History of Darjeeling hills being distorted, says Raju Bista

YOWAN MOTHAY, EOI, KALIMPONG, AUGUST 30, 2023 : The history of the Darjeeling hills and its people are being distorted and those who are currently in power in the hill regions of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts are clueless about the history of the region, BJP M.P. of Darjeeling Raju Bista said on Wednesday. 

According to him, some months ago, a Trinamool Congress Minister had referred to “Gorkha influx” in the West Bengal assembly. Such narratives and history of the region were devoid of factual realities. 

“It is these very people who label me as ‘outsider’ and themselves as ‘bhumiputras’ do not seem to know that the Darjeeling hills, Terai and Dooars had always been a contested geography, with Tibet, Bhutan, then kingdom of Sikkim and Nepal jostling for dominance of our tracts with each other. 

Referring to the direct rule of the Gorkha kingdom on Darjeeling from 1777 to 1816, he said “it is abjectly wrong to claim that Gorkhas are immigrants to our own land.” 

In the first District Gazetteer of Darjeeling authored by L.S.S. O’Malley published in 1907 mentioned that when in 1829 Captain George Alymer Lloyd along with J. W. Grant became the first Europeans to visit Darjeeling; they referred to the place as “Old Goorkha (Gorkha) station of Darjeeling.” 

How the Gorkhas could be immigrants in their own lands, he asked. This was six years before the British took over the Darjeeling tracts on lease in 1835 from the kingdom of Sikkim. 

Further, O’Malley had mentioned that “Darjeeling itself, though formerly occupied by a large village and the residence of one of the principal Kazis ...,” implying that a large population had lived here much before the British had arrived. 

Bista argued that for Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha leaders to quote inaccurate figures to claim that Gorkhas were immigrants in their own land was not only absurd but also sinister. 

It had now become increasingly clear that both the BGPM and the Trinamool Congress considered the Gorkhas to be immigrants. 

“That’s why these two parties BGPM and Trinamool are forcing our people to accept ‘refugee patta,’” he said.