Incomplete Ethnography Report will no secure tribal status: GAC

EOI, GANGTOK, 11 Mar 2015: The Gorkha Apex Committee has expressed shock at the notification given by a committee formed by Culture and Heritage Department and Sikkim Backward Class Commission to the representative organisations of 16 different ethnic communities of Sikkim. 

The committee has given five days’ time to the representative organisations to provide a detailed Ethnography Report on their respective communities. In a press statement released by the GAC, its convener Passang Sherpa said on Wednesday his organisation was finding it hard to believe that the committee had only given 5 days’ time to complete such an elaborate report, that too without any guidelines. 

He alleged that the Centre was not able to provide any help on giving tribal community status to 11 ethnic communities of Sikkim since the state government did not do its homework properly in providing a complete and comprehensive Ethnography Report of the communities. 

Thapa suggested that the responsibility of preparing the Ethnography Report should have been provided to institutions such as the Sikkim University, with inputs from intellectuals related to the subject. 

“The committee should have then involved the representative organisations of the different communities to provide their inputs and other ideas,” he added. 

“If the state government does not follow the correct procedure and provides an incomplete Ethnography report to the central government again, the GAC believes the 11 ethnic communities will never get the tribal status,” Thapa claimed.