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Society
Drinking Tea in
Darjeeling
by
Satis Shroff
The 126 year old cobalt blue colored narrow-gauge Darjeeling Himalayan
Railway train chugged and snorted its way from Kurseong to Darjeeling
via Ghoom along the serpentine route, against the silvery backdrop of
the 8598m Kenchenjunga Range, past the tea gardens, shanty tea-shops and
tin-roofed huts. And painted across white-washed hillside walls you
could still read the words:"Jai Gorkha! Jai Gorkhaland! Jai Hind!"
Hind is an anachronistic, pre-partition name for India, namely
Hindustan: the land of the Hindus. After independence India became a
secular state, because it didn’t have much of a choice due to the
Muslims, Jains, Sikhs and other religious communities who all started
demanding their own rights under the constitution. And the 750,000
Gorkhas in the 70 odd tea-gardens of Darjeeling District (north Bengal)
also made it clear that they didn't have autonomous ambitions like: the
Sikhs and their fight for Khalistan, and the Nagas with their Nagaland
claims. The Gorkhas, who are ethnic Nepalese, only wanted a Gorkhaland
within India's framework and the recognition of Nepali, pardon me,
Gorkhali, as one of the languages of the secular Indian Constitution.
After a 28-month fight which began in the spring of 1986, the GNLF (Gorkha
National Liberation Front) submitted their arms, and pledged to join
India's mainstream.
Darjeeling (2123m), like in the hey-days of the British Raj, has
remained a cool mountain resort for rich Indians and a few foreigners
with its fresh air, British fashioned public schools, churches,
Planter's Club, Gymkhana and the blue-domed Governor's summer residence.
The English schools bear names like: Victoria, Dow Hill, St. Joseph's,
Goethals, St. Helen's, St. Paul's...reminiscent of a nostalgic era of
colonial British establishment. My parents had sent me to the
Kindergarten at St. Helen’s, near Kurseong and I have pleasant memories
of that convent school. The morning prayers, breakfast with porridge and
toast-marmalade and the sumptuous Indian cuisine at lunch, because we
were Hindus and didn’t prefer to eat at the English refectory, where
they served beef.
Darjeeling is a dying Queen of the Hills, ignored and neglected after
the British left the Raj. Its streets have become mean and violent, and
you see the economic decline on the faces of the Nepalis living in the
small towns and the sprawling tea gardens. The obsolete infrastructure
is corroding. It never received the much-needed financial
shot-in-the-arm (like Sikkim did from the Central Government) from the
ego-centric, troubled and arrogant West Bengal government.
"The British sahibs have gone. And now we have Indian brown sahibs who
try to be more English than the English", said a Gorkha waiter at the
Glenary’s near Chowrasta.
Today, a visitor to this restricted area in the foothills of the Eastern
Himalayas will be witness to a sad, depressing scenario. The houses look
dirty, rusty, poor, dilapidated and neglected. And the tea garden worker
has a hard time trying to make ends meet. The wages are low. Even the
mono-culture tea-production in Darjeeling went from 25,503 hectares in
1935 to 19,739 hectares in 1983. The Gorkhaland conflict reduced tea
harvests by about 65%.The breakdown of the Soviet Union market has
caused a total slump in tea-export. The price for Darjeeling tea was
never so low, due to the heavy reliance on the Soviet consumers.
In the past Darjeeling has been neglected by the Central government in
Delhi. And Sikkim received top priority. The administrative offices are
all occupied by the Bengalis. The Newar community in the Darjeeling
district has been pushed out by the clever Behari businessmen and shrewd
Marwari money-lenders from the plains of India. The Gorkhalis attend the
schools and colleges, but the only university of the district still lies
in Siliguri in the plains, and they have to compete with the Bengalis,
Beharis and the rest of 1000 million Indians for seats in the different
faculties. And for jobs.
In the jungle of Indian bureaucracy, where corruption, nepotism and
communal feeling is rampant, the common, honest Gorkha hillman cuts
badly and gets a bad deal. No wonder the Gorkhas were enraged. Their
very existence was being endangered. Their demands were apparently
justified, for they only wanted to stay inside the Indian Union on
better terms.
"The longstanding friction between the Nepalis and the Bengalis was
always there", said my school-friend Sushil Basnet, a burly Gorkha
hillman with a public school background, over a cup of excellent
Darjeeling tea at his home.
"But when the Meghalaya State Government threw out some 7000 Nepalis
from Assam, the matter really exploded and took the present form of the
Gorkha National Liberation Front headed by Subhas Ghising as its
president".
He only stops to catch his breath, because he’s wheezing with asthma,
and says, "The evicted Nepalis were mostly from Darjeeling and some were
from Nepal. When this happened, the age-old treaty between British India
and Nepal, which was ratified later in 1950 between Independent India
and the Kingdom of Nepal, was violated. As a result, it placed the
Nepalis residing in India at an insecure position with dual nationality
or without any nationality."
He explained further, "Actually the Clause 7 of the Indo-Nepal Treaty
states that the citizens of both countries can do anything under the
sun, but have political rights, like asking for a separate state.
"In fact a Gorkha can be labeled as a Nepal-ko-raity (Nepalese
subject) and thrown out of the country, and you can't do anything: like
the Nepalis of Assam.
How's that for calling oneself Indian all these years?" he says with
bitterness. Sushil Basnet was born in Darjeeling and so was his father
and grandfather.
His tirade went on: "It was in protest to this Clause 7 that the GNLF
dished out an 11-point programme, and it was supported by all sections
of the people of Darjeeling. This irritated the Communists (CPM)and so
violence and killing broke out on both sides. Like the police shooting
down people, women and children included, and midnight arrests. At least
200 people died.
"What we really wanted was the creation of a Gorkhaland district and the
recognition of Gorkhali (Nepali) as one of India's national languages
and better job opportunities. But the Bengali politician Jyoti Basu and
Rajiv Gandhi made a hash of it" says an angry Sushil Basnet.
Gorkha is a fortress in Nepal belonging to the House of Gorkhas, from
where the Gorkha King Prithvi Narayan Shah led his troops to conquer the
whole of Nepal. In 1810 Nepal's domain extended from the Tista river to
the Sutlej, that is from present day Sikkim to Kashmir. The word 'Gorkha'
is derived from the Sanskrit word 'go' which means a 'cow' and 'rakh'
which means 'protector,' and the Gorkhas are the 'protectors of the
cows', that is, they are Hindus primarily. The Indian Army uses the term
'Gorkha' which is correct, and the British Army uses the term 'Gurkha'.
The English also say 'Nepaul' when they mean 'Nepal'.
The Gorkhali population of Darjeeling is made up of: Tamangs, Rais,
Newars, Thapas, Poudels, Gurungs, Topdens, Lepchas and Sherpas. In 1800
the British encouraged the migration of the Nepalese to the eastern
Himalayas to work in the newly opened tea gardens in Darjeeling (West
Bengal) and Assam (Meghalaya).
At Glenary’s I met Riddhima Pradhan, who said: "I can assure you, it was
more than a storm in a tea-cup." She was a 26 year old college student
from Darjeeling, referring to the Gorkhaland crisis. She went on to say,
"The town was crawling with Sikh soldiers armed to the teeth and there
were Gorkha civilians getting arrested, and night-raids that made us
pretty uneasy. I was scared to go out in the streets even during the
day."
Akin to the British Raj, the Central Government sent Sikh soldiers to
Darjeeling to fight down the Gorkha demonstrators. The British, it might
be noted, deployed Gorkha troops in the 1857 Indian Sepoy Mutiny and the
Jalainwalla massacre. In April 1919 troops under the command of the
British General Dyer fired on civilians killing 379 people and injuring
1000 in Amritsar (Punjab).
Pitching one ethnic group against the other seems to work even today,
after the age old divide-and-rule tradition so well practiced by the
British in its colonies.
Reynold Gurung, a 32 year old Gurkha soldier on leave says: "My father
was a British Gurkha who fought against the Japanese in World War II in
Imphal and Burma. He died in action in the jungles of Burma. We'd
settled down in Burma. Later, we were driven away by the Burmese
nationalists from Rangoon and came over to Darjeeling. I'll be damned if
the Indians can drive me away from these hills", he says.
"In 1961 our school soccer team defeated the 2/8 Gurkha Rifles," he says
with a boyish twinkle in his Mongolian eyes. "Yes sir, that was a
terrific match in Kurseong: School-team Beats the Gurkhas!" A year
later, the 2/8 Gurkha battalion, which was then stationed in Lebong, was
wiped out in the Himalayan war against China in a decisive battle at
Nathu La (Sikkim). It was India's Himalayan blunder. After that Nehru
and Menon were dubbed "the guilty men of '62," said Reynold Gurung, whom
I chanced to meet near the Rink cinema. He lost an elder brother in the
war. He took me to his home and told me the story of his family. He
invited me for a cup of tea in his house, which was a one-storied, with
lots of windows and a lovely garden full of marigolds, because it was
the Nepali festival season of Dasain.
A Gurkha-hat that hung on the wall of his spartan sitting-room, a few
regimental swords, a khukri in silver and a Naga spear were all that
remind him of his dead Gurkha father and the Burma war. Huge
well-polished artillery shells serve as vases for marigold flowers. He
supported his mother with his small Indian Gorkha payroll, and said he
was stationed in Punjab with the elite Black Cat battalion.
Soldering still seems to be the best profession for a Gorkha in the
hills of Darjeeling.
"You can at the most be a low-paid teacher or a clerk here, says Adip
Rumba, "but you can't climb higher. There's always a Bengali blocking
the carrier ladder." The polytechnic school in Kurseong produces only
junior engineers (overseers). The senior engineering schools are located
in the plains of India, and financially too expensive for Gorkha
pockets. Even the medical college is located in Siliguri and thus
accessible only to the Bengalis.
At high-school age, a lot of young males tired of learning boring
subjects like integral calculus and the Moghul Dynasty took off till
recently for Dharan's British Gurkha Recruiting Depot or enlisted at the
local Indian Gorkha office in Kurseong or Darjeeling.
Take Kunjo Moktan for instance who joined the British Gurkhas and "saw
the world beyond the mountains" namely London, Gibraltar, Hong Kong and
Brunei. Or Ganju Tamang who joined the Indian Army and landed in Sri
Lanka with India's Peace-keeping Force. Keshab Namgyal, a 1961 Congo
blue-helmet veteran, who was disgusted by the war in Katanga, said he
gave up soldiering, and worked for the Indian Railway as a clerk, and
looked forward to his railway pension.
There are quite a few Nepalis from Darjeeling who have gone to Nepal
seeking better jobs after the Darjeeling district was declared a
'restricted area'. Jobs were scarce in Darjeeling after 1962. A sizeable
number of Gorkha civilians car drivers with experience in the heights of
Darjeeling, Sikkim and Bhutan were hired for their driving skills in the
difficult mountain areas of Ladakh, Bomdila and Tripura in the wake of
the Himalayan conflict with China.
Lain Singh Bangdel, a talented artist went to Nepal and became the
president of the Royal Nepal Academy. Likewise, Amber Gurung ,a singer
and composer, has carved himself a niche in the Nepali world of music in
Kathmandu. Banira Giri is internationally known for her poetry and lives
in Kathmandu. The air-hostesses for the expanding Royal Nepal Airlines
were mostly girls from Darjeeling and Kalimpong. Tourism was booming in
Katmandu, and English-speaking smart Gorkha-guides and hotels personnel
were in demand. Not in India, but in Nepal.
Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa from Darjeeling and the first Nepali to climb
Mt. Everest with Edmund Hillary, was an exception who stayed on in
Darjeeling and was made the Field Director of the Himalayan
Mountaineering Institute located in Birch Hill, now dubbed Jawahar
Parbat. The principal of the institute was naturally an Indian from the
plains. I can still hear the refrain of Dharmaraj Thapa's song praising
Tenzing's feat and his glory:
Tenzingga timi, sansara bhari.
Amara huney chau (refrain).
However, the plight of the Sherpas, Lepchas and Tamangs of Darjeeling
hasn't improved since then. You see them carrying heavy loads for Indian
tourists from the plains and foreigners from abroad with their namlo-ropes
for almost a song.
"The Indians take almost a sadistic delight in putting down the prices,"
says Maila Tamang, a porter at Darjeeling's Chowrasta.
"Pairo Ayo!" is a dreadful cry that is often heard in the
Darjeeling hills when a landslide occurs. The Gorkhas have mixed
feelings about the landslides in the monsoon period because of the
endless suffering caused by the disastrous and torrential rain. The
monsoon is good for the tea, but bad for the humans living in the
hillsides, for they live in the angst of being swept away in a
landslide. The forests in the Darjeeling area are denuded and the
ecological balance of the hills is threatened caused also by the
monoculture: tea. Thickly wooded forests are a rarity. The flora and
fauna have dwindled.
"Here's to the Pagla Jhora, the Mad Torrent!" is a toast that you
hear frequently in Darjeeling. The local contractors rejoice secretly
when a major landslide sweeps away the railway tracks and blocks the
only road leading to Darjeeling. Gorkha contractors rush to file tenders
at the junior engineer's office bureau of the Public Works Department.
The tenders go to the chief engineer, who is inevitably a Bengali gent
who takes the cream of the bribe.
"It's a game called: oiling-up-the-Bengi-babu", says a Gurkha contractor
who chooses to remain anonymous. Corruption is as common as tuberculosis
in the government offices and at the border check-posts at Kakarbhita
and Manebhanjyang. The Bengali policemen take bribes from both sides:
Nepal and India.
A home-coming Johnny Gurkha from Hong Kong was telling his woes to a
sari-clad Nepalese woman about the corrupt Indian customs officers at
Kakarbhita, for his problem was getting his worldly belongings across
the border to Darjeeling where he lived. Since the Gorkha bride has a
high affinity for gold from Hong Kong (in the old days it was Lhasa),
it's a big headache for a Gorkha to get his gold through the Calcutta
customs. The Bengali customs officers do their best to confiscate the
luxurious (by Indian decree and standards) and jewellery brought into
the country by the thrifty and spartanic living Gurkhas, and probably
hand them to their own Bengali wives in Calcutta. It is a never-ending
tale of corruption and injustice.
"It is this harassment at the Indian customs that made me build a house
in Katmandu than in Darjeeling, and now my family is all the more
happier", says Wangdi Lama, a Hong Kong retired Gurkha-major.
Due to the early exposure to the British, the Nepalese of the Eastern
Himalayas (Darjeeling area) tend to be smart, extroverted, street-wise,
intellectually awakened, and generally well-informed about current world
affairs. The level and percentage of education is also much higher than
in eastern Nepal.
Most Nepalese in the Darjeeling area have a school or college
background. Even a simple jeep-driver or policeman speaks a smattering
of English, in addition to Hindi, Bengali and Gurkhali (Nepali).
The influence of Hollywood and Bollywood's masala films shown at
Darjeeling's Rink and Capitol cinemas and make-shift, mushrooming
video-parlors is evident in the streets of Darjeeling. A Gorkha is
well-dressed, his shoes are polished, his trousers well-ironed and he
has a certain smartness about him, despite the fact that he may be
living from hand to mouth. The Nepalis take delight in joking about
themselves and you hear often: bahira rumaley, bhitra gundruk umaley.
It's his positive attitude towards life and his indomitable cheerfulness
that distinguishes him from the rest of the ethnic groups in the
sprawling Indian subcontinent.
"A Gorkha never begs. We are too proud of ourselves and of our
self-respect," says Kiran Singh Rana who runs a photo-shop in the Laden
La Road in Darjeeling. He seems to hate haggling with what he calls "deshi"
customers from the plains. We're having a chat in his shop and a Bengali
babu (civil servant) wants him to reduce the price of a picture of
'sunrise from Sandakphu' done in black and white print and hand colored.
The Bengali speaks in the typical tactless and arrogant Indian manner.
Kiran tells him in no uncertain terms to "take it or leave it" in no
uncertain terms.
"I have my own local customers and don't have to rely on these seasonal
hagglers", he says. He and his brother have opened a lodge below the
Chowrasta at the Danth Koti, and seem to be doing well in comparison to
others. The strange thing was that when I visited Kiran in his shop a
decade ago, he was also having a jolly row with three customers from
Calcutta. Another friend of mine, a Gurung, runs a travel agency and
takes French tourists to Sandakphu and the Kanchenjunga base camp during
the tourist season.
"Survival isn't much of a problem for a Nepali", says Sushil Basnet, who
has a pot-belly and looks like the Italo-German actor Mario Adorf. He
explains: "Once a year during the Maghay Sangrati festival, we
eat sweet-potatoes and other boiled stems and roots in memory of our
ancestors, who lived on such roots and stems from the forest".
Maghay Sangrati marks the turning point between the winter and
summer months, and Nepalis bathe in the tributaries of river such as the
Narayani and Bagmati and chant religious hymns.
"The beggars in Darjeeling or Katmandu are never Nepalis or Gurkhas.
They're mostly Bhutias or Indians from the plains," says Ajit Subba,
another Gorkha teacher.
In my childhood, I remember seeing a lean old Limbu Gorkha lady wearing
a glove in one hand, and brandishing a sickle with the other, busy
cutting stinging-nettles for lunch in a wayside bush. Sisnu-ko-jhol
(nettle-soup) is a Nepalese delicatessen. Nettle-soup, which is called
Brennesselsuppe is also used in Germany and other Alpine republics.
Hunger makes one creative. And the Nepalis are creative.
Gundruk-ko-jhol is another frugal but delicious speciality, which is
dehydrated salad served as a soup with rice. Sikuti-machha (dried
fish) is another fine dish.
Unlike in Nepal, where it is forbidden to carry out missionary activity,
the Gorkhalis in the Darjeeling hills have been proselytized into
Christendom by the British Jesuit priests in the major hill towns like:
Kurseong, Kalimpong and Darjeeling, where they opened dispensaries,
'English Medium' schools, chapels, grottos and churches. The British
missionaries have left but even today it isn't common to find Gorkhas
with names like: Lawrence Gurung, Benjamin Rai and Nelson Mukhia.
Darjeeling also has its own Gorkha bishop.
The Nepalis in the hilly tracts of Darjeeling have certainly arranged
themselves with Bengalis, Beharis, Marwaris, Buddhists, Muslims and
Christians. Inter-caste and inter-ethnic love-marriages are also not
uncommon. Though not without problems. Raj Basnet, who has married his
college girl-friend Geeta from the Rai tribe has problems with his
pollution-conscious high caste parents with their orthodox attitudes. He
left his father's house and eloped with his Rai-girl and lived like an
outcaste in Thimpu (Bhutan). "But my wife and I are happy, so
what-the-heck!" he says with a shrug of his shoulders and an air of
optimism. "It's not my problem. It's their 's". He now lives in
Darjeeling and recalls nostalgically the many traditional Bhutanese
gates and bridges he built during his tenure as an engineering and
contractor in the Himalayan Kingdom.
It is understandable that Subhas Ghising is rather sulky and
disappointed with Nepal because of its neutrality during the Gorkhaland-crisis,
and hence wishes to have nothing to do with the Himalayan Kingdom. But
in view of the fact that the Gorkhas of Darjeeling wanted to be
officially recognized as an autonomous district within the Indian Union,
especially West Bengal, the reluctance on the part of Katmandu to
respond to Ghishing and his GNLF`s gestures, was diplomatically perhaps
the best solution.
The Gorkhaland struggle cost 200 lives and brought a new amendment to
the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council Act. The Gorkhas have their
Gorkhaland and the Indo-Nepalese relationship and cooperation
flourishes, without any evident changes whatsoever in the 1950 Treaty
between India and Nepal. And Nepali has been recognized officially in
the Indian Constitution.
It's all quiet in the Gorkhaland front, despite the poverty and
discontent.
February 3, 2007
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