Siliguri District and The Hollowing Out of Darjeeling, author Anjani Sharma Bhujel explains how a proposed new district of Siliguri would formalise forty years of quiet extraction from the hills

The recent proposal to form a separate district of Siliguri, and cut it away from Darjeeling is not a sudden change. It marks the end of a forty-year shift, where resources meant for the hills have quietly moved to the plains. Making Siliguri a new district would lock in this imbalance and break the territorial basis of the Gorkha claim, which is older than Indian Independence. This could happen without any debate in the legislative assembly, or the Parliament.

Leaders from Darjeeling, Kurseong, Mirik, Kalimpong, Siliguri, and Dooars owe the people a clear public stance. Staying silent is also a choice. Every elected representative from Darjeeling, Kurseong, Mirik, Kalimpong, Siliguri and Dooars owe the people of the hills a clear, public position. Their silence is itself a position.

The proposal on the table

The new district idea has been set in motion with a letter sent by the Matigara-Naxalbari BJP MLA Anandamay Barman to the chief minister. The letter suggests that the entire Siliguri sub-division, Matigara, Naxalbari, Phansidewa and Khoribari blocks, be separated from Darjeeling and joined with the Dabgram-Fulbari areas of Jalpaiguri district, to form a new district called Siliguri.

There is a new government in the state, of which MLA Anandmay Barman is a second time elected leader, and Siliguri MLA Shankar Ghosh and Phansidewa MLA Druga Murmu on the treasury benches, who could push forward with this.

Since, this is just at a proposal state, we still have time to make a strong case against the separation of our historic territorial areas. But for that to happen, the arguments and resistance against any such move must begin now.

The Siliguri district proposal does not arrive in isolation. In the same fortnight in May 2026, the new state government has cleared the transfer of seven national highway stretches from the state PWD to central agencies, with NHAI taking over NH-31, NH-33 and NH-312, and NHIDCL taking over the Sevoke-Coronation Bridge stretch, Siliguri-Darjeeling stretch, the Hasimara-Jaigaon route and the Changrabandha corridor. Five of the seven stretches pass through the Siliguri Corridor itself. NH-10 to Sikkim and NH-110 to Darjeeling, the two highways most directly serving the hills are among those, now under central control.

In parallel, the state has transferred one hundred and twenty acres of land in the Chicken’s Neck to the Border Security Force for India-Bangladesh border fencing. Three substantial restructurings of North Bengal’s administrative geography in three weeks, all under a national-security framing, all moving at a pace that previous state governments had been unable or unwilling to match.

I strongly believe, among all these, the Siliguri district proposal is the most consequential of the three because it changes the civil-administrative authority over land, people, revenue and policing. It is not just the engineering control of road surfaces or the fencing of a border line, yet it is not separate from the other. They constitute a pattern, and the pattern itself merits attention.

The slow shift of power that nobody noticed

It is not impulsive idea to separate Siliguri off from Darjeeling. It’s the official recognition of the process, which has been ongoing, administratively and developmentally, for much of the last forty years. The power in our region has been gradually shifted from the hills to the plains. Institutions and infrastructure have been allocated for the entire district of Darjeeling, was cunningly spent and shifted to a single sub-division, which is now proposed to be a new district.

The institutional drift must be taken into account first. The Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad was set up in 1989 as a sub-divisional council which has district level powers, the only one of its kind in entire India.

In 1994 the Siliguri Municipal Corporation was formed with forty seven wards in two districts, and the Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Authority was formed to garner urban-planning powers which were previously held by the Darjeeling district administration.

Siliguri Police Commissionerate was established in 2012, with the jurisdiction of over 640 sq kilometers of Siliguri city and the adjoining sub-urban areas in the plains.

Every single step, seen in isolation seemed in each case to be a legitimate urban-administrative reform. But when seen holistically, it clearly emerges that they were all a part of the major plan, without anyone being aware of it as a part of the one larger project – to separate Siliguri from Darjeeling. The hills weren’t complaining. In most cases the hills did not even know what happened, they were occupied in changing flags and establishing new kings.  

Let’s now look at the developmental drift, which is the more significant half of the story. It was established in 1962 with the aim of catering the needs of the entire region, the University of North Bengal was located in Matigara, in the plains, not in the hills, at Raja Rammohanpur.

In 1968, the Medical College of North Bengal was established to cater to the population of the same region and was located once again in the plains at Sushrutnagar in Matigara. In 1990, North Bengal Dental College was built and now it is housed at Matigara.

Bagdogra airport, in Darjeeling district by virtue of sitting in Naxalbari block, was built and progressively upgraded through grants attributed to district aviation infrastructure, with every new runway extension and terminal expansion booked to the district’s account.

The Industrial Estate of North Bengal was established at Matigara. NH 4 to Sikkim was four laned in Siliguri sub-division. No parts of the Asian Highway corridor, which connects Bhutan/India and Bangladesh is outside the proposed carve-out area as it goes through Bagdogra and Phulbari.

The recently announced underground railway to pass through the Siliguri corridor, which is of national-security importance in the field of defence logistics and is worth several thousand crore rupees, ends at Siliguri sub-division.

On paper, every one of these is “Darjeeling district infrastructure,” paid for out of central and state allocations attributed to a district whose three hill sub-divisions never saw the spending.

This is the main problem with the Siliguri district proposal, and it should be said plainly. For the last forty years, Siliguri’s progress has been counted as “Darjeeling district’s” success. The airport appears in the tourism brochures. University appear in the education ministry reports. The medical college appears in the health budget speeches. The highway appears in the NHAI map books. The hills have been the brand; the plains have been the beneficiary.

The plan-document accounting that allowed central and state allocations to flow into Siliguri infrastructure under the heading of “Darjeeling district development” has been the financial mechanism through which the hills have funded their own marginalization. Money meant for Darjeeling’s development was mostly spent in Siliguri, so the hills ended up paying for their own neglect. 

Technically and legally every rupee spent in Matigara, Naxalbari, Bagdogra was the rupee of the district, it was also the hills’ rupee since the hills were part of the district. None of it returned to the hills. None of the institutions built with it serve the hills directly. None of the highway alignments reach the hills.

When Siliguri is carved out as a separate district, every one of those assets physically leaves with it. They were never retained by the hills in any meaningful administrative sense. They merely appeared in Darjeeling district statistics, in its audited accounts, in its representation to Delhi and Kolkata. After the carve-out, even that fiction ends. That is the total inheritance of forty years of being “Darjeeling district” while Siliguri’s growth was being recorded as the district’s growth.

The hills produce, Siliguri trades

The institutional drift described above has hardened into a single contemporary reality. Darjeeling district today is a producer-region whose produce is monetised, traded, valued and taxed almost entirely in Siliguri.

The best-known example is, of course, the tea of Darjeeling. The premium GI Marked leaf grown in the eighty-seven recognised gardens above 1,000 metres in the areas of Darjeeling-Pulbazar, Kurseong, Mirik, Jorebunglow-Sukhia and Rangli-Rangliot is auctioned in the Siliguri Tea Auction Centre. The centre started in 1976 and is one of the major tea auctions in India, and where a hill kilogram of tea turns into a national or international price. Auctioneer commissions, brokerage fees, warehousing rents and the GST on the sale all accrue to the place of auction.

The growers retain the cost of production and a fraction of the realised price. The value is captured in Siliguri.

The same pattern repeats across every category of hill produce. The Siliguri Regulated Market, or mandi of Siliguri is one of the biggest wholesale markets for agriculture products from the hills and Terai to the plains, to the rest of India and the trans-shipment routes to Bhutan, Bangladesh and the North East.

In Bidhan Market, wholesale fruit and vegetables, oranges from Sittong, Mirik, cardamom from higher slopes and ginger from Kurseong-Pulbazar are sold. Siliguri is the entry point for every single source of income from a hill harvest that is recorded as a national number, ranging from mandi cess to market-yard fees, weighbridge charges, the margin of the commission agents, cold-chain rents and export-pipeline tariffs via the Phulbari Land Customs Station.

Add to this the Tea Board of India’s Siliguri Regional Office at the Sahid Bhagat Singh Commercial Complex on Sevoke Road, the head offices of every major tea broker and exporter, the agricultural marketing committee, the GST registration desks for tea and horticulture traders, the cold-chain certification authorities, the spice and cardamom grading laboratories.

All of them sit in Siliguri. All of them administer the conversion of hill output into recorded national value.

That last fact deserves a pause. The Tea Board of India is the statutory regulator for the most famous mountain tea in the world. It could have placed its regional office at Darjeeling town, the global brand name stamped on every premium tin shipped to London, Tokyo and Berlin. It chose Sevoke Road, Siliguri.

The world’s most famous hill tea is regulated from the plains, and the arrangement is so old that no one any longer finds it strange. The hills grow and produce. Siliguri trades and earns. The transfer is administered today under the legal fiction that both belong to the same district. After the carve-out, that legal fiction disappears.

The hills become a producer-region for a trading hub that is no longer even nominally their own. The economic asymmetry that has existed for decades becomes formal, administrative and structural, written into the district map.

A grower in Mirik will continue to bring oranges to the Regulated Market at Siliguri, but the market fee, the licence, the storage rent and the export tariff will enter the books of a different district. A tea garden in Jorebunglow will continue to send its first-flush kilograms to the Siliguri auction centre, but the auction commission, the brokerage and the GST on the sale will all be recorded as Siliguri district revenue, not Darjeeling’s. The arrangement as it exists today is extractive in economic terms but at least notionally unified administratively.

The proposed arrangement is extractive in economic terms and formally separated administratively. There is a name for that pattern. It is the relationship a colonial power maintains with a producing hinterland whose trade it controls, but whose autonomy it does not concede.

What physically walks out of Darjeeling district

A district is not a sentiment. It is a balance sheet. Remove the Siliguri sub-division out of Darjeeling and the following physically leaves: Bagdogra International Airport, the only commercial airport serving Sikkim, Bhutan and the eastern Himalayas; the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital at Sushrutnagar in Matigara, the only tertiary referral hospital for hill residents, tea-garden workers and the working poor across three districts; the University of North Bengal at Raja Rammohunpur, the only state university for the region; the North Bengal Dental College; the entire industrial belt that runs from Matigara through Bagdogra to Naxalbari; the Mechi land border crossing at Panitanki, which is the only commercial road border with eastern Nepal in this part of India; and every single kilometre of district’s international border with Bangladesh, which runs through Phansidewa and Kharibari blocks.

Let me remind you again these are not just places or landmarks they are sources of income, trade and revenue of the Darjeeling district.

What Darjeeling district retains after the carve-out is five hill blocks: Darjeeling-Pulbazar, Jorebunglow-Sukhiapokhri, Rangli-Rangliot, Kurseong and Mirik. It retains the district headquarters at Darjeeling town, the three hill municipalities, the UNESCO World Heritage Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, the premium GI-marked Darjeeling tea gardens, and a stretch of hill border with Nepal and the interstate border with Sikkim, none of which carry commercial crossings of any consequence.

The district would have no airport. No university. No medical college. No international border with Bangladesh. No revenue base of any substance beyond cyclical tea and seasonal tourism. The district’s population, currently around eighteen lakh after the 2017 Kalimpong bifurcation, would fall to roughly seven or eight lakh, making it the least populous district in West Bengal, smaller than every other district in North Bengal, and administered from a district headquarters whose own town has a population of just over a lakh.

It would not be a district in any meaningful administrative sense. It would be a museum with a DM’s office.

The people who pay the price first

The arithmetic of district reorganisation hides behind the language of administrative efficiency, but its weight falls on people who do not write newspaper columns.

A tea worker from a Mirik garden referred for emergency cardiac care travels today to NBMCH at Matigara. After the carve-out, that hospital sits in a different district. The administrative machinery of inter-district referrals, ambulance transport tie-ups, welfare-payment routing and labour-board adjudication, running poorly enough when one DM signs both ends of a file, degrades further when two DMs are involved. The patient does not experience this as paperwork. The patient experiences it as a delay.

A student from Kurseong or Kalimpong attending the University of North Bengal sits for examinations governed by a new Siliguri DM and a Siliguri Police Commissionerate that have no political stake in the hills.

Hostel disputes, identity verification, scholarship disbursements all route through an administration whose constituency lies elsewhere.

None of this is theoretical. The 2017 Gorkhaland bandh demonstrated, with brutal clarity, what happens when the plains and the hills fall out of administrative or political sync. There was an estimated daily loss of Rs 2 crore for Siliguri businesses, hill establishments unable to receive supplies, tea consignments stranded at NJP. The Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of North Bengal estimated then that some 75 per cent of Siliguri’s commerce depended on the Sikkim-Darjeeling axis. The plains-hills relationship is functional infrastructure. The proposal treats it as a wall.

The Gorkhaland question, and why this is the heart of the matter

Here is the part that has not been said loudly enough, and which transforms this from an administrative debate into a constitutional one.

The Gorkhaland demand, as articulated continuously since the Hillmen’s Association petition of 1907, through the All India Gorkha League’s formation in 1943, through Subash Ghisingh’s GNLF in 1980 and Bimal Gurung’s GJM thereafter, has never been a demand for the three hill subdivisions alone. It has been, from the very first petition, a demand for the contiguous Nepali-speaking territory of North Bengal, comprising the hills, the Terai and the Nepali-majority pockets of the Dooars.

Every map of proposed Gorkhaland, in every iteration of the movement, has included substantial parts of Siliguri sub-division and large tracts of what is today Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts.

This is not an academic point. The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration Act of 2011, which the present West Bengal chief minister herself signed into law, explicitly placed eighteen mouzas of Siliguri sub-division within GTA jurisdiction. Those mouzas lie in Naxalbari and Matigara, the very blocks Barman’s letter now proposes to detach.

The Centre’s Permanent Political Solution process for the Gorkhaland question, on which former BSF Director-General Pankaj Kumar Singh was appointed interlocutor in 2024, is premised on assessing exactly which Terai and Dooars areas should be folded into any future autonomy or statehood arrangement.

A separate Siliguri district pre-empts that process.

Once Naxalbari, Matigara, Phansidewa, Kharibari and the Dabgram-Fulbari belt are constituted as a single administrative unit headquartered in Siliguri city, with its own DM, its own SP, its own bureaucratic identity, its own assembly representation that focuses around plains demographics, its own development authority and its own revenue lines, bringing any of these areas back into a future Gorkhaland becomes politically and administratively far harder.

A district once created in India is almost never uncreated. The carve-out is, in plain language, a quiet pre-settlement of the territorial component of the Gorkhaland question, done without consultation with hill parties, without Parliament, without a referendum, and without the political-solution framework the Government of India has nominally committed to.

The people advocating the proposal know this. The MLAs proposing it represent Matigara-Naxalbari and Siliguri, the very constituencies whose Gorkha and Adivasi voters would, in any honest accounting, have a stake in whether their mouzas join a future Gorkhaland or stay in a Bengal-administered Siliguri district. The proposal asks them to make that decision now, in 2026, without admitting it is being made.

The Terai is not a foreign appendage attached to the hills; it is part of the same human geography. Phansidewa and Bagdogra have substantial Nepali-speaking populations whose families have lived there for  generations, and the tea-garden workforce of the Terai is overwhelmingly Adivasi and Gorkha. Their political voice in district affairs has always run through hill institutions, hill parties and hill networks. Cutting off these blocks administratively is not a neutral change. It is a demographic rearrangement of political power.

Table 2: Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste populations in the affected blocks (Census 2011).

Limb by limb: the geography of a vanishing homeland

The Gorkhaland demand at its origin was for a contiguous territory of roughly thirteen thousand square kilometres covering the hills, the Terai and the Nepali-majority Dooars. Look at a map of that territory today and trace what has been taken from it, one administrative decision at a time.

The Dooars came off first. The Nepali-majority blocks of Banarhat, Birpara, Madarihat, Kalchini and Kumargram, with their tea-garden populations of Gorkha and Adivasi workers, were quietly removed from administrative consideration when Subash Ghisingh accepted the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council in 1988.

The DGHC covered only the hills. The Dooars demand was deferred, with assurances that it would be addressed in a fuller settlement. It never was. Forty years later, those blocks remain in Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts, administered by DMs who have no political stake in the Gorkha question.

An entire wing of the original homeland was traded for a hill council, and the hill leadership of the day accepted that trade.

The next reduction came with the 2011 GTA Act, when Bimal Gurung signed an agreement that covered the hills plus eighteen mouzas of Siliguri sub-division. Eighteen mouzas out of an originally claimed territory containing many more.

The rest of the Terai was again deferred. The political logic was familiar. A bigger council than the DGHC, more powers, more positions, more patronage. In exchange, a smaller territory than originally claimed. The Gorkha leadership of the day accepted that trade too.

Now the proposed Siliguri district takes those eighteen mouzas off the table altogether. After the carve-out, the Terai is no longer even nominally within reach of any future Gorkhaland settlement. What began as a claim to roughly thirteen thousand square kilometres of hills, Terai and Dooars is being reduced, by successive administrative decisions made over forty years, to roughly two thousand square kilometres of hills alone.

Each reduction was accepted by the hill leadership of the time on the same logic: the offer of a kingdom, however small, in exchange for the surrender of a claim, however historic.

It is worth saying this plainly, because no one in the hill leadership has been willing to. The geographical fragmentation of the Gorkha homeland has not happened only because successive state governments wanted it. It has happened because successive generations of hill leaders preferred the certainty of a position over the uncertainty of a principle.

Ghisingh chose the DGHC chairmanship over continuing the Gorkhaland agitation in its full territorial form. Gurung chose the GTA chief executive’s office over insisting on the full territorial scope of the original demand. Anit Thapa today runs a GTA whose boundaries were drawn by an agreement his predecessor signed and whose territorial claim he has not publicly insisted upon since taking office. Each generation of leadership has accepted a smaller body with greater personal authority in place of a larger claim with greater collective meaning. The Gorkhaland map has shrunk in exact proportion to the careers built on its diminution.

The Siliguri district proposal asks the current generation of hill leadership to make the same trade one more time. To accept the carve-out, quietly, in exchange for the continued running of a hill council whose territory shrinks every decade. If they accept it, the next reduction is not difficult to imagine. A future state government, looking at a Darjeeling district reduced to five hill blocks and seven lakh people, will note that the hills could be reorganised more efficiently still. There will be proposals to merge sub-divisions. To rationalise municipal boundaries. To absorb the GTA into a more compact administrative unit. Each of these will be presented as a small adjustment. Each will be accepted, if past is prologue, in exchange for some new sinecure.

The hill leadership must understand that there is no point at which this process stops by itself. It stops when the leadership refuses to trade territory for position. The Siliguri carve-out is the place to refuse. After it, there is not much left to refuse over.

Figure 3: The Gorkhaland territorial claim, compressed  across four decades.

The habit of protesting too late

There is a second pattern, related to the first, that the hills must break if any of the above arguments are to matter. It is the habit of reacting to decisions only after they have been finalised.

The history of the Gorkhaland movement, viewed honestly, is a history of bandhs called too late. The agitation of 1986 to 1988 came after decades of administrative decisions had already settled the status quo. The bandh of 2007 came after the DGHC’s territorial limits had been accepted for nineteen years. The bandh of 2013 came after the GTA Act of 2011 had already codified the eighteen-mouza compromise. The hundred-and-four-day bandh of 2017 came after the GTA was already a functioning institution running on the very terms the bandh purported to reject.

Each agitation was a protest against a decision the hill leadership had failed to oppose at the moment it was being made. Each ended in an exhausted negotiation that delivered less than the bandh had demanded.

This is not a coincidence of personalities. It is a structural failing of how hill politics has organised itself. The Gorkha public discourse mobilises around symbols and grievances after the administrative substance has been settled, rather than engaging with the administrative substance before it hardens. Decisions are taken in cabinet rooms in Kolkata and Delhi while hill leaders are touring constituencies.

By the time the gazette notification arrives, the political space for opposition has already collapsed into the narrow choice between a destructive bandh and a humiliating acceptance.

The proposed Siliguri district is, at this moment, still a proposal. It is a 2025 letter from a BJP MLA to a chief minister, picked up by a 2026 state government that may yet be persuaded to slow down. It has not been gazetted. It has not been notified. The asset-transfer arithmetic has not been published. The consultation with the GTA has not happened. The political risk assessment for the Gorkhaland and Kamtapur questions has not been written, let alone debated. This is the window in which proactive opposition can actually shape the outcome. After gazette notification, the only response left will be a bandh, by which time the carve-out will be administratively irreversible and a thousand crores of business will have been lost in the hills and the plains for a result that was decided months earlier.

The hills must learn, before another decade of reactive politics passes, that statehood is built in the years before the decision and not in the weeks after it. Memorandums must be filed now, while the proposal is still a letter. Legal opinions must be sought now, while the cabinet has not yet considered it. Cross-party hill meetings must be convened now, while the issue is still amenable to compromise.

The tea industry, the chambers of commerce, the university faculty, the GTA, the church and monastery networks must be persuaded to take public positions now, while their positions can still influence the drafting of the proposal. Memoranda submitted after gazette notification end up in archive folders. Memoranda submitted before it end up in cabinet briefing notes.

This requires a different kind of politics than the hill leadership has practised for forty years. It requires patience. It requires research. It requires the willingness to engage with state-government file numbers and central-government interlocutor schedules rather than with the more emotionally satisfying language of grievance.

It is, in short, the politics of foresight rather than the politics of reaction. The Gorkhaland movement, if it is to mean anything at this stage of its history, must learn to fight for its territory at the moment the territory is being redrawn, not in the months after the new map has been printed.

Table 3: Major Gorkhaland bandhs and the decisions they were reacting to.

Why every hill politician must speak, and what their silence so far reveals

This is what makes the silence of the hill leadership the single most disturbing feature of the present moment.

Anit Thapa’s Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha, which controls the GTA, has issued no public position on the Siliguri district proposal. Yet the GTA’s territorial coherence depends precisely on those eighteen Siliguri sub-division mouzas remaining within reach of any future settlement. BGPM lost the Darjeeling assembly seat to BJP’s Noman Rai in 2026. It cannot afford a second strategic loss by default.

Bimal Gurung’s Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, the original architect of the post-Ghisingh phase of the Gorkhaland movement, has been quiet. Mann Ghisingh’s Gorkha National Liberation Front, the formal custodian of the founding demand, has been quiet. Ajoy Edwards’ Hamro Party and the Indian Gorkha Janshakti Front, which built their political identity on a critique of the older parties’ inertia, have been quiet.

The two BJP MLAs who proposed this, Anandamay Barman and Shankar Ghosh, owe their constituents an explanation of how a separate Siliguri district is compatible with the Permanent Political Solution that their own party’s MP from Darjeeling, Raju Bista, has been demanding since 2019.

Bista himself has so far avoided the question. He cannot keep doing so. The Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency covers every assembly seat at stake. If its MP cannot articulate a position on whether these blocks belong administratively to the hills or to the plains, the seat itself has stopped speaking for its people.

The tea industry has stayed out of the conversation. So have the chambers of commerce, the hoteliers, the transport associations, the university faculty, the church and monastery networks. Each of them stands to be directly affected. Each of them has, until now, treated this as a debate for politicians. It is not. It is a debate about which DM signs which licence, which sub-divisional officer routes which welfare scheme, which Commissionerate registers which company.

Silence will not protect them from the consequences. It will only make them irrelevant to a decision being taken about them.

The right way to do this, if it must be done

We are not blind to the problems of Siliguri. None of this is an argument that Siliguri’s current governance arrangements are adequate. They are not. Siliguri’s urban agglomeration of more than twelve lakh people, expanding to roughly eighteen lakh across the wider area proposed for the new district, cannot reasonably be administered from a hill district headquarters more than seventy kilometres away.

The Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad model has run out of administrative road, and there is a legitimate case for stronger local governance for the Siliguri urban area, but the legitimate response to that problem is not a unilateral district carve-out.

It is, at minimum, three things. First, a public feasibility study covering revenue impact on Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri, the asset-transfer arithmetic, and a formal political risk assessment for the Gorkhaland and Kamtapur questions, published in full, not whispered between cabinet secretaries.

Second, a formal consultation with the GTA, with hill parties of every persuasion, with Adivasi and Rajbanshi community organisations whose ancestral territories are also at stake, and with the Centre’s Permanent Political Solution interlocutor.

Third, an explicit written commitment, gazetted, not merely promised, that the creation of any Siliguri district does not foreclose the territorial scope of the Gorkhaland settlement currently under negotiation and Siliguri if a district made will be a part of the state created.

If those three things cannot be done, the proposal should not proceed. If they can be done, the hills will have a fair say. Either way, the present trajectory of a 2025 MLA’s letter, a sympathetic 2026 government, no public study, no consultation and no commitment, is unacceptable.

First restore, then separate

If, despite all of the arguments above, the new state government is determined to proceed with a separate Siliguri district, there is one further principle that must be conceded before any line is drawn. It is a principle that gives the carve-out, at minimum, the moral cover of fairness rather than the appearance of theft.

It is this. For forty years, institutions and infrastructure built in the name of Darjeeling district have been physically placed in Siliguri, paid for out of allocations attributed to a district whose hill sub-divisions saw none of the actual investment. The University of North Bengal, the North Bengal Medical College, the North Bengal Dental College, the Tea Board’s Siliguri Regional Office, the Siliguri Tea Auction Centre, the Regulated Market for hill produce, the airport runway upgrades, the AH-grade highway alignments, the upgraded NH 10 to Sikkim. Every one of them was funded as Darjeeling district development. Every one of them serves the hills nominally. Very few of them serve the hills in practice. The hills have been the financial guarantor and the brand-name of a development pattern that has benefited the plains.

If Siliguri is now to be carved out as a separate district, those accumulated investments cannot simply walk out unaccompanied. The principle that must be established, in writing, in cabinet resolution, gazetted before any district notification, is that separation requires restitution.

What was built in the hills’ name must, before the line is drawn, either be relocated to serve the hills, or be financially settled in their favour, or be placed under joint administrative arrangements that guarantee hill access and a hill revenue-share.

In concrete terms, that means at least four things. First, a one-time capital settlement transferred from the new Siliguri district to the residual Darjeeling district, calculated on the audited share of central and state allocations attributed to Darjeeling district that were physically spent in Siliguri sub-division over the last twenty years.

Second, a commitment to build hill-located satellites of the major institutions. These would include a North Bengal University campus in Kurseong or Darjeeling, a tertiary referral hospital in the hills with referral parity to NBMCH, a tea auction sub-centre with priority handling for GI-marked Darjeeling tea, and a fully operational airstrip in the hills with state subsidy on essential connectivity routes.

Third, ongoing revenue-share arrangements on the trade of Darjeeling-branded produce, since the “Darjeeling” name remains owned by the hills regardless of which district handles the auction.

Fourth, joint administrative arrangements over the Siliguri Tea Auction Centre, the Tea Board Siliguri Regional Office and the Siliguri Regulated Market, with formal hill representation on their governing bodies.

These are not radical demands. They are the minimum that any honest district reorganisation in India should provide, and they have in fact been provided elsewhere.

When Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, the financial settlement between the two states ran into thousands of crores and inter-state asset-sharing arrangements continue to this day. When Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000, large parts of the legacy administrative apparatus were either physically relocated to Dehradun or settled in the new state’s favour. The Kalimpong carve-out of 2017, by contrast, transferred few accumulated assets because Kalimpong had few. The Alipurduar carve-out of 2014 was geographically clean.

Siliguri’s case is qualitatively different from both. It would take with it the single largest concentration of accumulated public investment in any West Bengal district bifurcation since the state was constituted. That makes the restitution principle non-negotiable.

The proposal currently on the table makes no such provision. It assumes, silently, that the hills will accept the carve-out and the asset transfer as a fait accompli. It assumes they have already conceded their claim to forty years of investment recorded in their name. The hills must insist on the opposite principle. Nothing leaves without an honest accounting. First restore, then separate. If the new state government refuses, the answer is straightforward. The carve-out cannot proceed.

A decision being made in your name

The people of Darjeeling district, in both the hills and the plains, are about to have a decision made about them without being asked. They will lose their airport, their medical college, their university, their international borders and the better part of their economic base. They will, in addition, lose the territorial integrity of a Gorkha claim that pre-dates Indian Independence itself, not by argument, not by referendum, not by parliamentary debate, but by an administrative notification quietly tabled at a state cabinet meeting and signed into effect.

This is the moment for the hill leadership to speak. The list of those who must speak includes BGPM, GJM, GNLF, Hamro Party, the BJP MP, the BJP MLAs who proposed it, the tea industry, the hoteliers, the academics, the church and monastery networks, and the civil society of Darjeeling town, Kurseong, Kalimpong and Mirik. Not in private channels. Not after the fact. In public, in print, in the Assembly, in the Lok Sabha, in the streets if necessary.

The case against this proposal can be made on revenue grounds, on connectivity grounds, on people’s welfare grounds, on Gorkhaland-question grounds. Any one of those would be sufficient. Taken together, they are overwhelming.

The hills have been told for forty years that their demands are too inconvenient, too divisive, too premature, too late. They have been asked to wait. While they have waited, the plains beneath them have been administered, developed, contested and, now, prepared to be detached.

The proposal to carve Siliguri out of Darjeeling is not a routine administrative reform. It is the most consequential territorial decision affecting the Gorkha people since the GTA Act of 2011, and it is being taken at a faster pace, with less consultation and with fewer legal safeguards.

If the hill leadership cannot find its voice now, when an airport, a university, a medical college, an international border and the territorial heart of its political identity are walking out of the district in a single move, it will not find that voice later. The carve-out, once gazetted, is unlikely to be reversed. The political claim, once fragmented, will be far harder to reassemble.

Speak now. Or accept that what comes next was decided in your silence.

Writes: Anjani Sharma Bhujel

The post Siliguri District and The Hollowing Out of Darjeeling – Beware appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.

“Revisiting the Old Gorkha Thum Dorjeling: Then & Now The Darjeeling Odyssey” by Pratap Chandra Pradhan – ISBN 978-81-987416-2-2 – Reviewed by Dr. Samar Sinha

Pratap Chandra Pradhan, a well-known littérateur and film-maker in Nepali, has established himself as a chronicler of Darjeeling with his Nepali book Purano Gorkha Thum, Dorling: uhile ra ahile, published in 1984. Since this book was banned in India, when I met him for the first time in 2011, I asked him for a copy, which he couriered a photocopy a week later.

          Revisiting the Old Gorkha Thum Dorjeling: Then and Now, with a subtitle, The Darjeeling Odyssey, is an updated English version of the same earlier book, an odyssey from Darjeeling’s past to its future as Gorkhaland. He relegates the popular British narrative on Darjeeling, beginning with the Deed of Grant in 1835. Although he does not cite the sources, Pradhan mentions that Darjeeling was part of the Kingdom of Prag Jyotishpur; later, it was under the Bodo and Koch dominion in the 16th century. Further, he provides an account of Darjeeling as a thum (lit. hillock), an administrative unit for taxation under the Kirat rule.

          Pradhan cites the earliest Sikkimese record of 1761, which mentions a monastery at Mahakal Dara (the Observatory Hill) at the present-day Darjeeling town. He does not say that Darjeeling was/is a part of Mayelyang(of the Lepchas)as toponyms and hydronyms suggest, but he writes, “local place names, archaeological findings and historical records indicate that the area was inhabited by … the Lepcha, Bhote, Limbu, Kirat Rai and Magar” (pg. 20). With his vast repository of references across the chapters, Pradhan establishes that “prior to 1835, …present day Darjeeling and Sikkim was home to …Nepali speaking communities.” (pg. 26) rather than of the immigrants.                         

          He narrates that from 1789 to 1816, Darjeeling was a part of Nepal. In the Anglo-Nepal War (1814-16) and the subsequent Treaty of Sugauli in 1816, Nepal had to cede Darjeeling to the East India Company (EIC). It was the Treaty of Titalia with Sikkim in 1817, the EIC reinstated Darjeeling to Sikkim, making the latter a buffer state between Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet. However, Antu, a hilltop now in Nepal, remained a contention between Sikkim and Nepal. In 1828, Captain (later, General) Lloyd and Grant set foot on Darjeeling to mediate the issue, and the British romance with Darjeeling began from then.

          In 1835, through the Deed of Grant, the EIC acquired, “…out of friendship … all the land south of the Great Rungeet River, east of the Balasan River, Kalyail and Little Rungeet Rivers, and west of the Rungus and Mahanadi Rivers”(Mainwaring 1876: viii). Besides, he has elaborated on the ‘push and pull factors’ that led to Darjeeling’s transformation, and the birth of Nepalipan and the emergence of Gorkha. These parts of Darjeeling’s history are often repeated in several chapters in the book.

          By Captain Lloyd’s estimate, “all the land” was “30 miles long and 10 miles at some places in breadth,” and was referred to as the “Darjeeling Tract” (Pinn 1986: 15) rather than Darjeeling. This polysemy of Darjeeling between “Darjeeling Tract” and the Darjeeling district (see Mukherjee and Mercer (1962) on the formation of the Darjeeling district) is blurred, and often the reader gets an impression of today’s Darjeeling rather than the “Darjeeling Tract.”

          Kalimpong, a Bhutanese territory, was integrated with Darjeeling following the Treaty of Sinchula in 1865. In 2017, the Darjeeling district was bifurcated into Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts. He narrates that the trade relations with Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet flourished via Kalimpong. Ultimately, Pradhan provides how “Kalimpong (which) was considered insignificant” (pg. 23) became a strategically important satellite town of Darjeeling, and became “a contact zone” (see Viehbeck 2017).

          Pradhan makes reading pleasant in his several accounts on the etymology of Darjeeling and its spellings. Although he has not mentioned Waddell (1899/1998) and Wangyal (2023) for various other etymologies of Darjeeling, including its forgotten version as Dorjeelingka – a place of thunderstone (corresponding to Norbulingka in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India). He mentions how Darjulyang (lit. abode of Gods in Lepcha, see Plaisier 2007: 176), Dorjeling (the cave of the mystic thunderbolt, see Waddell 1899/1998), Dorling, Darjiling became Darjeeling to refer to Queen of Hill Stations, Queen of Hills, Old Gorkha Station, Purano Gorkha Thum, summer capital, etc. and became famous for Tea, Tourism and Timber or toy-train.

In a similar spirit, in nine chapters, he traces the status of Darjeeling as a sanatorium, as a part of the Rajshahi under the EIC, under the Bhagalpur administrative division in the post-Bengal division, Excluded Area, Partially Excluded Area, Absorbed Area, Greater Nepal, a separate administrative unit (for Darjeeling) under the Hillmen’s Association (1917), integration with Assam by Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League (1943), Gorkhasthan including Sikkim by Communist Party of India (1947), Gorkhaland movement and its backdrop (under Subash Ghising and Bimal Gurung), limited autonomy under Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) and Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA), demand for the Sixth Schedule tribal council, etc. In essence, he has dwelled upon every aspect of Darjeeling, including language movement, Gorkha vs. Nepali, the perception created by the 1950 Indo-Nepal Friendship Treaty, establishment of political parties, 15 Development Boards, Darjeeling-Sikkim merger, Five-Decimal Plot, proposal for integration of Darjeeling into the North East Council (NEC), etc.

          Pradhan has proposed a narrative (opposed to the colonial account) to ascertain a deeper symbiotic relationship, background, and aspirations between Darjeeling and its populace, revealing undocumented, unwritten, hidden aspects, or bringing into the forefront those kept in the shadows. In chapter IX, by highlighting the contemporary development regarding ‘Permanent Political Solution’ (PPS), and the existential angst that Darjeeling and its people face, he opines that a “Think Tank Organisation” to steer towards Gorkhaland. Penultimately, as an elderly statesman, he has placed “Key Points for Consideration” (pg. 164) – a hope that can be effective in the future struggle for Gorkhaland.

          It is important to flag out that “the Lepcha and Bhutia …these tribes are descendants of those migrated from eastern Sikkim to settle in Sikkim” (pg. 28-29) is true regarding the Bhutias, not the Lepchas. In chapter II, Pradhan has stirred up a hornet’s nest – “tribe,” a problematic category as it evokes and connotes different meanings to different sectors of the Indian population (see Sinha & Turin in press). On the issue of “tribe” in Darjeeling, Pradhan has surprisingly taken recourse to the 1991 Constitution of the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (pg. 40), for no apparent empirical reason. It is an unwanted anchorage and could have been avoided by the author. There are a few editing errors like “Hooker historian” (pg. 26); “migrated eastwards into Sikkim” rather than “migrated southwards into Sikkim” (pg. 27); Ballabh Mani (not Vallabhmani pg. 30); Kalyail (not Khare pg. 37); “prposed” (pg. 75); “The words indigenous, tribe, native, immigrant, and forest-dweller are actually derived from Nepali” (pg. 39) and “Gorkhaland or Nepali land” (pg. 44), on Khye Bumsa, etc. need further elaboration. Similarly, “Madan Tamang, a former leader of the Darjeeling Hill Council” (pg. 74) and his discussion of the sociological categories are off track. Although he has cited 34 references, Waddell (1899/1998), Pinn (1986), Namgyal & Dolma (1908), Pradhan (2008) and Mainali (BS 2070/2071) are felt to be missing prominently.

          Revisiting the Old Gorkha Thum Dorjeling: Then and Now, with a foreword by Durga Pradhan (author’s close relative and social activist), is a result of Pratap Chandra Pradhan’s longitudinal study of Darjeeling, driven by personal anecdotes, supported by various individuals and institutions as mentioned in his acknowledgements. The book dedicated to the martyrs owes its genesis to the idea of “preserving the knowledge of the past, present, and future of the historical soil of our ancestors.” It is enriched with maps, photographs, followed by references and a glossary. The book cover, illustrated by Avishkar Chandra Pradhan (the author’s son, a Bangalore-based artist), has lent an additional idyllic charm to Darjeeling and its toy train. The book is supplemented with quotes and Nepali proverbs (in English) and pointers to the literary works that make reading enjoyable, but the in-text citation is awkward. He has used Roman as well as Devanagari for the Nepali and other terms, which have successfully captured the essence in addition to the glossary of these words. However, printed on the FSC-certified paper, the pagination does not adhere to the publication standards. One realises that the book could have been better curated by the publisher.

          Despite these matters not so diverting, Revisiting the Old Gorkha Thum Dorjeling: Then and Now, a narrative on the transformation of Darjeeling, offers a ground to engage with the communities and autonomy. The book is without any theoretical underpinnings that make it easily accessible to common readers. Like his personality, Pradhan is soft, mild, polite, cautious, wise, as well as essentialist in his writing too. Revisiting the Old Gorkha Thum Dorjeling also (re)establishes the tradition of storytelling about Darjeeling, and Pradhan as a tall chronicler. In addition, undoubtedly, it is not only a new landmark in the study of Darjeeling (in English), but also stimulating enough to pursue the PPS of Darjeeling as Gorkhaland, yet another Darjeeling’s transformation that the author envisions.

References

• Mainali, Mohan. BS 2070/2071. Mukam Ranamaidan. Kathmandu: BookHill.
• Mainwaring, G. B. 1876. A Grammar of the Róng (Lepcha) Language. Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press.
• Mukherjee, B.K. & Mercer, A.V. A. 1962. A Short History of Darjeeling and its People. (Publisher not mentioned).
• Namgyal, Thutob & Dolma, Yeshay. 1908. History of Sikkim. (Translated by Kazi Dousandup)(Publisher not mentioned).
• Pinn, Fred. 1986. The Road of Destiny: Darjeeling Letters 1839. Calcutta: Oxford University Press.
• Plaisier, Heleen. 2007. A Grammar of Lepcha. Leiden: Brill.
• Pradhan, Gupta. 2008. Dhumil Pristaharu. Darjeeling: Gama Prakashan.
• Pradhan, Kumar. 2004. Darjeelingmaa nepali jaati ra janjaatiyaa chinarikaa nayaa adhanharu. The Mahesh Chandra Regmi Lecture 2004. Kathmandu: Social Science Baha.
• Pradhan, Pratap Chandra. 1984. Purano Gorkha Thum Darjeeling uhile ra ahile Gorkhalandtira. Darjeeling: Deepa Prakashan.
• Sinha, Samar & Turin, Mark. in press. The Tribal Languages of Sikkim.In Devy, G.N. & Temsen, Grace (eds.), People’s Linguistic Survey of India. Tribal Languages of India — the North East, Vol. 40. Delhi: Orient BlackSwan
• Viehbeck, Markus. (ed.). 2017. Transcultural Encounters in the Himalayan Borderlands: Kalimpong as a “Contact Zone.” doi: https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.301.409
• Waddell, L.A. 1899/1998. Among the Himalayas. Delhi: Pilgrims Book Pvt. Ltd. 
• Wangyal, Sonam B. 2023. Darjeeling Place Names. Darjeeling: BukAnt.

—

Samar Sinha (PhD, JNU) teaches Linguistics and Semiotics in the Department of Nepali, Sikkim University. He is the Coordinator of the Centre for Endangered Languages at Sikkim University, Sikkim, India.

The post Revisiting the Old Gorkha Thum Dorjeling: Then & Now The Darjeeling Odyssey – A review appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.

Today the young beautiful girl, Rukmani who was 23 years old at that time, is now 61 years. She lives alone in her house in the Chandralok, BT College, area. She is surrounded by her sister, brothers and sister in laws, relatives and friends. Life goes on, a normal life to look at from outside. Only she herself knows the pain and ordeal she has suffered hiding the sadness of a lost youth because she had the courage to face the bullets on that fateful July day.

On that terrible day of 27th July 1986, many people lost their lives in the police shooting at Thana Dara (Police Station crossing) on the Main Road, at the Engine Ghar at 9th Mile, and elsewhere in Kalimpong. She was participating in the julus (protest procession) organised as the Gorkhaland demand led by Mr. Subash Ghising’s GNLF party under the program of Gorkhaland statehood demand movement. The agenda of the day was to be the symbolic burning of the 7th clause of the 1950 Indo-Nepal Friendship Treaty.

During the unprovoked firing by the CRPF stationed at the Thana Dara crossing into the oncoming peaceful procession several people dropped dead on the spot. Young Rukmani Chettri was hit by bullet shrapnels that pierced the side of her face and entered into her neck area. She fell bleeding onto the ground. In a matter of a few minutes, the dead were strewn on the street. There was panic amongst the agitators and blood was splashed everywhere on the road. Someone found her laying unconscious, and took her, along with others, dead or wounded, to the sadar hospital.

As her treatment was not successful here in Kalimpong, after some days, with the help of Kalpana Rana Gurumajue, she was treated in Delhi, and there pieces of bullets and metal fragments were removed from inside her cheek, jaws and neck area.

Currently, she suffers from hearing problems and has been suffering from a ringing sound in the ears. She also has trouble swallowing and solid food gets stuck in her throat while eating.

In the passion of her youth devoted to the cause of her people, who willingly entered the struggle for the freedom of Gorkhaland, she narrowly cheated death but suffered for years afterwards under the grip of an unjust regime. The WB government imposed 9 different false cases against her. She was booked for sedition, rioting and even of police murder. Entangled in these legal cases she stayed hidden for two and a half years. Finally she surrendered to the authorities, was arrested and spent 3 months in jail before being released and the cases against her dismissed.

Not only has she spent a life of trauma after that fateful day, 38 years ago, she has paid the price for her boldness and courage very dearly. She carries the scars and disabilities from the bullet wounds quietly as a badge of honour. Rukmani has never flouted the sacrifices she has made, looked for recognition or compensation.

A procession of, the so called, political leaders have come and gone in the hills. Even after the local bodies like DGHC and now GTA has been ruling in the hills for more than 3 decades, but no one has looked for her in all these years. Many Saheed Diwas have been celebrated in Kalimpong but Rukmani is never remembered. Perhaps she regrets that she did not herself become a martyr on that day. At least she would have received the recognition like the others who died on that day and her name would be etched internally in the list of Gorkhaland martyrs.

Today, 27th July 2024, the hills will celebrate yet another Saheed Diwas. Like every year our ‘leaders’ and public will pay homage to those who layed their life for Gorkhaland. But for living martyrs, like Rukmani Chettri, it will be a day to remember and relive that moment when the bullet of fate changed life for ever. Like everyday, she will probably be alone in the solitude of her house not far from where the dead martyrs are being remembered and praised.

It’s not too late to give due recognition to this forgotten freedom fighter who has sacrificed her living life for the idea and dream that is Gorkhaland. Please share your opinions and suggestions. Let’s not forget this daughter of Gorkhaland.

Jai Gorkha, Jai Gorkhaland.

— o0o —

Article: Translated and adapted by Devendra Basnet, from a post in Nepali by Smt Deepa Rani Thakuri.

Photo: Deepa Rani Thakuri, Kalimpong

Originally posted on: Stories of Kalimpong

The post Rukmani, A Living Martyr of Gorkhaland. appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.

Darjeeling Historical perspective shows West Bengal doesn’t own our land, so who are they even elibile to force 5 decimal land upon us? asks our contributior Alok Yangden Subba.

दार्जीलिङको ऐतिहासिक भू-भाग अनि चिया बगानको ५ डेसिमल जमिन

ऐतिहासिक पृष्ठभूमि :– बिस्तारवादी ब्रिटेनले स्पेन, फ्रान्स, पोर्टुगल र हल्याण्डका ब्यापारीहरूले भारत संग व्यापार गरेर आफैंलाई समृद्ध बनाएको देखेर ३१ दिसम्बर १६०० ई° तिर भारतमा इस्ट इण्डिया कम्पनीको स्थापना गर्छ। कालन्तरमा बम्बई, मद्रास र बंगाल अंग्रेजहरूको हात पर्छ। ऐतिहासिक दृष्टिकोणले तीन भागमा विभक्त गर्न सकिने टिस्टा नदीको पश्चिमी भू-भाग दार्जीलिङ सदर र खर्साङ महकुमा, पूर्वीय भू-भाग कालेबुङ महकुमा र तराईको भू-भाग सिलगढी महकुमा तिर विभिन्न शासकहरूले राज्य बिस्तरावादी नितिहरू अपनाउन थाल्छन्। त्यसै अनुरूप टिस्टा नदीको पूर्वीय खण्ड र डुवर्सको केही भू-भाग सन १६०६ ई° तिर भूटानले सिक्किमलाई जितेर आफ्नो राज्यमा गाभ्छ। बिस्तारै समयले गति फेर्दै जान्छ र सन् १७७३ लाग्छ । ब्यापारको निहुँमा इस्ट इण्डिया कम्पनीले भारतमा बिस्तारै राज्य बिस्तार गरेर एउटा प्रदेशको शासक बन्नलागेको देखेर ब्रिटिस पार्लियामेन्टले ई° सन १७७३ मा “रेगुलेटिङ एक्ट” जारी गर्छ फलस्वरूप ब्रिटिश इस्ट इण्डिया कम्पनीको कतिपय महत्त्वपूर्ण कार्यहरू माथि ब्रिटिश पार्लियामेण्टको नियन्त्रण हुन्छ।

सन् १७५० ई° मा नेपालले सिक्किम माथि चढाइ गर्न आरम्भ गर्छ र १७७७ मा सिक्किमलाई जितेर टिस्टा नदी सम्मको भू-भाग नेपालले आफ्नो अधीनमा ल्याउछ। त्यसको लगभग चालिस बर्ष पछि सन् १८१४ मा नेपाल र इस्ट इण्डिया कम्पनी सरकार माझ युद्ध छेडिन्छ फलस्वरूप ४ मार्च १८१६ ई° मा नेपाल र ब्रिटिस इस्ट इण्डिया कम्पनी सरकार माझ “सुगौली सन्धि” कायम हुन्छ।

यसरी नेपालले सिक्किमबाट जितेको तराई खण्ड सिलगढी महकुमा “सुगौली सन्धि” बामोजिन अग्रेजको हातमा सुम्पनु पर्छ। सन् १८१४ ई° मा अंग्रेजहरूलाई सहायता पुर्याएको र ब्यापार गर्न सिक्किमको बाटो व्यवाहारमा ल्याउने अनुमति प्रदान गरेकोमा १० फरवरी १८१७ ई° मा सिक्किम र इस्ट इण्डिया कम्पनी सारकार माझ “तितालिया सन्धि” हुन्छ। यस सन्धि पश्चात् नेपालबाट प्राप्त भू-भागहरू मध्ये कम्पनी सरकारले केही सर्तहरू बामोजिन मेची नदीको पूर्व खण्डको भू-भाग टिस्टा पर्यान्त दार्जीलिङ र खर्साङ सिक्किम राज्यलाई फिर्ता गराएर नेपाल र भुटानको मध्य स्थित राज्यलाई बफर स्टेट बनाउछ। यसरी दार्जीलिङ र खर्साङ सिक्किमको र कलेबुङ महकुमा भुटानको अधीनमा पर्न जान्छ।

“तितालिया सन्धि” भएको एक दशक पनि नबित्दै सन १८२७ ई° मा फेरि नेपाल र सिक्किम माझ युद्ध शुरू हुन्छ। “तितालिया सन्धि” बमोजिन नेपाल र सिक्किमको झगडा मिलाउनु क्याप्टन लोय्ड र जी डब्लु ग्रान्ट सिक्किलको रिन्चिनपोङ जाने क्रममा दोर्जेलिङ भन्ने पुरानो गुर्खा थुममा फरवरी १८२९ मा ६ दिनसम्म बस्छन् । हरियो वन जंगलले ढाकेको दार्जीलिङको शीतल टाकुरा संग लोय्ड मोहित बन्छन् र यो सुन्दर अनि स्वच्छ दार्जीलिङलाई स्वास्थ्य लाभ गर्ने स्थान बनाउन कम्पनी सरकारलाई सिफारिस गर्छन्।

यो भू-भाग स्वास्थ लाभ गर्ने स्थान मात्र नभएर नेपाल, तिब्बत र भोटानको सिमाना भित्र रहेको यो दार्जीलिङको भू-भाग सामरिक दृष्टिकोणले पनि अति महत्त्वपूर्ण रहेको बुझ्दछन्। लयँडको सिफारिस पछि गवर्नर जनरल विलियम बेन्टिकले डिपुटी सर्वेयर जनरल क्याप्टन हर्बर्टलाई ग्रान्ट संग यो भू-भागको निरीक्षण गर्न लाउछन् अनि कम्पनी सरकार दार्जीलिङको यो भू-भाग हात पार्न ई° सन १८३३ को जुन महिना देखि सक्रिय बन्दछन्।

योजनाबद्ध कार्यक्रमहरू लिएर क्याप्टन लोय्ड सिक्किमको राजा सामु प्रस्तुत हुन्छन्। उक्त प्रसंगमा राजाले तीनवटा प्रस्तावहरू राख्छन्। उपयुक्त प्रस्तावहरू मध्ये दुईवटा प्रस्तावहरू स्विकार्न क्याप्टन लोय्डले असमर्थता जाहेर गर्छन् अनि दार्जीलिङको भू-भाग कम्पनी सरकारको निम्ति माग्छन् र सट्टामा रूपियाँ अथवा मदेशको कुनै भू-भाग सिक्किमलाई दिन राजी भएको कुरा जनाउँछन्। बाध्यतावश राजाले एउटा स्वीकृति पत्र पठाउछन्। कालन्तरमा यसरी दार्जीलिङको भू-भाग कम्पनी सरकारको हातमा पर्दछ्न्।

स्वास्थलाभको कारण बनाएर सामरिक दृष्टिकोणले अति महत्त्वपूर्ण दार्जीलिङको यस भू-भाग हत्याई सके पछि ब्रिटिस कम्पनी सरकाले दार्जीलिङको यस भू-भागतिर भाैतिक पुर्वधारहरूको विकास शुरू गर्दै लान्छन्। यसै क्रममा उल्लेख गर्नुपर्ने अति नै महत्त्वपूर्ण बिषय के छ भने ई° सन् १८३३ तिर नै इस्ट इण्डिया कम्पनी र चीन माझ व्यपारबारे “सर्वाधिकार ” रद्द गरिंदा चियाको ठूलो अभाव हुन्छ। गभर्नर जनरल विलियम बेन्टिकले भारतमा चियाको खेती लगाउने अठोट गर्छ। फलस्वरूप चियाको बिरुवा लिन बोटानिस्ट गार्डनरलाई चीन देश तिर रवाना गर्छन्। उनी चियाको बिरुवा लिएर १८३५ तिर भारत फर्कन्छन्। फलस्वरूप दार्जीलिङको जलपहाडमा चियाको बिरुवा सारेर राखिने काम मेजर क्रमलिनको देखरेखमा हुन्छ र बिरुवा हुर्केपछि १८४२ ई° मा आलेबुङको सरकारी नर्सरीमा सारिन्छ त्यस पछि तकभरमा चियाको बगान लगाउने काम शुरू हुन्छ। चियाको खेती सितै यस भू-भागको मूलवासीहरूको शोषण पनि शुरूहुन्छ भन्नुमा दुईमत हुदैन जो आजप्रयान्त: कायम नै छ।

सन् १९१२ मा, दार्जीलिङको यस भू-भागलाई ब्रिटिस कम्पनी सरकारले प्रशासनिक सहजताको निम्ति बिहारको भागलपुर प्रशासनिक एकाईबाट राजशाही (बंगाल) प्रशासनिक एकाईमा हस्तान्तरण गर्छ। यसरी दार्जीलिङको यस भू-भाग बंगालको अधिनमा पर्नजान्छ।

त्यस पछिका केही गुरूत्वपुर्ण राजनैतिक घटनाक्रमहरू पनि उल्लेख गर्नु महत्त्वपूर्ण ठान्दछु।

• बंगालको प्रशासनिक दखलबाट दार्जीलिङलाई अलग्गै राख्नुपर्छ भन्ने माग सन् १९०७ मा नै उठान भएको हो र आजप्रयान्त: नै विभिन्न प्रकारले दोहोरिँदै आइरहेको छ।
• सन् १९०७ मा दार्जीलिङमा सर्वोच्च नागरिक समाज हिलमेन्स एसोसिएसनको गठन हुन्छ। सोनाम वाङगेल लाडेनलाको नेतृत्वमा एसोसिएसनले एउटा छुट्टै प्रशासनिक व्यवस्थाको माग गर्दै लर्ड मोर्ले र लर्ड मिन्टोको कमिसनलाई ज्ञपन पत्र बुझाउँछ।
• सन् १९१७ मा फेरि हिलमेन्स कमिसनले दार्जीलिङ जिल्ला र जलपाइगढी जिल्लालाई लिएर छुट्टै प्रशासनिक एकाइ गठन हुनुपर्छ भनेर पश्चिम बंगालका मुख्य सचिव, भारतका राज्य सचिव र भाइसरायलाई पुन एउटा ज्ञापन पत्र बुझाउछ।
• सन् १९२९ मा हिलमेन्स एसोसिएसनले फेरि साइमन कमिसन समक्ष यो माग उठान गर्छ।
• सन् १९३० मा हिलमेन्स एसोसिएसन, गोर्खा अफिसर्स एसोसिएसन र खरसाङ गोर्खा लाइब्रेरीले बंगाल प्रोभिन्सबाट छुट्टिने माग राख्दै भारतका राज्य सचिव श्यामुएल होरे समक्ष सयुक्त याचिका पत्र बुझाउछ।
• सन् १९४१ मा श्री रूपनारायण सिंहको अध्यक्षतामा हिलमेन्स एसोसिएसनले दार्जीलिङलाई बंगाल प्रोभिन्सबाट निकालेर एउटा चिफ कमिश्नर्स प्रोभिन्स बनाइदिन भारतका राज्य सचिव लर्ड पेड्रिक लरेन्सलाई बिन्तीपत्र चढाउछन्।
• सन् १९४३ मा अखिल भारतीय गोर्खा लीगले डुर्वस लगयतका भू-भाग सहित दार्जीलिङ जिल्लालाई बंगालबाट छुट्टाएर असाम प्रोभिन्समा गाभ्न माग गरेका थिए।
• ६ अप्रेल १९४६ मा भारतको अभिभाजित कम्युनिस्ट पार्टीले दार्जीलिङ जिल्ला, सिक्किम र नेपालका भू-भाग मिलाएर “गोर्खास्थान” को माग गर्दै संविधानसभामा एउटा ज्ञापन पत्र बुझाएको थियो जसको प्रतिलिपी अन्तरिम सरकारका भाइस प्रेसिडेन्ट पण्डित जवाहरलाल नेहरू र अन्तरिम सरकारका वित्त मन्त्री लियाकत अली खानलाई पनि पठाएको थियो। जस ज्ञापनपत्रमा लेखिएको थियो “भारतीय कम्युनिस्ट पार्टीको विचारमा दार्जीलिङ जिल्ला गोर्खाहरूको हो अनि यो उनिहरूको मातृभूमि हो।” – यस मुद्दालाई त्यसताकका तत्कालीन संविधानसभाका सदस्य व्यारिस्टर अडिबहादुर गुरूङले संविधानसभामा पनि राखेका थिए।

यत्ति धेरै ज्ञापनपत्र र बिन्तीपत्रहरू चढाउदा पनि दार्जीलिङको यस भू-भाग र यहाँको मूलवासी गोर्खा, लेप्चा र भोटियाहरूको पक्षमा किन सुनवाइ भएन ? यी मूलवासी गोर्खाहरूको ज्ञापनपत्र र बिन्तिपत्र चढाउने पद्धतिमा कुनै त्रुटि पो थियो कि ? यो अलग्गै अनुसंधान र सोधको बिषय भएको छ।

स्वतन्त्रता पछि भएका महत्त्वपूर्ण राजनैतिक घटनाक्रमहरू :-

• सन् १९५२ मा श्री एन° बी° गुरूङको नेतृत्वमा अखिल भारतीय गोर्खा लीगले कालेबुङ आउनुभएको बेला तत्कालीन प्रधानमन्त्री जवाहरलाल नेहरू संग भेट गरि बंगालबाट छुट्टिने माग राख्दै ज्ञापनपत्र बुझाएका थिए।
• सन् १९५५ मा जिल्ला श्रमिक संघका अध्यक्ष श्री दाैलत दास बोखिमको नेतृत्वमा दार्जीलिङमा रहेको बेला राज्य पुनर्गठन आयोजका अध्यक्षलाई दार्जीलिङ, जलपागढी र कुचबिहारलाई लिएर छुट्टै राज्य गठन हुनुपर्छ भनेर ज्ञापनपत्र चढाएका थिए।
• सन् १९८० मा प्रान्त परिषद्ले सहित्यकार श्री इन्द्रबहादुर राईको नेतृत्वमा तत्कालीन प्रधानमन्त्री श्रीमती इन्दीरा गान्धीलाई छुट्टै प्रशासनिक एकाइको माग गर्दै ज्ञापनपत्र चढाएका थिए।
• सन् १९८० मा श्री सुवास घिसिङको नेतृत्वमा गोर्खा राष्ट्रिय मुक्ति मोर्चाको गठन हुन्छ। “गोर्खाल्याण्ड” नामकरण गरि भारत भित्रै गोर्खाहरूको पनि छुट्टै राज्य निर्माण हुनुपर्छ भनेर आन्दोलन शुरू हुनु थाल्छ। १९८६ साल सम्म आाइ पुग्दा आन्दोलनले रक्तपातपुर्ण उग्र रूप लिइसकेको हुन्छ।
• सन् १९८६ को सितम्बर महिनामा (आन्दोलनकै क्रममा) दार्जीलिङको भू-भाग सिक्किमको, र कालेबुङको भू-भाग भुटानको हो भनेर पश्चिम बंगाल सरकारले दस्तावेज (श्वेत पत्र) नै जारी गर्छ।
• २२ अगस्ट १९८८ मा गोर्खा राष्ट्रिय मुक्ति मोर्चा प्रमुख सुवास घिसिङ, पश्चिम बंगाल सरकार र भारतको केन्द्र सरकार माझ त्रिपक्षीय सम्झौता हुन्छ। फलस्वरूप “दार्जीलिङ गोर्खा पार्वत्य परिषद” नाम गरेर अटोनोमस काउन्सिलको गठन हुन्छ।

यस पछिका राजनैनिक घटनाक्रमहरू वर्तमान पिढीलाई ज्ञात भएकै हो भनठानेर उद्धृत गरिरहन उचित ठानिन।

यी त भए भू-भाग सम्बन्धि ऐतिहासिक घटनाक्रमहरू।

उपरोक्त ऐतिहासिक दस्तावेजहरू हुँदाहुँदै पनि यो ५ डेसिमलको कुरा घरिघरि उठिरहदा र उठाई रहदा म त हाम्रो बुद्धिजीवी भनाैदाहरू संग पो तीन छक्क पर्छु। यि सत्तालोलुप माटो र जाति बिरोधी नेताहरू त आफ्नो पैसा अनि चाैकी को निम्ति जानिजानि सरकार र तल्लो तहका एकदुई जाना जाति बिरोधी एजेन्टहरूको सहयोगमा पहाडका सिधासादा जनतालाई बोरामा सुताउने काम गर्दैछ तर मिडिया र स्वयम्भु बुद्धिजीवीहरूले कि त नबुझेर हो या त ती जाति र माटो बिरोधी नेताहरूले जस्तै नाटक गरेको हो। पहाडको जनताले सूक्ष्म अवलोकन गरिएको छ।

पहाडको जनता त्यति अशिक्षित र लठुवा पनि छैनन् त्यति हो अत्यन्तै सोझो भने पक्कै छन्। सोझो जनताले समयलाई पर्खेर बसेका छन अनि समयमा जनताले सबै कुराको हिसाब किताब माग्छन् त्यतिबेला ती व्यक्तिहरू जसले माटो र जति बिरोधी क्रियाकलापहरू गरे र गरिरहेका छन् ती व्यक्तिहरू जवाफदायी हुनुको साथसाथै कालो इतिहास पनि लेखिने छन् यसमा दुईमत छैन।

कुरो एकदमै स्पष्ट छ दार्जीलिङको भू-भाग कसको हो ? प्रशस्त ऐतिहासिक दस्तावेजहरू अनुसार कहिले कसले अनि कसरी दार्जीलिङको यो भू-भागमा राजपात चलाए। विभिन्न सन्धिहरू हुँदै कहिले बफर स्टेट, लिजहोल्डलयाण्ड कहिले एब्जर्भ्ड एक्ट अनुसार कहिले देखि बंगालको अधिनमा आयो यो त भए ऐतिहासिक पृष्ठभूमिका बिषयबस्तुहरू जो माथि नै उल्लेख गरिसकेको छु। भू-भाग सम्बन्धि दस्तावेजहरू र सिङ्गो इतिहास त अब बताइ रहने जरुरत पनि छैन राज्य र केन्द्र सरकारलाई। उनिहरू दबाई पसलमा गएर चिकन मोमो माग्नेहरूको समुहमा पर्दैनन्। केन्द्र र राज्यले हाम्रो नाडी छामी सकेर अब यो पहाडेहरूलाई जसो गर्दा पनि हुन्छ, जे गर्दा पनि हुन्छ भनेर चुनावी प्रपोगण्डा चलाएको मात्र हो।

हाम्रो दुर्भाग्य र विडम्बनाको कुरो के छ भने, जसको यो भू- भाग हो, जो चहि यो भू-भागको असली मालिक हो उनिहरूले चँहि हामीले दार्जीलिङको भू-भाग भारत देश बनिन भन्दा पहिला नै अर्थात देश स्वतन्त्र हुनुभन्दा अघाडी नै हामीले फिरङगीहरको ब्रिटिस इस्ट इन्डिय कम्पनीलाई उपहार स्वरूप चडाइ सकेको हाैं। जन्म दिनमा दिइसकेको या विवाह बन्धनमा बाँधिएको उपलक्ष्यमा दिइसकेको उपहार कसैले फेरि फिर्ता देउ मलाई भनेर फिर्ता माग्छ र ? भन्नेखालको टिप्पणीहरू सरकारको प्रमुख ओहदामा बसेका व्याक्तिहरबाट समाजिक संजाल र प्रेस मिडियाहरूबाट समय समयमा सुन्न र पढन पाएकै हाै।

यसरी मूल मालिकले नै आफ्नो भू-भाग लत्तए पछि जमिन अनि जमिन संगै भारत देशमा विलय भएका मूलवासी हामी पनि लाथ्थालिङ्गै हुने नै भयाै नि।

हिलमेन्स एसोसिएसन, गोर्खा राष्ट्रिय मुक्ति मोर्चा हुँदै गोर्खा जनमुक्ति मोर्चा सम्म आइ पुग्दा समय समयमा दार्जीलिङ कालेबुङ र डुवर्सको भू-भागलाई लिएर भारत देश भित्र गोर्खाहरूको पनि छुट्टै राज्य “गोर्खल्याण्ड” हुनुपर्छ भनेर कहिले रक्तपात पुर्ण त कहिले गान्धीवादी आन्दोलन नचर्किएको पनि होइन। तर अहिले आएर यस भू-भागको ऐतिहासिक दस्तावेजहरू अनुसंधान र अध्यान गर्दा के निष्कर्ष पाउँछौं भने, हिलमेन्स एसोसिएसन लगायत अन्यहरूले त्यसताकका ब्रिटिस सरकारलाई दार्जीलिङको भू-भाग सम्बन्धि चढाएका ज्ञापन पत्र र बिन्तिपत्रहरूलाई के कारणले महत्त्व दिएनन् भन्दा “लडाउ अनि राज गर” भन्ने नितिमा अर्काको भू-भागमा राज गर्नु पल्केका ब्रिटिस कम्पनी सरकार यस भू-भागलाई स्वयेतत्ता दियो भने यस क्षेत्रका यी अनपढ र अशिक्षित नेपाली, लेप्चा र भोटिया जाति (समग्रमा गोर्खा), शक्तिशाली हुन्छन् र समय संगै शिक्षित पनि हँदै जान्छन् र ब्रिटिस सरकारको पक्षमा यी वीर गोर्खा जातिले कहिले पनि युद्ध लडि दिदैनन् भन्ने बुझेर ति ज्ञापन पत्रहरूलाई कुनै महत्त्व नै नदिएको भान हुन्छ।

उसो भए स्वतन्त्रता पछिका भू-भाग सम्बन्धित हाम्रा आन्दोलनहरू किन टुङ्गोमा पुगेनन् त भन्ने कुरामा विभिन्न दस्तावेजहरू अध्यान र अनुसन्धान गर्दा प्रथमतः भारतको केन्द्र सरकारकोमा विभिन्न अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय सन्धिहरूले छोएको दार्जीलिङको यो भू-भागहरूलाई समेटेर “गोर्खाल्याण्ड” राज्य निर्माण गर्ने क्षमता र इच्छाशक्ति नै थिएन। यस भू-भागका मूलवासी हामी उपरोक्त दस्तावेज अध्यान गरेर हो कि ? अध्यान नै नगरीकन भावनामा बगेर यस भू-भागलाई टुङ्गो नै नलगाई गोर्खाहरूको निम्ति गोर्खल्याण्ड राज्य हुनुपर्छ भनेर कराउनु थाल्यौं र आन्दोलन पनि चर्काइ पठायाै।

सिधै भन्नू पर्दा हामीले पहिला यस भू-भागको असली मालिक को हो ? टुङ्गो लगाईदेउ, हामीलाई हाम्रो मालिक भेटाइदेउ भन्नुको सट्टा हामीलाई गोर्खल्याण्ड चाहिन्छ भनेर तकनिकी रूपमा भुल गर्याै। जसको फलस्वरूप आज सम्म हाम्रो यो पवित्र माटोले मुक्ति पाउनु सकेको छैन। यी सबै बिषयबस्तुहरू अध्यान, मनन गरेर नै माननीय स्वर्गीय श्री सुवास घिसिङज्युले गोर्खाल्याण्ड “नफल्ने बनतरूल हो” भनेर भन्नु भएका हुन जस्तो लाग्छ।

हामीले नै दवाई दोकानमा गएर चिकन मोमो मागिसके पछि हाम्रो वाैदिक स्तरलाई जाँचेर भारतको केन्द्र सरकारले इच्छाशक्ति देखाउने त कुरा नै आएन। तर यहाँ गम्भीर कुरो के छ भने भारत को केन्द्र सरकारले दार्जीलिङको यस भू-भागलाई पश्चिम बंगालमा संगलग्न गराएर यतिका दिन सम्म शासन चलाई रहदा कुनै दिन अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय स्तरबाट दबाब पर्दैन भन्न सकिनदैन। त्यसैले सामरिक दृष्टिकोणले अतिनै संवेदनशील यो भू-भागलाई चाँडोभन्दा चाँडो छिमेकी मित्र राष्ट्रहरूलाई विस्वासमा लिएर गोर्खाल्याण्ड राज्य निर्माण गरेको खण्डमा समग्र भारत देश अन्तरिक अनि बाह्य रूपले नै सुरक्षित हुनेमा कुनै शंका छैन।

अन्तमा, अब आयो चिया कमानको ५ डेसिमल जमिनको कुरा, अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय सन्धिहरूले घेरेको दार्जीलिङको यो भू-भागको असली मालिकको टुंगो नलगाई भारतको केन्द्र सरकारले त कुनै कुरा दिन नसक्ने भएको खण्डमा साथै १९८६ सालमा पश्चिम बंगाल सरकारको तत्कालीन मुख्य मन्त्री स्वर्गीय ज्योति बासुले दार्जीलिङको भू-भाग सिक्किमको हो र कालेबुङको भू-भाग भुटानको हो भनेर श्वेत पत्र नै जारी गरिसकेपछि हाम्रो पुर्खाको खुन र पसिनाले सिँचेको चिया बगानको हाम्रो अधिनमा रहेको जमिनलाई ५ डेसिमल गरेर पश्चिम बंगाल सरकारले पर्जापट्टा दिनुसक्छ र ? तकनिकि रूपले प्रश्न चिन्ह खडा हुन्छ। यदि दिन सक्छ भने पहिला हाम्रो प्राण भन्दा प्यारो गोर्खाल्याण्ड राज्य निर्माण गर्नु सक्नुपर्छ।

आलोक येङदेन सुब्बा।
लेबोङ, दार्जीलिङ।

The post Darjeeling Historical Perspective and 5 Decimal Land appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.

Namastay, Nomoshkar, Khamri, Kuzo-zangbo, Tashi Deleg and Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to express my hearty congratulations to the members of the Gorkha Janamukti Secondary Teachers’ Association for holding this seminar and inviting me to say a few words.

I will be reading this paper in English, not because I cannot read, write or speak in Nepali but because I can do it better in English. Ho, Nepalima yo paper parayko bha ajja mitho ra suwaudo hunay thiyo. Ma chhama chanhanchhu. Tara yuddama jasari jun hatiyar chalaunu subista hunchha tyahi chlainchha yaha malai Angrezi mero subhistako hatiyaar ho jasto laagchha. When I was a schoolboy about 40 years ago my school Dr. Graham’s Homes, Kalimpong, did not have a Nepali Master. It was in my Senior Cambridge year that Mr Loben Lama was appointed to that post. So with just one solitary single year of Nepali classes I sat for the Senior Cambridge in 1968. My answer script was a total disaster, khatam bhanda pani khatam thiyo, but when the results came: I had passed with the skin of my tooth: junday ra pass bhayechha, actually examinerko daya amayalay malai pass garai diyekoho jasto laagchha. So that is my Nepali education, and now at this age I am learning the finer nuances of the language, the basics of grammar and I hope in a year or two things will change. My paper relates to the history of Darjeeling but it will not touch on the tea and cinchona industries, it will avoid development of education, local self-government and I will not even touch upon the thirteen or fourteen times we have petitioned for a homeland of their own. But before I commence I would just like to state that 1907 petition for a separate homeland is the oldest, the senior-most of its kind in India. Ek saya barsa katyo, tyo demandko chhora-chhori, naati, panatiharulay pani statehood paisakyo tara hami aaja pani banchit chou. Anyway this paper will keep track of the early history of Darjeeling, its incorporation into the East India Company or the British Empire and the paper will end at when Darjeeling is joined to Bengal.

(1) THE THREE COMMUNITIES: BHUTIAS, GORKHAS & LEPCHAS

The history of Darjeeling has intimate relationship, nang ra masukojasto, to the history of Sikkim, Nepal, Bhutan, and the East India Company and thereby to Britain. It will be appropriate to start from Kharsang for it was here that Maharajah Thodup Namgyal and Maharani Yeshay Dolma were imprisoned. jailed, locked up by the British and it was here that they wrote a historical book on Sikkim.

It was translated into English by Kazi Daosamdup and he called it History of Sikkim. I have a copy of this rare document and therefore I will be extensively, freely and purposely quoting from it. In the manuscript the boundaries of Sikkim is defined as follows: “They were Dibdala in the North, Shingsa Dag-pay, Walung, Yangmak, Khangchen, Yarlung and Timar Chorten in the West, down along Arun and Dud Kosi Rivers, down to Maha Nodi, Nuxalbari, Titalia in the South. On the East Tagong La, and Tang La on the North.” These boundaries were defined after the enthronement, coronation, the appointment of the first Chogyal of Sikkim, Phuntshog Namgyal, 1642 CE.

The first things the new ruler did was to construct forts called dzongs which operated as the military and administrative units. To these dzongs he appointed dzongpens, or fort masters, the local administrators or chiefs and they were all Lepchas, thus the Lepchas were appeased, made happy, made content. But that left out the Limbus and the Magars. The Magars staunchly resisted Bhutia incursion and political domination, and they actually went to war against the new rulers. The fact that the Magars were pretty well organized can be assessed from the forts they built which the ruling community in Sikkim called them Magar-dzongs.

Eventually, the Magars lost and a large part of them got pushed westwards.

As far as the Limbus were concerned the Chogyal made a pact called Lho-mon-tsong-sum (lho-Bhutias, mon-Lepchas, tsong-Limbus, and sum-three), thus giving us the Bhutia-Lepcha-Limbu trinity.

Now what importance this patch of history has for us vis-à-vis the present political scenario! (1) The boundaries demarcated clearly shows that Darjeeling, Kharsang, Kalimpong and Siliguri were all in Sikkim and that the kingdom stretched all the way to Purnea in the south. (2) The Gorkha population was in sufficient numbers to wage a war against Sikkim, as in the case of Magars, and large enough for the Chogyal to seek allegiance (Lho-mon-tsong-sum), as in the case of the Limbus. And (3) This is the most significant of the points mentioned so far: that the Maharajah’s History of Sikkim makes it absolutely certain that the Gorkhas were in the region even before the creation of Sikkim.

(2) SIKKIM LOSES KALIMPONG

Tensung Namgyal became the next Chogyal. (1670) Most historians, looking for wars, coups, assassinations, and political intrigues insult and degrade his reign claiming nothing important or interesting happened. Actually something very important had happened. He married three times. History of Sikkim states that his first wife, Nambi Ongmu, was from Bhutan, and she gave birth to a daughter, Pande Ongmu.

The second was from Tibet and she gave birth to a son, Chagdor Namgyal. The third Rani was the daughter of a Limbu chief named Yong-Yong Hang. The royal History also says that along with the daughter of Yong-Yong Hang seven other Limbu ladies got married to “highest kazis and ministers of Sikkim.” When Tensung Namgyal died the daughter of the Bhutanese Rani staked her claim to the Sikkim gaddhi, after all, the male contender, Chagdor Namgyal, was a minor and she was an adult besides she was also the child of the first queen. The princess sought the help of the Bhutanese who willingly obliged. In 1707 the Bhutanese withdrew but retained all Sikkimese territories to the east of the Tista River whereby our present day Kalimpong became a part of Bhutan.

Now let us go back to this portion of the history. (1) Tensung Namgyal by marrying daughters of important people indirectly purchased peace for Sikkim, after all uttarpatti haray ta Bhotko juwai sahib, paschim tira haray ta Limbu haruko juwai, ani Purba haray ta Bhutan ko juwai.

Sikkimlai kaslay chai akraman garnay. So, kinachai Sikkimma shanty na hunu ra. Taraipani it is ironic that historians still ignore and even refuse to give him credit for winning …. peace. (2) It is said the too many cooks spoil the broth and Maharaha Tensung had two wives too many and Sikkim paid for it dearly. (3) It is most probable that Limbus were not too happy with the prevailing situation, despite the lho-mon-tsong-sum pact.

Therefore besides making a Limbuni a Rani of Sikkim seven other ladies were also taken as wives by highest kazis and ministers of Sikkim. And finally, (4) Most people think that Kalimpong originally belonged to Bhutan but we now know that it was originally a part of Sikkim. Chotkarima, Kalaybung Sikkim bata Bhutanlay gavayko ani Bhutan bata Angrejlay pach pareko ho.

(3) ANGLO-NEPAL WAR

Now we move on to the 6th Chogyal, Tenzing Namgyal who ascended the Sikkimese throne in 1780. His reign was punctuated, interrupted and disturbed with skirmishes and battles with the Gorkhas. Then there was a period of lull and quiet and the Gorkhas used this period of calm and peace to launch a surprise attack. Sikkimese were completely taken aback by the sudden shock raids. Purna Ale led a group of Gorkhas who came through Ilam and penetrated as far as Reling, Karmi, and Chakung (1788).

Another Gorkha force under the command of Johar Singh stealthily advanced through the Singalila and in a complete surprise swoop took over the palace at Rabdentse: Yaspali pani Raja, praja ani mantriharulay taap kasay, tara Bhot tira hoina, kholsa, orar, gufa, khola-nadiko bagar ani junglema sharan lina pugay. History of Sikkim mentions, “Thus the Gurkhas remained masters of Sikkim, beyond the Teesta, while the Raja took flight and all Sikkimites were compelled to take refuge in the valleys of the rivers, hills and caves, suffering privations and hardship.”

In 1790 Chogyal left his hiding and went to Tibet where he died three years later, and a boy of 12 years, Tsugphud Namgyal, was proclaimed the new Maharaja. It was during Tsugphud’s kingship that the Anglo-Nepal war broke out. The British eventually challenged the Gorkhas through a five pronged attack and Sikkim sided with the British.

We must pause here to reflect on a few points.

(1) Prithwinarayan Shah never wanted to attack Sikkim for the fear it might open up a fresh frontier of war with Tibet. However, the 1788 Gorkha move to penetrate deep into Sikkim signifies that the Gorkhas had grown confident enough to handle Sikkim and withstand a Tibetan attack.

(2) The Gorkhas did not bother the Sikkimese hiding in the ravines, jungles and caves as long as the strategic posts like Rabdentse, Dorje-ling and Na-gri were secure.

(3) Alliance with the British was the only hope for the Sikkim ruler to regain his lost territories and so he sided with the British. At the same time the British accepted Sikkim’s gesture because

(a) in the five-pronged British attack, the eastern front was the weakest and Sikkim’s assistance would offset that disadvantage to some extent.

(b) With Sikkim as an ally any future alliance/intrigues between Nepal and Bhutan could be checked. And

(c) It promised a possibility of trade with Tibet through Sikkim. After all East India Company was a trading company, the biggest ever in history.

(4) DISCOVERY OF DARJEELING

After the war the British restored to the Sikkim Maharaja the lands between Mechi and Tista Rivers through the treaty of Titalya. This treaty has nine functional Articles and the tenth one is just a protocol fulfillment. The first and the last operative or functional articles talk about restoring to Sikkim in full sovereignty and of the Company’s guarantee to the Raja and his successors the full and peaceable possession of the tract. Each and every other Article in between took away from Sikkim, piece by piece, the basic entitlements of sovereignty, independence and freedom to function as an absolute nation .

What became important to Darjeeling’s history was Article Three which required, stipulated and stated that Sikkim was “to refer to the arbitration of the British Government any dispute or questions that may arise between his (i.e. Chogyal’s) subjects and those of Nepal, or any other neighbouring State, and to abide by the decision of the British Government.”

This Article Three became operational when the Chogyal asked the East India Company to arbitrate on the Ontoo Dara dispute because both Sikkim and Nepal claimed the dara as its own. So as per the stipulation of Article Three Captain George Alymer Lloyd and J. W. Grant, the Commercial resident at Malda, were deputed to investigate and resolve the matter.

It was on the journey to Ontoo Dara that the two men, in February 1829, stayed at Darjeeling for six days at “the old Goorka station called Dorjeling” and were “much impressed with the possibility of the station as a sanatarium.” On 18 June 1829 Lloyd communicated to the government regarding the possibility of Darjeeling serving as a sanatarium while about the same time Grant also urged the government to possess the tract.

Now reflecting upon this chapter of history we note the following

(1) The British kept their word and gave back to the Chogyal the lands between Mechi and Tista rivers.

(2) This transfer of land was effected through the Treaty of Titalya in which the beginning and the end of the treaty were sugarcoated to make the Sikkimese happy. In between the British squeezed out much more than what they had given. Angrejlay gulchay khaylyo. And finally

(3) A future Hill Station had been discovered by Lloyd and Grant and that hill station was called Dorje-ling and later as Darjeeling.

(5) DARJEELING BECOMES PART OF BRITISH INDIA

Lord William Bentinck, in June of 1830, proposed to commence negotiation with the Chogyal but this and another subsequent attempt were both struck down, stopped, by Sir C. Metcalfe, a Member of the Supreme Council, on the grounds that the neighbours might look at it with suspicion. Bentinck waited for almost four years and then ordered Major Lloyd to meet the Chogyal and negotiate the cession of Darjeeling “offering such equivalent either in land or money.” To cut short the story Lloyd conveyed the Governor-General’s message while the Chogyal placed three conditions viz

(i) The Chogyal would quote a price and that should be paid,

(ii) Sikkims border would be extended and

(iii) Kummoo Pradhan, the tax collector who had fled to Nepal would be brought to Sikkim for the execution of justice. What happened in between is rather vague but in a later meeting the Chogyal gave a short deed of grant. Since it did not define the boundaries of the land to be handed over, Lloyd produced his own deed on which the king stamped his lal mohar.

The area defined in this deed became known as the Darjeeling tract and the British claimed it as their new asset. They were under the impression that the grant was unconditional but the Chogyal kept on complaining/ that he had not been compensated, in other words, the grant was conditional. It might interest this august house to know that the original negotiation was to be only for the area of present-day Darjeeling town, i.e. the Observatory Hill and the surroundings, but in the stamped deed the area was, about 30 miles long from top to bottom and about six to ten miles along the sides. Now, when the sahibs began building roads and houses the Chogyal began to protest, and with the progress of development the protests grew stronger and louder.

Eventually when the Company realized that the Chogyal had been wronged they sent a compensation consisting of: One double-barrelled gun, a rifle, 20 yards of red broad cloth and two shawls.

Yeshlai bhancha asal helchyakrai: besharam Angrejlay andaaz 240 barga mile jaminko sattako laagi duiwata bundook, ek than luga ani duiwata shawl kun hisablay diyeko hola. Yo hamilay Gorkhaland mangda DGHC diyeko jastai ho, abha aeuta “Chhakka” Schedule pani dinchhu bhandaichha.

The Chogyal’s pleadings for a just compensation now grew even louder. Eventually the Sikkim ruler threw a devastating bomb, in the form of a letter, to Campbell, who had now taken over from Lloyd as the First Superintendent of the Darjeeling tract. The letter still exists and it claimed in no uncertain words that his three conditions had been accepted by Lloyd. The following is a part of the letter: “Lloyd promised that whatever money I should desire in return should be granted, that my territory should be extended the west to the Tambar River; that Kummoo Pradhan and his brother be delivered to me; and that the deficit in my revenue in their hands should be made good.” The East India Company hurriedly offered a compensation of Rs 3,000 per annum which the ruler accepted with certain amount of displeasure. Nevertheless, the British now knew that the deed that they possessed, and the land they had acquired, were suspect, subject to questioning or of doubtful legality and that history would not treat it kindly.

Another important fact that they realized was that the tract granted by the Maharaja was totally surrounded by Sikkimese territory and the approach road they were making was illegal because it went through Sikkim. The Chogyal could technically prohibit the British to make the road or even disallow them to pass through his Sikkim. Now with a suspect deed of grant and access to Darjeeling being only through Sikkimese soil the situation was not good at all. Something had to be done.

In examining the just mentioned episodes we find that

(1) The deed of grant of Darjeeling could not become operative since the British had not met the conditions laid down by the Chogyal. Meet garnu saknay awastha panita thiyayna. Kummo Pradhan Nepalma guhar liyayra basako thiyo ani Angrez-Nepal majha kunai extradition treaty thiyayna. Chogyallay Sikkimko simana Tambar kholasamma baraidinay dawa rakheko thiyo tara tyo chhetra Sugauli Sandhima Nepallai deisakeko thiyo. Therefore these two conditions were impossible to meet and so the treaty was in effect invalid.

(2) The best thing to do would have been to return Darjeeling tract to Sikkim. It was not done so because of three reasons

(a) a lot of money had already been spent on the construction of the road, houses and staging posts,

(b) a large number of Darjeeling plots had already been sold off, in Calcutta, and most of the buyers were men of money, matter and political muscle

(c) the British desperately needed Darjeeling.

Before Darjeeling was discovered the Himalayan region had Shimla, Chail and Mussoorie as hill stations serving the Europeans in North India, Central India had Mount Abu and Hazaribagh, South India had Mandapalle, Bangalore, Kotagiri, Ooty, and Kodaikanal, West India had Purandha and Mahabalshwar but Eastern India had no hill station. When Cherrapunji was taken over in 1829 the British thought they had that much sought after hill station but Cherra was the world’s rainiest place and all hopes got literally washed away. Shillong was a close option but the Khasis refused to surrender, they were giving the British a hard time. So, every officer in India could rush off to their own hill station be he from North, south, west or central India, but the capital of India, the second city of the British empire, had nowhere to go to. Imagine the frustration, imagine the embarrassment, and imagine the desperation and you can imagine why the British would not give back Darjeeling.

Finally point number (3) The Chogyal had in good faith blindly put his seal on the document produced by Lloyd. Yaha auta sanu kura bhannu chha. Lloyd chalak manchay thiyo. Uslay pesh gareko dalil Lapchay bhasama thiyo tara Raja thiyo Bhotay. Parnay echchha bhayetapani parnu nasaknay. So, Saheblay kinachai chhal-kapat garchha hola bhannay biswasma Sikkimpatti Maharajalay lalmohor thoki baakshinu bhayo.

(6) ANNEXATION OF DARJEELING

Yes, now the only option left for the British was to militarily annex the areas south of the Rumman and Rungit Rivers and thereby get free access to the tract and also make the deed of grant a document of no importance, because Darjeeling would now be British through military victory and not because the Maharaja had granted it.

The opportunity to strike at Sikkim came when Joseph Dalton Hooker, a botanist, and Campbell were arrested in Sikkim. Sikkim claimed that their entry was illegal and the British claimed that the Chogyal had issued them entry permits.

Over this issue the British troops marched into Sikkim. Campbell and his soldiers crossed the Rangit River and stayed for several weeks along the northern bank. Sikkim did not contest and the troops returned and the British announced to the villagers that the area was now a property of the British government. This annexed area consisted of the Sikkim terai, and hill areas south of the Rumman Nadi, west of the Bara Rangit and Tista rivers and the hills to the east of the Nepal frontier.

Yaha auta thulo prashna aucha, question chha: Kay Hookerkoma Chogyallay diyeko permit sachinai thiyo ra? Permit raheko bhayay Sikkimko sarkari karmachari harulai kina dekhaunu sakena ya dekhayayna? Hamro paharko bisaya liyera Hooker saheblay dui wata moto moto kitabharu lekhnu bhayo jaha gumbako, phoolko, padam baas etyadiko assi wata jasto chitra chha tara tyo mahatapurna permitko kunai chitra chhaina. Permit nai thiyena bhanay chitra kaha bata chhapaunay.

In 1983, 135 years after his arrest there was great excitement in England because some hand written manuscript in vernacular was found amongst some old papers of Sir Joseph Hooker. Could they be the permit issued by the Maharajah of Sikkim? Unable to read the script Xerox of the same was sent to my teacher and friend, the world famous linguist, Professor Richard Keith Sprigg.

Eeesh, pramaan chha bhanna lai Angrez haru tayar bha-ay.

Professor Sprigg had to inform his fellow Englishmen that the papers were not the permit but the accounts of daily purchases and other expenses. Tyo kaagzharu ta Hooker sahibko baidarbabulay prati dinko kharcha, samanko daam etyadi, Lepcha lipima lekhekopo raicha. Angrez haru aja pani praman khojdai chha bhanchha. Khojos! Paunay kaha bata!

(7) DARJEELING PUSHED INTO BENGAL

The present-day sub-division of Kalimpong along with the Duars became British property following the defeat of the Bhutanese in the Anglo-Bhutan war in November 1865. It was first put under the Deputy Commissioner of Western Duars but in 1866 it was transferred to the District of Darjeeling giving the district its final shape. Initially, this new district was treated differently and was designated as a “NON- REGULATION District” meaning any Act or Regulation passed in the Bengal Presidency did not come into force in district unless they were specially extended to it. In 1919 when the Government of India Act formed the Legislative Council, Darjeeling was not required to send a member to it. The district was excluded and declared a BACKWARD TRACT and the administration was under the Governor in Council.

Even the administrative expenses were not required to be passed by Bengal Government. Furthermore, any Act passed by Bengal Government, which automatically extended to whole of Bengal, would not apply to Darjeeling if the Governor in Council decided to reject it. This in a very subtle way brought our hills a little closer to Bengal, because it also meant that any law passed by the Bengal Government could be applicable to Darjeeling if the Governor did not reject it. This arrangement lasted for another 15 years. Then the black year came and ironically that was Darjeeling’s centenary year under the British. The British Government passed an Act in 1935 requiring the three hill subdivisions to send a representative to Bengal Legislative Assembly and Dambarsingh Gurung became Darjeeling’s MLA to Bengal. Darjeeling was now pushed into Bengal.

Now we come to the final review: It is patent and historically authenticated that Darjeeling was never a part of Bengal. When Bengal was partitioned in 1905 our Bengali brothers claimed that no one was consulted, no opinion was entertained, no fore-warning was given and no explanation was provided. Bengal and the intellectuals of India rose up as one against the partition. Let our friends not forget that when Darjeeling was merged to Bengal no one was consulted, no opinion was entertained, and that no fore-warning was given and no explanation was provided.

Keeping these facts in mind would it not be logical if Bengal joined us in saying “Gorkhaland hunu parcha“, “Shatyi, Gorkhaland huwa uuchit” po bhannu parnay. Why do Bengal politicians keep harping and shouting that Bengal will not be partitioned again. Creating Gorkhaland is not a partition but a just, realistic and honourable act of giving back what was never part of Bengal. Instead Bengal should apologize for holding on to the hills for so many years.

Our language is different, our physiognomy or physical structure is different, our food habits, music, drama, dances, and clothes are different, the whole cultural milieu is different, even the Hinduism and Buddhism practiced by Bengal and Gorkhaland are different.

Geographically we are in the hills and mountains and Bengal is in the plains and so our biology, zoology, climatology and even the associated benefits and disasters of the two regions are different. We do not share the same script, we do not share the same mentality and most of all we do not have a shared history. If we look back to the period before we were pushed, forcibly joined, attached without consent, and made a part of Bengal merely for the sake of administrative convenience we find that we shared no connection with Bengal.

How can we share a common future when we do not share a common past! No amount of legislation, state power, gentle cajoling or even brute force can bind two people with uncommon history: Soviet Union is an example, Yugoslavia is an example and Gorkhaland will be another example.

Finally, mailay hazurharuko dherai samai liyay, I would like to end with the words of a Bengali intellectual:

“Happy Gorkhas in Gorkhaland are any day better for Bengalis than angry Gorkhas in Bengal.”

The post A BRIEF HISTORY OF DARJEELING appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.

We sat down for a short interview with her

Name:  Prerna Dewan Rai 
Ama:    Sumitra Dewan
Baba:    Jiwan Dewan
School(s): Loreto Convent, Darjeeling 
College(s): Southfield College (Bachelor’s Degree- English)
                    St  Joesph’s College( Master’s Degree)
                    Shree Ramakrishna B T college, Darjeeling

TheDC: Who or what inspired you to get into writing?
Prerna: Words have been my friend for as long as I can remember. You could say, my brain is a litter of words. Everything I have read from a little girl till now has inspired me in one way or another. During my college days, Virginia Woolf’s stream of consciousness technique in Mrs Dalloway intrigued me. In recent times, Ali Smith has to a great extent inspired me to open my notebook and scribble my thoughts.

TheDC: Tell us about your journey as a writer so far…
Prerna: ‘The Oblique Rays Of Sunshine’ is my first novel and perhaps my first step into the literary world. Until now, I have always been a writer in oblivion, without the intention of breaking the anonymity. I loved what I became when left alone with my thoughts and a notebook. With this novel, it is for the first time I have allowed my work the liberty of an audience. I guess the journey has just started.

TheDC: Tell us about the process, when you write… how do you eke out the characters, and are they based on real-life experiences, people or events?
Prerna: I believe fiction borrows from reality as much as reality borrows from fiction. Writers, along with vivid imagination and the ability to craft words, are extremely observant creatures. All the characters I have given life to are an amalgamation of all the people, friends and strangers, with whom I have crossed paths even if briefly. It is for a reason, they say, writers have the power to immortalise everything and anything under their radar…

TheDC: Your new book ‘The Oblique Rays of Sunshine’ what was the starting point? what inspired/triggered you to write this book?
Prerna: When I started drafting the novel, I was then living in Delhi with my husband. The novel I had imagined at the time was entirely different. It was a simple love story. When I actually started writing the novel, my husband and I, started living in a different country. The further I went from home, the more Darjeeling insisted to come to me. Every night, a new Darjeeling memory would unlock in my mind. Perhaps this is why I had almost six drafts of the novel. In 2020, when my son was born, spending sleepless nights, amidst newborn wails, I rewrote the novel. Thus a simple love story had now become the love story of Darjeeling town and its people.

TheDC: Grounded in the Andolan days of “chyasi”, your main character is ‘Charles Nepali Mukherjee’ – a very peculiar name. Could you care to tell us more about Charles and the inspiration behind this character if any?
Prerna: Firstly, I would like to point out that the major time frame of the novel is 1990 when the town had slowly started to witness the restoration of partial normalcy. However, the novel does not seek to answer in-depth the who, why, what, when or how of the Andolan. It is the aftermath, the life wallowing in grief, misery, in bereavement, yet the town and its people carry on with the Hope that one-day happiness will return just as the rhododendrons and the magnolias do every Spring. The resilient spirit of the town is what I wanted to capture. Most of the characters in my book have Nepali pet names like Kaila, Saila, Maila or even names of famous personalities like Pele, Charles, and Bairangi Kaila. It was a deliberate attempt to emphasise the importance of one’s name, lineage, the sense of community and identity. Basically to highlight the identity crisis. Through a queer name choice, Charles Nepali Mukherjee, it became convenient to put the point across.

TheDC: How did you go about finding a publisher?
Prerna: There were a lot of submissions and a waiting game. Thanks to social media, I stumbled upon a few pages that led me to find a suitable arrangement with my current publisher. I must say, nothing is impossible these days.

TheDC: Care to share the difficulties you faced along the way, and how you overcame them?
Prerna: Since the major part of the novel was re-written during my post-partum days, it was an arduous task but worth the pain. Discipline, writing despite the inconvenience, I discovered, is what differentiates a writer from an author. Now I am delighted to call myself one. Also being a woman, a mother and a wife, balancing domestic duties and writing was like surviving a whirlwind.

Regarding the writing process, I had a pertinent question in my mind. What would Darjeeling say if she could talk? Hence the idea to humanise a place, a town, germinated. Then to catch the narrator’s voice, to humanise a victim of trauma, the incoherent monologues, if you read carefully there is the repetition of lines, misinterpretation of a certain English word, to implement the stream–of–consciousness technique and flashbacks in the effort of personifying a non-living thing was quite a challenge.  In the end, Darjeeling ended up becoming an important character, the narrator of the protagonist’s story as well as her own.

TheDC: Where do you see yourself 10-years from now?
Prerna: Happy. Content. Wiser. Perhaps a second novel added to my name.

TheDC: Any messages for those who may want to follow in your footsteps?
Prerna: In school, on one of our diary pages, there was a line attributed to the founder of the institution,  Mary Ward. ‘Women in time to come will do much.’ Somehow it stuck in my brain since then.

To all the writers, never give up on your dreams.

To the women writers/ artists, do not wait for the right time. Time is here and now. Come out and shine!

We wish Prerna ‘Good Luck’ with the success of her first novel, and we hope it inspires others too to share their stories with us

You can order your copy of the book here: The Oblique Rays of Sunshine

The post Prerna Dewan Rai – Author of “The Oblique Rays of Sunshine” appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.

Our grandmother used to use that phrase often whenever she was inundated with work, and we ended up giving her more trouble.

Asar ko Pandhra is also popularly known as “dahi-chiura khane din,” and even though in Darjeeling most of us cannot afford to own farming lands… we do celebrate the day by eating dahi mixed with chiura in most of the households.

The 15th day of the month of Asar is usually when farming folks start plating their seeds for rice cultivation, and thus it has immense significance in the life of farmers. Back in the day, the farmers would be too busy to cook today, so they would usually have dahi mixed with chiura so that they would fill full for a long time. Over the period, the practice got established as a tradition.

Highlighting this, Arun Chettri writes, “गोर्खा जाति सबैले ठुलो चाडको रूपमा मनाइन्छ अषार पन्ध्र । अाज दही चिउरा खाने दिन भनी दही चिउरा खाएर यो चाड मनाउछौ । कृषि क्षेत्रमा काम गर्ने हामी , यो मौसममा धान रोप्नु पर्ने हुन्छ । हिलोमा काम गर्दा शरिरलाई बलियो खाना चाहिन्छ यसैले दही , चिउरा , केरा खाने गरेको भन्ने बुझिन्छ, तर अाज मात्रै खाने होइन वर्षा को काम नसकिए सम्म खाने हो अषार पन्ध्र चै सुरुवात गर्ने दिन भएको बुझिन्छ । यसैले समस्त गोर्खा जातिलाई अषार पन्ध्रको धेरै धेरै बधाई अनि शुभकामना छ । जय गोर्खा”

Today marks the beginning of a new farming season so here’s to new growth and new beginnings for all of us.

HAPPY ASAR KO PANDHRA to all of you from TheDC family!!

Let us celebrate and preserve our unique culture and traditional practices. Let us celebrate our festivals with enthusiasm and fervor so that we can hand it down to our future generations, what our past generation gifted to us.

The post CELEBRATING असार ko १५ – Asar ko Pandhra: Marks the Planting Season appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.

Therefore, it is not surprising that people across India and South East Asia flock here to get the best of primary and secondary/higher secondary education. These schools have long history and old legacy with the oldest school among them coming up as early as in 1844 in the form of Loreto Convent School, Darjeeling.

However, the modern schools for the commoners came only half a century later in the form of Darjeeling Govt High School. The seeds for educational revolution for commoners was started by one of the teachers of Darjeeling Govt. High School – Dr Parasmani Pradhan.

In this write-up, we focus on Education , and the Govt and govt sponsored Educational Institutions in Darjeeling Hills under GTA within the framework of GTA Act 2012 signed among GJM, Bengal Govt and Union Govt, along with the MoU signed on 18th July 2011 while GTA Act coming into play on 14th March 2012.

As per the GTA Act, many departments were being transferred with certain level of autonomy where Govt of West Bengal couldn’t unilaterally take decisions. Education was one of the transferred Dept. We will use sections and subsections of GTA Act in autonomy granted to GTA Sabha and jurisdiction.

Education as Transferred Subject

Under the section 26 of Chapter II of GTA Act, with subtitle “Matter to be under the control and administration of GTA”, the autonomy is expressed as, Subject to the provisions of this act and any other laws for the time being in force and any general or special direction of Govt , GTA shall have administrative, financial and executive powers in the region in the relation to following dept.

Therefore, education is a transferred matter. The subsections 26(V), 26(VI) and 26(VII) are related to educational institutions transferred to the GTA jurisdictions. They are as follows.

• 26(V): School Education including primary education, secondary education, higher secondary education (including vocational training): Physical Education; Government Schools.
• 26(VI): College Education including Agricultural and Technical Colleges, Local Management of Government sponsored Colleges; Mass Education and Physical Education; Engineering, Medical, Management, and Information Technology with Government and Government sponsored colleges for which wings /cells shall have to be created by the GTA for the area under its jurisdiction;
• 26(VII): Adult Education and Library Services;

Mode Of Appointments Of Staffs, Officers and Teachers

Subsections 54(1), 54(2) and 54(3)of chapter IV of GTA Act are related to the mode of appointment under subtitle “Officers and Staffs of the GTA.”
Therefore, I advice Mr Principal Secretary of GTA , IAS to kindly read the the aforesaid subsections of GTA Act while recruiting academician in educational institutions in GTA and value the Act signed among three parties viz. Central govt, West Bengal govt and GJM.(undivided)
Subsections 54(1) and subsection 54(2) says any recruitment to the tune of Group D, Group C and Group B must be made through “Subordinate Service Selection Board” to be set up for this very purpose in consultations with Govt of WB.

Therefore, this definitely means that Recruitment notice must be given in a local NEPALI DAILY clearly mentioning

1. No of posts,
2. Category (unreserved, OBC, SC, ST, PH).

Even short term vacancies like maternity leave vacancy, Deputation for B. Ed are to be advertised, whereas permanent post is definitely to be advertised. The Posts like guard, peon, clerks, job assistant, lab technicians, technical assistants, primary Teacher, trained graduate teacher, etc fall in this category.

Subsections 54(3) says recruitment to Group A can be done in consultations with State PSC.

Group A comprises Post Graduate Trained Teacher, Headmasters, Lecturers in polytechnic colleges and other technical College, general degree colleges , doctors, veterinary doctors, etc.

It is commonplace knowledge that the recruitment to these posts are made through proper advertisement in WBOSC websites clearly visible to naked eyes and don’t need Trinetra (3rdEye)

MoU and Regularisation of Adhoc teachers and contractual workers

As per MoU signed among three parties in 18th July 2011, the ad-hoc teachers and other contractual workers were to be absorbed who have completed ten years’ of continued service. Accordingly they were absorbed. Clearly neither MoU nor GTA Act 2012 mentions “Volunteer Teachers”.

Those contractual workers who have completed 10 years service with appointment prior to signing on MoU are yet to get absorbed deserve permanency as per GTA MoU.

Deficiency of GTA and Devaluing Interference Of GTA by West Bengal Govt

1. Transfer of Govt Schools: As education is transferred matter, the Govt schools like Darjeeling Govt High School, Saedeswari High School, Kalimpong Boys High School, Dow Hill Girls’ School, Victoria Boys, etc were not transferred in true spirit by Govt of WB. Moreover, GTA was never consulted in recruitment of teaching ,non teaching and Principals in these schools.
   [In recruitment process of Principal of Victoria Boys School recently, many senior teachers from GTA region with enough qualification applied for Principal post but only one person among the short listed candidates for interview of principal was from GTA Region. Are we at GTA that incompetent?. Surely, GTA would have influenced to incorporate more candidates to be called for interview in School transferred to its own jurisdiction].
2. Transfer of Polytechnic colleges and Other Technical Institutions:
   The mode of recruitment of Lecturers in polytechnic colleges is directly through PSC examination and they don’t consult GTA Sabha in recruitment process whereas Polytechnic and technical institution is transferred subject. The worst sufferers are just school passed children from vernacular schools who find it difficult to cope up with the non Nepali speaker Teachers and some don’t speak English too.
3. General Degree College: The general Degree colleges are the most visible places where GoWB doesn’t at all consultant GTA Sabha. Whereas General Degree College effect vast majority of Nepali Medium School Students passing out and coming to study at general Degree colleges, the non Nepali speaker Teachers will further make college course quite difficult. As such case if transfers in mid session becomes regular which affects students. Had WB govt consulted GTA Sabha or GTA Sabha acted with concerns for students such difficulty wouldn’t have arised.

GTA body must ensure that the local candidates having minimum educational qualifications fit enough be given priority with regard to the appointment as teachers in Govt abd govt sponsored educational institutions like Schools, Polytechnic colleges and other technical colleges and general degree colleges.

In addition, the GTA body must ensure that any recruitment to the institution in GTA must be specifically mentioned whether it’s PSC, SSC or CSC boards of recruitment. For example, a post in Geography in Darjeeling Govt College must be mentioned as Asst Prof in Darjeeling Govt College to value GTA agreement.

Why No Volunteer Teachers? Yes to GTA Teacher Recruitment Board!

1. Not in spirit with Constitution: The Preamble to the Indian Constitution itself says “Equality of Status and of opportunity.” This means that every eligible candidate in GTA Area have right to apply for specified posts and that should be given equal job opportunity. Volunteer teachers being regularised would violate this provision.
2. Meaning of Volunteer Teachers: Volunteer teachers means those teachers who have voluntarily decided to render his services to any random school without a prior condition of regularisation.
3. Volunteer Teachers dont fit Subject Specification nor 100 point Ruster: Volunteer teachers by name itself means using as stop gap fillers. Therefore, neither School Managing committee nor DI Office look into their academic specifications and maintain 100 point ruster necessitated in govt institutions. Therefore, categories like Unreserved, OBC, SC,ST etc are not valued.
4. Opening Pandoras Box In Rest of Bengal: There are thousands of para teachers in the rest of Bengal who are put in a salary slab with one time appointment sometime in 2006-07 with provision of continued service of 60 years, salary slab and scope of salary every 3 years as well as post termination of that teacher on service switch. However, such para teachers don’t affect the normal or additional vacancies in schools. Regularisation of volunteer teachers would require para teachers to be regularised too.
5. Hill SSC blocked by erstwhile DGHC revoked: When Hill SSC was first implemented in DGHC in 1999 , the erstwhile Chairman Subhash Ghising blocked by citing linguistic minority provision in Rules and Regulations of SSC . However, the teachers who passed 1999 Hill SSC challenged the decision in Calcutta High Court and were able overturn the decision of Subash Ghising in 2007-2008. Therefore, this may have way for Hill SSC.
6. Ethics and Moralities: Teachers ,unlike characters portrayed in Bollywood movies as geeks, are often role models for young kids whom they look upon to shape themselves. As such teacher must have self-esteem, pride, and good character to be a perfect role model. This makes indispensable to have teachers coming through proper examination followed by interview.
7. Let us End Dalal Culture: The volunteer teachers inevitable have to request political leaders and parties for regularisation. As this is being as dalal in such a Noble profession would further detail the Morales of the students who follow them. So, let’s us end dalal culture.
8. Please Stop the Rant of हाम्रै मुन्छेले त काम पायो के को खसखस? It’s often heard cry from commoners whose sons and daughters are working as volunteer teachers. However, closer examinations reveal that even under GTA Teacher recruitment board it requires one to be resident of GTA to be eligible for applying teaching job in GTA region. So, even with advertisement coming up in spirit of equal opportunity, it’s our own people getting job with provision of Nepali as one of the subjects in 10th standard as is case for recruitment in Bengali School in the schools of West Bengal.

Conclusions and Suggestions:

The following can be done in accordance with GTA Act 2012, MoU and present volunteer teachers.

1. Volunteers teachers be placed on the status of para Teachers with pay band , with provision of continued service until 60 years and subsequent terminal benefits and post termination on switching jobs.
2. The New GTA Teacher Recruitment Board be constituted with experts and people of untarnished image. Here, rules and regulations be framed. All eligible candidates can apply and so do volunteer teachers from GTA region.
3. Recruitment of Technical and General Degree College be locally prioritised: As per GTA act and MoU, there’s provision for GTA to actively participate in recruitment process. Therefore, the GTA Sabha must prioritise local recruitment in Higher education colleges, both general degree and technical colleges.
4. Frame Own Syllabus In GTA: GTA Sabha must be able to frame it’s own primary and High School curriculum because Darjeeling Hills is education hub of Northeastern India. As such commoners deserve best of education. Whereas present WBBSE, WBCHSE curriculum are designed based on whole of Bengal whose majority of population live in villages whereas Darjeeling has literary rate almost 100%. As such our kids deserves better education.

[Although Author is a diehard supporter of Gorkhaland , he is of opinion that any institution within proposed Gorkhaland statehood region must function democratically within framework of Acts passed by respective govt.]

Writes: Nahakul Chettri

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This therefore brings to us the question- is the absence or presence of GJM and Bimal Gurung and the numerous ‘absconding’ youths concomitant to the demand of Gorkhaland. It is time we think, reflect and be more reflexive. The voice demanding Gorkhaland has been systematically silenced with the assistance received from certain section of our society. The people who still believe in our goal are being ridiculed in all sphere of our everyday existence and are also subjected to atrocities from the police. Our region has become one where threat and intimidation has become a new normal. GNLF has gone back to its deceptive ways of doing politics. They are pushing the demand of sixth Schedule from the back door. They could have taken forward the demand of Gorkhaland but they choose to settle their political scores to the extent of one of its leaders saying that they will not allow Bimal Gurung to return to the hills. This is the political state of affairs that we are witnessing today. Had they chosen to lend their voice to the aspiration of the people their past misdeed- of completely dropping the demand of Gorkhaland-would probably have been forgiven and more importantly they could have emerged as a strong alternative to GJM. But their acute lack of political statesmanship was visible when their leaders said that PhD were available in the narrow lanes of Kadamtala. This statement only made him look like a fool rather than a leader. CPRM though sincere (I sincerely hope they are) does not enjoy the resources needed to lead a movement. They do not have people with them. Others are there only for the namesake.  

BJP on the other hand does not seem to be very serious regarding the promises it had made to GJM on its sankalpatra. Till now nothing points to the fact that they will sympathetically consider the long pending demands of people of Darjeeling hills, Tarai and Dooars.  Otherwise the President of Darjeeling District BJP would not have declared that they will field their own candidates for the three Legislative Assembly seats of Darjeeling. Are we therefore on the cusp of losing Gorkhaland, if not then who is demanding and fighting for it?

This situation brings us to the point do we need Bimal Gurung back in the hills? The local media houses have in their own unique manner and ways already put the last nail in the coffin. They have delivered their verdict. They are only engaging in cultural reproduction. No one expects objectivity from the individual journalists but yes it is expected in the ways and manners they collect news, but they seem to have their own predicaments to analyse and broadcast true and objective news.

The demand for Gorkhaland, whether one agrees or not- I think, hinges on the Bimal Gurung. If the demand is to be sustained (there is no guarantee of its achievement) he has to come to the hills and do  politics. He stills enjoys support from the majority of the people. All those who have ‘absconded’ have sacrificed a lot. Some have not been able to light the pyre of their mothers and fathers. They have not been able attend their sick mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. They have not had the opportunity to be with their families. Everything they had has been seized by the state. What more do they need to sacrifice to show their loyalty and honesty towards the movement and demand. They deserve to be back among their people, their loved ones and do politics. People should respect their sacrifices and welcome them to resurrect our movement. Bimal’s absence and the lack of agency among the others have made it clear that he symbolises Gorkhaland and should return to the hills as soon as possible and keep alive the hopes of millions of Gorkhas.

You can read the author’s blog here.

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In September 2017, my friend Astha from Nepal came up to me and said “Aditiya, timilai ta etaako hoin bhanchha ta!” 

She meant, people in India didn’t consider me a local. 

Somebody had asked her why she seldom hung out with Indian students in the campus. To it, her retort apparently was that she hung out with me. However, this was cut short with the fact that I didn’t count, because I was a Nepali too.

“Do you want to talk to him?”

“It’s alright,” was what I said in response to the observation that I didn’t count in my own country.

I had tried everything. Some days, I would go on a heated debate with people who opposed the Gorkhaland movement, not knowing my own position in it but being defensive about people who spoke the same language as I do. Sometimes, I drew a map and went through a spiel on the difference between ethnicity and nationality. It did not help that most people who opposed the demand for a separate Gorkha state thought it was the demand for a nation-state. I would frame arguments in my head about scattered diasporas across countries speaking the same language. Yet to no avail!

What trigged these thoughts in my mind was Prajwal Parajuly’s recent book The Gurkha’s Daughter. I had flinched at its appearance in the book, its familiarity rendering me clueless for the first few minutes. When it finally hit me, the literary representation of something I hadn’t been able to persevere through even on the ground was something I wasn’t ready to accept. The cover with its advertisement of “Shortlisted for Dylan Thomas Prize” started carrying more weight somehow. The idea of belonging and coming to terms with a cluttered identity is not a fun experience. While your friends elegantly utter “I am from Bombay,” you are always on edge with your constructions about how not to confuse people with your identity.  

Parajuly efficiently blurs the ridiculous line of identity created by geographical mappings. The simple map before every one of the first seven stories in the book occupies three countries: India, Nepal and Bhutan. And yet the stories function effortlessly in their narration of a culture that is sprinkled all over a region that is geographically meant to divide. The book makes it clear that the umbrella of identity for the Nepali community extends beyond borders and hence does not confine itself to the geography of a nation-state. This is an opinion his book is loaded with, but what Parajuly really enthrals with is his juggling of these two identities in relation with each other. It is much easier to say “I am an Indian” or “I am a Nepali” than to unwillingly churn out “I am an Indian Nepali”. How can such distinct terms mix, and be in peace with each other? Parajuly’s characters are independent of the country they are set in. The identity they are supposed to carry i.e. Nepali is not a free category, either.  

For what does it mean to be a Nepali in Nepal and a Nepali in Bhutan? Anamika Chhetri, from “No Land Is Her Land”gives us the answer perfectly. A refugee from the genocide against the Nepali-speaking community or the Lhotsampas from Bhutan, she lives with her two daughters and an old father in a refugee camp in Khudunabari refugee camp in Nepal. Is it homecoming? In fact, the answer is its exact opposite. Anamika’s heart stays with Bhutan, in happiness, in longing for home and even in disgust at the injustice it inflicts upon her. Her assimilation with Nepal is not as easy, as most people who have assumed identities for me and a thousand others might think. 

What Parajuly captures so vividly is perhaps only available to the ones who have their battles with belonging. Born to a Nepali-speaking yet Indian father and a Nepalese mother, Parajuly has journeyed from Sikkim to the USA and England for his studies. Like hundred thousands who make this journey every year, with their introductions in head, the crisp expression of an Indian-Nepali identity is a privilege that evades even the most eloquent. 

The story of the Nepali diaspora spread all over the world is a story of fragile identities. Prajwal’s stories capture this volatility with a unique sensitivity, perhaps from the fact that he has seen the share of their turbulence closely as a member himself. However, the flair with which the book boasts of intricacy is not something that is just a result of Parajuly’s identity and the prestigious education at Oxford. In fact, tired of the job he took up at “The Village Voice”for three years, until he returned home and travelled some length of the country, as the nuance in his writing makes clear. 

Dealing with such a delicate identity is no easy task, with the scope of dramatization laying vast. Parajuly, however, evades that landmine very well. Taking up the project of representing a diaspora nobody has virtually raised  any concerns for, the dramatic genocide of Lhotsampas as a story could very well be crafted full of extremes. This is what Parajuly avoids. His characters in “No Land is Her Land” for example, cannot be free of harrowing atrocities meted out to them, making it a slippery slope while taking it up as a writing project. He, however, limits the ordeals of talking about the genocide itself to a few spaces, and instead focuses on her battle with the everyday life after her exile from Bhutan. The story works gracefully around being an expression for a multitude of themes: female desire, coping with exodus, domestic violence, alienation, and finally anxiety of hope. Parajuly incorporates it all within the scope of a few pages and his art is crafty enough for the story to be left at a signal, just like all the stories in the book. The stories around the India-Bhutan-Nepal triangle have no resolution presented on the reader’s face. In fact, Parajuly leaves the story exactly where the conflict begins, but his stories stand strong, which can be attributed to the skilful world building that spreads throughout the story. 

There is nothing dramatic in Parajuly’s capture of stories from a diaspora that finds itself questioning its own place. The people in his stories are very much a part of the larger structure they participate in: village, town, city, state or country. None of the affiliations are missed; everything is ticked for and from the exoticisation of a community that is very often at the receiving end of words like “Chinese” “Momowaala” and “Security Guard”. 

‘The wife’as Parajuly calls the mother of Rakesh and Co from “Passing Fancy” carries the same anxieties as any other mother worries about her living children. An unemployed engineer whose relatives nudge him about his poverty delicately, Rakesh in “Missed Blessing”is any one of the country’s frustrated youths dealing with society. In fact, Parajuly doesn’t leave it at that; he points his fingers at the social system subtly pervaded by caste system.  

“A Father’s Journey” is the story of a father letting go of his caste prejudices with determination, yet finding his daughter being the one pulled into it because of her mother. The reading of caste and consequences occur between the lines, subtle yet haunting in its reluctance to get eradicated. This is more impressive considering Parajuly’s own privilege of being a Brahmin and also affording education at Oxford. 

Prajwal’s dealings with the everyday life of India, Nepal, Bhutan and Amit’s apartment in Manhattan (from The Immigrants) colours a linguistic diaspora and webs of intersectionality between its own sub-divisions. The heartbreak of child labour in Nepal, a Bhutanese woman’s desire and the perils of being a daughter of a mercenary in the British Army are all stories that find themselves lingering among the Nepali diaspora, irrespective of nationality. As Amit, a Manhattan IT engineer from “The Immigrants” says, : “I drew a map and went through a spiel on the difference between ethnicity and nationality.”

And for the stories set in India, they are ordinary and interchangeable with many conflicts that linger anywhere in the country, almost as if to say “Hey! Look we are as miserable as you. Are we Indians now?”  

[Aditiya Thapa is a student of English Literature and Journalism at Ashoka University, Delhi. He loves reading and exploring the complexities of identity and conflict. He also takes interest in writing and translating.]

The article was first published on The Gorkha Times.

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