensure that at least one family member continues to work on the estate to retain their housing (which in many instances are line derelict rooms that are unsuitable to accommodate as many people as they do),' she pointed out further. 

'The nature of these living arrangements compounds very serious issues of domestic abuse/violence, incest and interlinked suicide (among women notably). Women and children are made particularly vulnerable in this context,' she wrote, asking, 'Is this included in ‘Meena Amma’s line room experience?'

‘Jetwing Hotels, does this experience include being forced out of India, packed into ships like cattle, and being brought to work in a strange land? Does this experience include plucking and carrying over 20Kgs of tea on your back as you walk barefoot through tea bushes? How about worrying if you will return home to find your daughter raped? Or if you'll be in time to avoid getting assaulted by your drunk husband?’, another user wrote.

'Dear Jetwing hotels, after years of colonialistic oppression and years of neglect plantation communities, remain one of the most vulnerable communities whose rights are not fully realized. It is sad that you choose to sell it as an 'experience' to a foreigner/ or a local perpetuating colonialistic mentality. Also, it is degrading to a country to sell these experiences of people's lives, who if given the chance, would not live the way they live. Please do better, wrote another.