Nepal entangled with the United Nations
FROM ASIA TIMES
BY DHRUBA ADHIKARY
KATHMANDU: The wrangling in Nepal over forming an interim coalition to replace the government that quit on June 30 has projected some of the country’s politicians as small-minded, and seemingly unwilling to take the country out of its tension-fraught transition.
To make matters worse, some politicians have picked a quarrel with the United Nations, accusing its field mission of taking sides with former Maoist insurgents on the question of integration into the Nepal army.
The United Nations Mission In Nepal (UNMIN) was set up in early 2007 at the request of political parties, including the Maoists, to facilitate the implementation of a peace process that entered into a decisive phase at the end of king Gyanendra’s direct rule in April 2006.
The mission helped with elections in April 2008; its remaining job is to provide assistance that might be required in work associated with monitoring the country’s arms and armies, that is, the regular army and former Maoist guerrillas.
The UNMIN’s present mandate, which was initially renewed every six months, expires in mid-September. While the latest United Nations Security Council resolution to this effect was adopted in May, some political leaders and media outlets perceive that the UNMIN is looking for a pretext to prolong its stay indefinitely. Leading the vocal group is none other than caretaker Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who resigned as premier in June.
The group cites UNMIN’s publication of a 60-week work plan on the integration and rehabilitation of former combatants as glaring evidence of the UN’s real intentions. Two newspapers owned by one leading publisher printed the controversial work plan on July 9.
Sushil Koirala, head of the Nepali Congress, a party in the outgoing coalition, has publicly criticized the UN’s seeming “interference” in the peace process. He also used harsh words about the UN mission remaining tight-lipped over the “unabated violent activities” of the Maoists, even after their signing of a series of agreements aimed at ushering in an era of peaceful, competitive politics.
True, there have been a couple of incidents in which former rebels sneaked out of their holding camps and carried out violent attacks on civilians. While the UNMIN issued statements condemning such activities, officials at the mission have argued that they do not have the mandate or the logistical support to handle problems of this nature. Theirs is a political mission, not a full-fledged peacekeeping operation, they claim.
Meanwhile, Peace and Reconstruction Minister Rakam Chemjong directed a senior official to send an urgent missive to Karin Landgren, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon’s representative in Nepal, telling her how “deeply concerned” the government was over the work plan for former combatants, who number 19,600.
Landgren swiftly sent her response, with a clarification that her mission did not push through any action plan or roadmap for integration and rehabilitation; whatever was handed over to the leaders of three major parties was a “non-paper” that could be construed as reference material aimed at helping the parties make a decision.
A “non-paper”, according to a dictionary definition, is an authoritative but unofficial document that is often used to test the reaction of concerned parties. The term is frequently used by such bodies as the UN and the European Union. The timeline mentioned in the document indicated that it was “hypothetical”.
Subsequently, the dispute reached UN headquarters in New York, where associate spokesperson Farhan Haq told a media briefing on Monday that prior consultations with the main parties of Nepal about the non-paper with a timeline in it “had taken place with the full knowledge of the government of Nepal”.
The completion of the UNMIN’s arms-monitoring mandate, the spokesperson added, in large part was contingent on the parties agreeing on a plan to address the future of Maoist army personnel.
Back in Kathmandu, officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs appeared reluctant to talk about the issue as their ministry was not taken into the confidence of the political leaders.
Independent observers unhesitatingly ridicule the government for its ineptitude, but they also do not have kind words for the UNMIN.
Wittingly or otherwise, the UNMIN circulated a non-paper with a timeline of 60 weeks just eight or nine weeks before its own current term expired. Such an initiative was bound to create an impression that the UNMIN was keen to delay its departure. It could also be interpreted as a move to be sympathetic to the Maoists, whose desire is to have most, if not all, of their ex-combatants integrated into the Nepal Army – a proposition fiercely resisted by the army thus far.
The UNMIN is also aware that the extended tenure of the Constituent Assembly requires it to issue a new constitution by May 28, 2011. The new statute cannot leave any space for a provision that would allow two armies in one country. At this point, the UNMIN would certainly have outlived its purpose.
Some political parties perceived as pro-Indian believe the UN mission has already lost its relevance in Nepal. However, others want the UNMIN to maintain its presence until the ongoing peace process reaches its logical conclusion, believing it prevents interference by India.
“By displaying intolerance and arrogance towards the UNMIN, the incumbent government as well as non-Maoist political parties are proving their diplomatic immaturity,” said Kesharbahadur Bhandari, a retired army officer, in a comment printed in Kantipur newspaper on Thursday. It is an irony, he added, that these leaders tolerated the clear interference of diplomats from India but sought to humiliate UNMIN personnel.
Dhruba Adhikary is a Kathmandu-based journalist.
Saturday, 17 July 2010
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
The 30-Year War in Afghanistan
June 29, 2010 | 0858 GMT
By George Friedman
The Afghan War is the longest war in U.S. history. It began in 1980 and continues to rage. It began under Democrats but has been fought under both Republican and Democratic administrations, making it truly a bipartisan war. The conflict is an odd obsession of U.S. foreign policy, one that never goes away and never seems to end. As the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal reminds us, the Afghan War is now in its fourth phase.
The Afghan War’s First Three Phases
The first phase of the Afghan War began with the Soviet invasion in December 1979, when the United States, along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, organized and sustained Afghan resistance to the Soviets. This resistance was built around mujahideen, fighters motivated by Islam. Washington’s purpose had little to do with Afghanistan and everything to do with U.S.-Soviet competition. The United States wanted to block the Soviets from using Afghanistan as a base for further expansion and wanted to bog the Soviets down in a debilitating guerrilla war. The United States did not so much fight the war as facilitate it. The strategy worked. The Soviets were blocked and bogged down. This phase lasted until 1989, when Soviet troops were withdrawn.
The second phase lasted from 1989 until 2001. The forces the United States and its allies had trained and armed now fought each other in complex coalitions for control of Afghanistan. Though the United States did not take part in this war directly, it did not lose all interest in Afghanistan. Rather, it was prepared to exert its influence through allies, particularly Pakistan. Most important, it was prepared to accept that the Islamic fighters it had organized against the Soviets would govern Afghanistan. There were many factions, but with Pakistani support, a coalition called the Taliban took power in 1996. The Taliban in turn provided sanctuary for a group of international jihadists called al Qaeda, and this led to increased tensions with the Taliban following jihadist attacks on U.S. facilities abroad by al Qaeda.
The third phase began on Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda launched attacks on the mainland United States. Given al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan, the United States launched operations designed to destroy or disrupt al Qaeda and dislodge the Taliban. The United States commenced operations barely 30 days after Sept. 11, which was not enough time to mount an invasion using U.S. troops as the primary instrument. Rather, the United States made arrangements with factions that were opposed to the Taliban (and defeated in the Afghan civil war). This included organizations such as the Northern Alliance, which had remained close to the Russians; Shiite groups in the west that were close to the Iranians and India; and other groups or subgroups in other regions. These groups supported the United States out of hostility to the Taliban and/or due to substantial bribes paid by the United States.
The overwhelming majority of ground forces opposing the Taliban in 2001 were Afghan. The United States did, however, insert special operations forces teams to work with these groups and to identify targets for U.S. airpower, the primary American contribution to the war. The use of U.S. B-52s against Taliban forces massed around cities in the north caused the Taliban to abandon any thought of resisting the Northern Alliance and others, even though the Taliban had defeated them in the civil war.
Unable to hold fixed positions against airstrikes, the Taliban withdrew from the cities and dispersed. The Taliban were not defeated, however; they merely declined to fight on U.S. terms. Instead, they redefined the war, preserving their forces and regrouping. The Taliban understood that the cities were not the key to Afghanistan. Instead, the countryside would ultimately provide control of the cities. From the Taliban point of view, the battle would be waged in the countryside, while the cities increasingly would be isolated.
The United States simply did not have sufficient force to identify, engage and destroy the Taliban as a whole. The United States did succeed in damaging and dislodging al Qaeda, with the jihadist group’s command cell becoming isolated in northwestern Pakistan. But as with the Taliban, the United States did not defeat al Qaeda because the United States lacked significant forces on the ground. Even so, al Qaeda prime, the original command cell, was no longer in a position to mount 9/11-style attacks.
During the Bush administration, U.S. goals for Afghanistan were modest. First, the Americans intended to keep al Qaeda bottled up and to impose as much damage as possible on the group. Second, they intended to establish an Afghan government, regardless of how ineffective it might be, to serve as a symbolic core. Third, they planned very limited operations against the Taliban, which had regrouped and increasingly controlled the countryside. The Bush administration was basically in a holding operation in Afghanistan. It accepted that U.S. forces were neither going to be able to impose a political solution on Afghanistan nor create a coalition large enough control the country. U.S. strategy was extremely modest under Bush: to harass al Qaeda from bases in Afghanistan, maintain control of cities and logistics routes, and accept the limits of U.S. interests and power.
The three phases of American involvement in Afghanistan had a common point: All three were heavily dependent on non-U.S. forces to do the heavy lifting. In the first phase, the mujahideen performed this task. In the second phase, the United States relied on Pakistan to manage Afghanistan’s civil war. In the third phase, especially in the beginning, the United States depended on Afghan forces to fight the Taliban. Later, when greater numbers of American and allied forces arrived, the United States had limited objectives beyond preserving the Afghan government and engaging al Qaeda wherever it might be found (and in any event, by 2003, Iraq had taken priority over Afghanistan). In no case did the Americans use their main force to achieve their goals.
The Fourth Phase of the Afghan War
The fourth phase of the war began in 2009, when U.S. President Barack Obama decided to pursue a more aggressive strategy in Afghanistan. Though the Bush administration had toyed with this idea, it was Obama who implemented it fully. During the 2008 election campaign, Obama asserted that he would pay greater attention to Afghanistan. The Obama administration began with the premise that while the Iraq War was a mistake, the Afghan War had to be prosecuted. It reasoned that unlike Iraq, which had a tenuous connection to al Qaeda at best, Afghanistan was the group’s original base. He argued that Afghanistan therefore should be the focus of U.S. military operations. In doing so, he shifted a strategy that had been in place for 30 years by making U.S. forces the main combatants in the war.
Though Obama’s goals were not altogether clear, they might be stated as follows:
1.Deny al Qaeda a base in Afghanistan.
2.Create an exit strategy from Afghanistan similar to the one in Iraq by creating the conditions for negotiating with the Taliban; make denying al Qaeda a base a condition for the resulting ruling coalition.
3.Begin withdrawal by 2011.
To do this, there would be three steps:
1.Increase the number and aggressiveness of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
2.Create Afghan security forces under the current government to take over from the Americans.
3.Increase pressure on the Taliban by driving a wedge between them and the population and creating intra-insurgent rifts via effective counterinsurgency tactics.
In analyzing this strategy, there is an obvious issue: While al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan in 2001, Afghanistan is no longer its primary base of operations. The group has shifted to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and other countries. As al Qaeda is thus not dependent on any one country for its operational base, denying it bases in Afghanistan does not address the reality of its dispersion. Securing Afghanistan, in other words, is no longer the solution to al Qaeda.
Obviously, Obama’s planners fully understood this. Therefore, sanctuary denial for al Qaeda had to be, at best, a secondary strategic goal. The primary strategic goal was to create an exit strategy for the United States based on a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and a resulting coalition government. The al Qaeda issue depended on this settlement, but could never be guaranteed. In fact, neither the long-term survival of a coalition government nor the Taliban policing al Qaeda could be guaranteed.
The exit of U.S. forces represents a bid to reinstate the American strategy of the past 30 years, namely, having Afghan forces reassume the primary burden of fighting. The creation of an Afghan military is not the key to this strategy. Afghans fight for their clans and ethnic groups. The United States is trying to invent a national army where no nation exists, a task that assumes the primary loyalty of Afghans will shift from their clans to a national government, an unlikely proposition.
The Real U.S. Strategy
Rather than trying to strengthen the Karzai government, the real strategy is to return to the historical principles of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan: alliance with indigenous forces. These indigenous forces would pursue strategies in the American interest for their own reasons, or because they are paid, and would be strong enough to stand up to the Taliban in a coalition. As CIA Director Leon Panetta put it this weekend, however, this is proving harder to do than expected.
The American strategy is, therefore, to maintain a sufficient force to shape the political evolution on the ground, and to use that force to motivate and intimidate while also using economic incentives to draw together a coalition in the countryside. Operations like those in Helmand province — where even Washington acknowledges that progress has been elusive and slower than anticipated — clearly are designed to try to draw regional forces into regional coalitions that eventually can enter a coalition with the Taliban without immediately being overwhelmed. If this strategy proceeds, the Taliban in theory will be spurred to negotiate out of concern that this process eventually could leave it marginalized.
There is an anomaly in this strategy, however. Where the United States previously had devolved operational responsibility to allied groups, or simply hunkered down, this strategy tries to return to devolved responsibilities by first surging U.S. operations. The fourth phase actually increases U.S. operational responsibility in order to reduce it.
From the grand strategic point of view, the United States needs to withdraw from Afghanistan, a landlocked country where U.S. forces are dependent on tortuous supply lines. Whatever Afghanistan’s vast mineral riches, mining them in the midst of war is not going to happen. More important, the United States is overcommitted in the region and lacks a strategic reserve of ground forces. Afghanistan ultimately is not strategically essential, and this is why the United States has not historically used its own forces there.
Obama’s attempt to return to that track after first increasing U.S. forces to set the stage for the political settlement that will allow a U.S. withdrawal is hampered by the need to begin terminating the operation by 2011 (although there is no fixed termination date). It will be difficult to draw coalition partners into local structures when the foundation — U.S. protection — is withdrawing. Strengthening local forces by 2011 will be difficult. Moreover, the Taliban’s motivation to enter into talks is limited by the early withdrawal. At the same time, with no ground combat strategic reserve, the United States is vulnerable elsewhere in the world, and the longer the Afghan drawdown takes, the more vulnerable it becomes (hence the 2011 deadline in Obama’s war plan).
In sum, this is the quandary inherent in the strategy: It is necessary to withdraw as early as possible, but early withdrawal undermines both coalition building and negotiations. The recruitment and use of indigenous Afghan forces must move extremely rapidly to hit the deadline (though officially on track quantitatively, there are serious questions about qualitative measures) — hence, the aggressive operations that have been mounted over recent months. But the correlation of forces is such that the United States probably will not be able to impose an acceptable political reality in the time frame available. Thus, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is said to be opening channels directly to the Taliban, while the Pakistanis are increasing their presence. Where a vacuum is created, regardless of how much activity there is, someone will fill it.
Therefore, the problem is to define how important Afghanistan is to American global strategy, bearing in mind that the forces absorbed in Iraq and Afghanistan have left the United States vulnerable elsewhere in the world. The current strategy defines the Islamic world as the focus of all U.S. military attention. But the world has rarely been so considerate as to wait until the United States is finished with one war before starting another. Though unknowns remain unknowable, a principle of warfare is to never commit all of your reserves in a battle — one should always maintain a reserve for the unexpected. Strategically, it is imperative that the United States begin to free up forces and re-establish its ground reserves.
Given the time frame the Obama administration’s grand strategy imposes, and given the capabilities of the Taliban, it is difficult to see how it will all work out. But the ultimate question is about the American obsession with Afghanistan. For 30 years, the United States has been involved in a country that is virtually inaccessible for the United States. Washington has allied itself with radical Islamists, fought against radical Islamists or tried to negotiate with radical Islamists. What the United States has never tried to do is impose a political solution through the direct application of American force. This is a new and radically different phase of America’s Afghan obsession. The questions are whether it will work and whether it is even worth it.
June 29, 2010 | 0858 GMT
By George Friedman
The Afghan War is the longest war in U.S. history. It began in 1980 and continues to rage. It began under Democrats but has been fought under both Republican and Democratic administrations, making it truly a bipartisan war. The conflict is an odd obsession of U.S. foreign policy, one that never goes away and never seems to end. As the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal reminds us, the Afghan War is now in its fourth phase.
The Afghan War’s First Three Phases
The first phase of the Afghan War began with the Soviet invasion in December 1979, when the United States, along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, organized and sustained Afghan resistance to the Soviets. This resistance was built around mujahideen, fighters motivated by Islam. Washington’s purpose had little to do with Afghanistan and everything to do with U.S.-Soviet competition. The United States wanted to block the Soviets from using Afghanistan as a base for further expansion and wanted to bog the Soviets down in a debilitating guerrilla war. The United States did not so much fight the war as facilitate it. The strategy worked. The Soviets were blocked and bogged down. This phase lasted until 1989, when Soviet troops were withdrawn.
The second phase lasted from 1989 until 2001. The forces the United States and its allies had trained and armed now fought each other in complex coalitions for control of Afghanistan. Though the United States did not take part in this war directly, it did not lose all interest in Afghanistan. Rather, it was prepared to exert its influence through allies, particularly Pakistan. Most important, it was prepared to accept that the Islamic fighters it had organized against the Soviets would govern Afghanistan. There were many factions, but with Pakistani support, a coalition called the Taliban took power in 1996. The Taliban in turn provided sanctuary for a group of international jihadists called al Qaeda, and this led to increased tensions with the Taliban following jihadist attacks on U.S. facilities abroad by al Qaeda.
The third phase began on Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda launched attacks on the mainland United States. Given al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan, the United States launched operations designed to destroy or disrupt al Qaeda and dislodge the Taliban. The United States commenced operations barely 30 days after Sept. 11, which was not enough time to mount an invasion using U.S. troops as the primary instrument. Rather, the United States made arrangements with factions that were opposed to the Taliban (and defeated in the Afghan civil war). This included organizations such as the Northern Alliance, which had remained close to the Russians; Shiite groups in the west that were close to the Iranians and India; and other groups or subgroups in other regions. These groups supported the United States out of hostility to the Taliban and/or due to substantial bribes paid by the United States.
The overwhelming majority of ground forces opposing the Taliban in 2001 were Afghan. The United States did, however, insert special operations forces teams to work with these groups and to identify targets for U.S. airpower, the primary American contribution to the war. The use of U.S. B-52s against Taliban forces massed around cities in the north caused the Taliban to abandon any thought of resisting the Northern Alliance and others, even though the Taliban had defeated them in the civil war.
Unable to hold fixed positions against airstrikes, the Taliban withdrew from the cities and dispersed. The Taliban were not defeated, however; they merely declined to fight on U.S. terms. Instead, they redefined the war, preserving their forces and regrouping. The Taliban understood that the cities were not the key to Afghanistan. Instead, the countryside would ultimately provide control of the cities. From the Taliban point of view, the battle would be waged in the countryside, while the cities increasingly would be isolated.
The United States simply did not have sufficient force to identify, engage and destroy the Taliban as a whole. The United States did succeed in damaging and dislodging al Qaeda, with the jihadist group’s command cell becoming isolated in northwestern Pakistan. But as with the Taliban, the United States did not defeat al Qaeda because the United States lacked significant forces on the ground. Even so, al Qaeda prime, the original command cell, was no longer in a position to mount 9/11-style attacks.
During the Bush administration, U.S. goals for Afghanistan were modest. First, the Americans intended to keep al Qaeda bottled up and to impose as much damage as possible on the group. Second, they intended to establish an Afghan government, regardless of how ineffective it might be, to serve as a symbolic core. Third, they planned very limited operations against the Taliban, which had regrouped and increasingly controlled the countryside. The Bush administration was basically in a holding operation in Afghanistan. It accepted that U.S. forces were neither going to be able to impose a political solution on Afghanistan nor create a coalition large enough control the country. U.S. strategy was extremely modest under Bush: to harass al Qaeda from bases in Afghanistan, maintain control of cities and logistics routes, and accept the limits of U.S. interests and power.
The three phases of American involvement in Afghanistan had a common point: All three were heavily dependent on non-U.S. forces to do the heavy lifting. In the first phase, the mujahideen performed this task. In the second phase, the United States relied on Pakistan to manage Afghanistan’s civil war. In the third phase, especially in the beginning, the United States depended on Afghan forces to fight the Taliban. Later, when greater numbers of American and allied forces arrived, the United States had limited objectives beyond preserving the Afghan government and engaging al Qaeda wherever it might be found (and in any event, by 2003, Iraq had taken priority over Afghanistan). In no case did the Americans use their main force to achieve their goals.
The Fourth Phase of the Afghan War
The fourth phase of the war began in 2009, when U.S. President Barack Obama decided to pursue a more aggressive strategy in Afghanistan. Though the Bush administration had toyed with this idea, it was Obama who implemented it fully. During the 2008 election campaign, Obama asserted that he would pay greater attention to Afghanistan. The Obama administration began with the premise that while the Iraq War was a mistake, the Afghan War had to be prosecuted. It reasoned that unlike Iraq, which had a tenuous connection to al Qaeda at best, Afghanistan was the group’s original base. He argued that Afghanistan therefore should be the focus of U.S. military operations. In doing so, he shifted a strategy that had been in place for 30 years by making U.S. forces the main combatants in the war.
Though Obama’s goals were not altogether clear, they might be stated as follows:
1.Deny al Qaeda a base in Afghanistan.
2.Create an exit strategy from Afghanistan similar to the one in Iraq by creating the conditions for negotiating with the Taliban; make denying al Qaeda a base a condition for the resulting ruling coalition.
3.Begin withdrawal by 2011.
To do this, there would be three steps:
1.Increase the number and aggressiveness of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
2.Create Afghan security forces under the current government to take over from the Americans.
3.Increase pressure on the Taliban by driving a wedge between them and the population and creating intra-insurgent rifts via effective counterinsurgency tactics.
In analyzing this strategy, there is an obvious issue: While al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan in 2001, Afghanistan is no longer its primary base of operations. The group has shifted to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and other countries. As al Qaeda is thus not dependent on any one country for its operational base, denying it bases in Afghanistan does not address the reality of its dispersion. Securing Afghanistan, in other words, is no longer the solution to al Qaeda.
Obviously, Obama’s planners fully understood this. Therefore, sanctuary denial for al Qaeda had to be, at best, a secondary strategic goal. The primary strategic goal was to create an exit strategy for the United States based on a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and a resulting coalition government. The al Qaeda issue depended on this settlement, but could never be guaranteed. In fact, neither the long-term survival of a coalition government nor the Taliban policing al Qaeda could be guaranteed.
The exit of U.S. forces represents a bid to reinstate the American strategy of the past 30 years, namely, having Afghan forces reassume the primary burden of fighting. The creation of an Afghan military is not the key to this strategy. Afghans fight for their clans and ethnic groups. The United States is trying to invent a national army where no nation exists, a task that assumes the primary loyalty of Afghans will shift from their clans to a national government, an unlikely proposition.
The Real U.S. Strategy
Rather than trying to strengthen the Karzai government, the real strategy is to return to the historical principles of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan: alliance with indigenous forces. These indigenous forces would pursue strategies in the American interest for their own reasons, or because they are paid, and would be strong enough to stand up to the Taliban in a coalition. As CIA Director Leon Panetta put it this weekend, however, this is proving harder to do than expected.
The American strategy is, therefore, to maintain a sufficient force to shape the political evolution on the ground, and to use that force to motivate and intimidate while also using economic incentives to draw together a coalition in the countryside. Operations like those in Helmand province — where even Washington acknowledges that progress has been elusive and slower than anticipated — clearly are designed to try to draw regional forces into regional coalitions that eventually can enter a coalition with the Taliban without immediately being overwhelmed. If this strategy proceeds, the Taliban in theory will be spurred to negotiate out of concern that this process eventually could leave it marginalized.
There is an anomaly in this strategy, however. Where the United States previously had devolved operational responsibility to allied groups, or simply hunkered down, this strategy tries to return to devolved responsibilities by first surging U.S. operations. The fourth phase actually increases U.S. operational responsibility in order to reduce it.
From the grand strategic point of view, the United States needs to withdraw from Afghanistan, a landlocked country where U.S. forces are dependent on tortuous supply lines. Whatever Afghanistan’s vast mineral riches, mining them in the midst of war is not going to happen. More important, the United States is overcommitted in the region and lacks a strategic reserve of ground forces. Afghanistan ultimately is not strategically essential, and this is why the United States has not historically used its own forces there.
Obama’s attempt to return to that track after first increasing U.S. forces to set the stage for the political settlement that will allow a U.S. withdrawal is hampered by the need to begin terminating the operation by 2011 (although there is no fixed termination date). It will be difficult to draw coalition partners into local structures when the foundation — U.S. protection — is withdrawing. Strengthening local forces by 2011 will be difficult. Moreover, the Taliban’s motivation to enter into talks is limited by the early withdrawal. At the same time, with no ground combat strategic reserve, the United States is vulnerable elsewhere in the world, and the longer the Afghan drawdown takes, the more vulnerable it becomes (hence the 2011 deadline in Obama’s war plan).
In sum, this is the quandary inherent in the strategy: It is necessary to withdraw as early as possible, but early withdrawal undermines both coalition building and negotiations. The recruitment and use of indigenous Afghan forces must move extremely rapidly to hit the deadline (though officially on track quantitatively, there are serious questions about qualitative measures) — hence, the aggressive operations that have been mounted over recent months. But the correlation of forces is such that the United States probably will not be able to impose an acceptable political reality in the time frame available. Thus, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is said to be opening channels directly to the Taliban, while the Pakistanis are increasing their presence. Where a vacuum is created, regardless of how much activity there is, someone will fill it.
Therefore, the problem is to define how important Afghanistan is to American global strategy, bearing in mind that the forces absorbed in Iraq and Afghanistan have left the United States vulnerable elsewhere in the world. The current strategy defines the Islamic world as the focus of all U.S. military attention. But the world has rarely been so considerate as to wait until the United States is finished with one war before starting another. Though unknowns remain unknowable, a principle of warfare is to never commit all of your reserves in a battle — one should always maintain a reserve for the unexpected. Strategically, it is imperative that the United States begin to free up forces and re-establish its ground reserves.
Given the time frame the Obama administration’s grand strategy imposes, and given the capabilities of the Taliban, it is difficult to see how it will all work out. But the ultimate question is about the American obsession with Afghanistan. For 30 years, the United States has been involved in a country that is virtually inaccessible for the United States. Washington has allied itself with radical Islamists, fought against radical Islamists or tried to negotiate with radical Islamists. What the United States has never tried to do is impose a political solution through the direct application of American force. This is a new and radically different phase of America’s Afghan obsession. The questions are whether it will work and whether it is even worth it.
APROPOS: Supporting the issue of Darjeeling Sikkim unification is suicidal – G.M.Rai.
source:THE HIMALAYAN BEACON [BEACON ONLINE]
BY DARJ MAN
Sub: In response to Post Barun Roy 21 June 2010, from Haalkhabar.net article Darjeeling/Sikkim: Supporting the issue of Darjeeling Sikkim unification is suicidal -G.M.Rai.
Title: Probably the Khas-Khasis- the original Gushan -Gurkhan, Gurkha/Gorkha.
Before approaching the question of the proposed merger of Darjeeling District in Sikkim the protagonist of the concept need address a few pertinent questions on the very foundations in order to lay the idea. The historical relevancy and its application in entirety, Darjeeling-Sikkim state is controversial even if the title is juggled to identify the larger parental area as ‘Sikkim Darjeeling’ nomenclature. The idea no matter how feasible may not be entirely acceptable to the Sikkimese although the inhabitants are closely linked in the broad spectrum of the Sikkim Himalayan cultural background. However the concept is playing into the hands dealt out by Bengal – division of Darjeeling District into Sikkim Darjeeling (1835) and Bhutanese-Kalimpong (1865) which areas belonged to the respective foreign countries amalgamated to form the present District of the same name.
For the moment this is the point of stress needed to be relieved from the process of contemplated fragmentation of Darjeeling District by West Bengal by carving out DGHC area (1988 by Subhas Ghissing, President GNLF) to divide Siliguri subdivision into a separate administrative unit in the District and gradually over period of time amalgamated visibly into Jalpaiguri District already seen in the economic plan of Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Corporation eventually converted into a statutory authority including the Siliguri Municipality Corporation (SMC) within the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad All this backstage acts being rehearsed without an inkling of suspicion aroused in the minds of the hill people without any scheme of their own for implementation in the fertile Terai land now converted into a gold mine of real estate wheeling and dealing. These areas though originally belonging to Sikkim at the moment belongs to the Darjeeling hill peoples with or without the consensus of the ethnic ruling majority community of the state in which the hill people never belonged (Govt. of India Absorbed Area (Laws) Act 1954), on the contrary, besides some of the plains tribes the rest of the population are recent migrants after independence and the inflow begun then is now an endless chain entirely marginalizing the original hill tribes. It is retold in history at the time of the Darjeeling Grant in 1835 the Sikkim king while ceding Darjeeling to East India Company, infact understood acceptance of Grant in exchange for the Siliguri Terai plains land which was diplomatically sidelined by Major Lloyd deputed by Lord William Bentinck to negotiate the proposed cession.
Bengal as a matter of fact seems advantaged from the recurring use of the Gorkha appellation designated to imply, whether properly or improperly, reference to describe the ethnology of the constellation of hill communities, genuinely the Darjeeling ‘hill people’. This reference was conspicuously implied in the drafting the Constitution of India in 1946 (Cripps Cabinet Mission). In the question of debating Darjeeling District as a “Partially Excluded Area” (Govt. of India Act 1935 and Order 1936) is contained in the process of forwarding the District in the provisions of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution.
The future of Darjeeling District was earmarked in the Final Interim Report submitted to the Advisory Committee of the Union Constituent Assembly of India, by the Chairman A.V.Thakkar of the Sub Committee on “Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas (other than Assam)” in 18 Aug 1947. Darjeeling District was forwarded with the provisions of a “Partially Excluded Area”, particularly, it was argued, “the hill peoples” required a measure of protection while in contact with the more advanced people from the plains land.
So true and sagacious were the foresight of the fathers of the Constitution realizing this scene in advance, which, unfortunately is being undermined in subservience to the wishes of Bengal by frequently applying the Gorkhaland mantra merely to advance its political authority, infact not sanctioned by the constitutional writ wherein the Darjeeling tribes and the ‘hill people’ are provided protection under the Fifth Schedule. This otherwise unbefittingly, like Major Lloyd, is misused in disadvantaging the people for which the provision was made.
It is perceived, believed somehow, applying Gorkha designation to ensure symbolic relevance, ethnic, linguistic or cultural to Darjeeling District and Sikkim (in India) is alluded to raise more controversy than otherwise gain recognition while attempting to address issues anywhere in the Himalayas including Nepali from whence the word originated. The word is identified, peculiarly in reference to the Kings of the Gorkha under Shah dynasty since 1769 which period the indigenous people, the Newari Malla rulers of Katmandu valley and the adjoining tribes were overcome by Prithivinarayan Shan the Gorkha king. The monarchial dynastic rule ended in 2007 by overthrowing the ruling Gorkha king Birendra Bikram Shah by a popular Maoist doctrinated uprising under ‘Prachanda’ Pushpa Kumar .Dahal adventing a democratic federal republic nation. Paradoxically the sole aim of the Nepali Maoist was targeted to bring down the 238 years rule of the Gorkha kings, the only Hindu theocratic nation in the world, while on the other hand strangely enough Gorkha symbolism is asserted in adventuring recognition of Nepali/Gorkha as Indian identity. The paradox ends on the grounds if ethnic emigrant Indians having settled in Gorkha, the immediate ancestors of Prithivinarayan Shah are considered domiciled Nepalese.
Extract from Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun from China to India translated from the Chinese by Samuel Beal : In about 30 BC the five tribes of the great Yuchi (who had been driven by their enemies in the northern frontiers of India) united the five tribes under Khieu-tsiu-ki, the chief of the Gushan (Kuei-shang) horde: quote, “ proceeded to advance further south to the conquest of Kashmir and Cabul (Kabul). It is conjectured that the same chief who consolidated the power of the Yuchi, is the same as Hyrkodes of the coins. Who probably effected his conquest about 50 BC and died at 35 BC at 84 years of age. The chieftain left the throne to his son, Yen-kao-ching, to whom the Chinese assign the conquest of India to the west of the Jamuna. He has been identified with Hima Kadphises of the coins. His successor was Kanishka (about 15 BC) to whom frequent allusion is made in the following memoirs. From the Raja Tarangini (History of Kashmir) we learn that Kanishka and his two brothers, Hushka and Jushka ruled over Kashmir for 60 years”. The Gushan horde could possibly be the Gurkhans and later the Gurkhas of the present times.
There is also an element of speculation in considering Gorkha was ruled by Khan kings (not necessarily religious Muslims) which meaning was transferred to the Shah designation (Khan=Shah) whereas it is inferred the Khan was in reference to Gur-Khans (Gorkhas) meaning King of kings in Mongolian language. This is an extract from I.S.Chemjong’s book History and culture of Kirat People (2003 4th Edition) which is believed to be banned for sale in Nepal. Interesting however is his finding the Gur-khans ancestral homeland was the Tarim river basin along the infamous Silk Route to China via the Takla Makan desert presently the Chinese province of Sinkiang. The Gur-Khans had their capital in Kashgar(h) meaning the fort of the Khas people (referring to the Khus Parbhatiyas) of western Nepal.
In order to understand the ancient history of the Khas of Nepal dating possibly before the Christian era the formation of the caste by crossing recent migrants from India Rajputs or Brahmins and the Khas Mongolian women of the country, being the infamous progeny of a Brahmin and a Mlechha, to whom, in greater defiance of their creed, communicated the rank of second order of Hinduism, as Kshatriyas with the patronymic title of the first order.
It is this writer’s view point the word Khus, Khas, Khasi, Khasis is an abbreviation of Khus are totally different from the neighbouring hill tribes, though presently occupying space as an autochthones of Meghalaya. In the historical past the tribe inhabiting in Meghalaya and Tripura as Khasi probably were displaced from North West India and migrated to different parts of the country under new nomenclatures suitable to the new area. The new names under which their original tribal identity persists are mentioned in the table:
States ST/SC No. Names of Tribes / Caste
Assam ST 6 Khasi, Pnar, War, others (4)
Andhra Pradesh SC 22 Ghasi, others (3)
Bihar SC 12 Ghasi
Chattisgarh SC 25 Ghasi, Ghasia
Gujarat ST 4 Bhil, Bhil Garasia, etc
Meghalaya ST 6 Khasi,Pnar, War, others (4)
Mizoram ST 6 Khasi,Pnar, War, others (4)
Maharashtra ST 23 Ghasi, Ghasia;
Madhya Pradesh SC 26 Ghasi, Ghasia
Orissa ST 31 Ghasi, Ghasia
Rajasthan ST 5 Garasia (excld. Rajput Garasia)
Earlier having mentioned the Khasis is said to have inhabited Northwest India as the Khas in western Nepal, also seems to have close affinity with the Mon-Khmer (Burma and Cambodian tribes) as well as the Lalung tribe of North Burma. The Khasis who are linguistically connected with the group once known as Kolarian in the Indian peninsula, but now generally known as Munda inhabiting the hilly regions of Chutia Nagpur and parts of Satpura Range in the Central provinces. In physical character the indo Chinese Khasis differ greatly with the Mundas. But the points of resemblance in the languages and in some of the institutions cannot be denied.
It does not seem coincidental the War tribes close to Khasis, too is believed to have inhabited and close proximity to the former since ancient times, both the tribes being displaced by pouring hoards of Indo Aryan immigrants from the west. The Wars now inhabit the North East states of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Assam co-jointly with the others as tribes. Like the Khasis, the Wars too intermingled in marriage with other tribes in India of both Austric and Dravidic stock with implications of changed nomenclatures as given below in the table:
States ST/SC No. Names of Tribes / Caste
Andhra Pradesh ST 4 Chenchu, Chenchwar ;
Bihar ST 15 Kharia (16). Kharwar
Chattisgarh ST 20 Kawar Kanwar, others (5); (21) Khairwar, Kondar (22). Kharia
Chandigarh SC 19 Khatik
Delhi SC 21 Khatik
Himachal Pradesh SC 34 Khatik
Jharkhand ST 15 Kharia (16). Kharwar
Madhya Pradesh ST 14 Dhanwar (20). Kawar, Kanwar, others (5).(22) Khairwar,Kondar (23). Kharia
Maharashtra ST 23 Khairwar (24). Kharia
Orissa ST 28 Kawar (29). Kharia, Kharian (30) Kharwar
Punjab SC 20 Khatik
Rajasthan SC 36 Khatik
Tripura SC 20 Kharia
Uttarkhand SC 44 Karwal (45). Kharatia (46).Kharwar (excld. Vanwasi)(47). Khatik
Uttar Pradesh SC 44 Karwal (45). Khairaha (46). Kharwar (excld Bendansi) (47).Khatik
West Bengal SC 33 Khaira (34).Khatik (37).Konwar
ST 17 Kharwar
States ST/SC No. Names of Tribes / Caste
Andhra Pradesh SC 35 Mala(36).Maladasi(37).Maladasu(38).Malahannai(39).Malajangam (40). Malamasti (41). Malasale (42). Mala Sanyasi
ST 20 Malis (excld. 9 dists )
Bihar ST 23 Malpariya
Delhi SC 25 Malla
Jharkhand ST 23 Malpariya
Karnataka ST 65 Mala Maladasi (66). Malahannai (67).Malajangam (68).Malamasti
(69). Malasale (70). Malaka (71).Malasanyasi
Kerela SC 45 Palan (46) Palluvan
ST 23 Malakkuravan (24).Malasar (25).Malayan (26).Malayarayar
Maharashtra SC 39 Mala (40).Maladasi (41).Malahannai (42).Malajangam
(43).Malamasti (44).Malasale, Netkani (45).Mala Sanyasi
Orissa SC 56 Mala, Mala, Jhala, (Zala)
Pondicherry SC 7 Mala, Malamasti
Tamil Nadu SC 40 Mala
ST 23 Malakkuravan (24) Malasar (25) Malayali (26) Malayekandi
Tripura SC 27 Mali
West Bengal SC 43 Mallah
44 Mallah
ST 28 Malpahariya
The Gnar (or Synteng) tribe of Cherrapunji who coexists with the Khasia and War tribe in the states of Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram requires racial clarification. It could either be Austric, Dravidic or Mongolian. If it is not the last but either the first or the second it seems plausible to determine from the pronunciation of Gnar as Nayar (Nair) of Tamilnadu and Kerala. While professing aspects of South Indian Hinduism the early Malla (Mal-detailed ethnicity in attached table) kings of Katmandu valley, in order to proselytize Hinduism by inviting ethnic priests from the plains, the Nayars. The priests (Nayar/Nair/Gnar) intermingling within the Nepali social structure, besides professing religion, cohabited, possibly with the Mallas as well as with the War tribes, which contributed towards the new generation of population known as the Newars (Gnar+War) of Nepal. The usual reference citing the allusion of the South Indian community Nayar (Nair) connected by blood and name to Nepali Newar could partly be true, provided the Gnar tribe is a derivative from Nair (pronounced Gnar).
This deduction is justifiable on the basis of the fact the War tribe inhabiting present day Himachal Pradesh has historical reference whereas the Gnar tribe has been simultaneously mentioned with the War tribes simultaneously in Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
It s now the duty of ethnologists to determine whether Nair community can be considered indifferent to Gnar while sieving ancient history of North India. It is possible the oft reference to the mythical sage ’Ne’ of Nepal maybe referred to the Nayar (Gnar) who may have introduced some aspect of the southern culture into the Katmandu valley. The name Nepal, referred by Huien Tsang as Ni-polo visiting India in 6th century may not have visited the valley, presently Katmandu, but Swayambunath, the self evolved deity, in reference to the eternal burning flame- day and night, may already have existed at the time. Huien Tsang however only refers to Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautama Buddha where the Mauryan king Asoka’s edict pillar, commemorating the teacher’s birthplace, was discovered by Major L.A.Wadell, the Tibetologist. It is possible Nepal as a country was first time mentioned in history by the Chinese traveler as a result of which in reference to his visit, ancient sage ‘Ne’, may have applied ‘pala’ = look after, combined to derive the name Nepala, (looked after by the sage ‘Ne’).
Could it ever be possible some bloodline of ‘Ne’ the Chinese traveler maybe lurking in the chromosomes gene pool of the Nair would be an interesting subject for investigation to understand the history of Nepal which polity is still under process of ethnological evolution to determine its political space.
This being the background the Gorkha terminology is incidental to the history of Nepal of recent origin only just as the case of Indian history where foreign invaders have left their bits of mark contributing to the diversity of the nation, formed only in 1947, sixty three years ago, comparatively still young and further evolving.
The frequent and flagrant proposition of the Gorkha appellation, in context to the socio-political administrative history of the Darjeeling hills, while identifying the movement under a Gorkha stance unseemingly suppresses the provisions of the “Partially Excluded Area” regional identity of the Darjeeling hill peoples expression to detach themselves from West Bengal seems to deter the cause in more than one ways. This message is slowly seeping into the minds of the stakeholders, although belatedly, and a new approach is advanced by way of converting all the hill communities, read as Gorkhas into Scheduled Tribes. Darjeeling hill people on its own have been guaranteed by the Constitution to demand a state by virtue of its legal precedence the Govt. of India Act 1935 and Order 1936 which provisions were transferred, after independence into the Constitution of India in 1950. Per se which Darjeeling District under the provisions of the Fifth Schedule, based on the qualification as ‘Scheduled Tribes’ has rightly appealed for an Interim Setup, anticipating a Union Territory, is a process in the right direction. The more important qualification of the Fifth Schedule as a ‘Scheduled Area’, which requires vesting more hill communities as tribes in time, which the two factors combined would eventually fulfill the provisions of the Fifth Schedule in delivering the much aspired state.
Reverting back to the subject of attempting merger of Darjeeling District to Sikkim is plausible but relatively unacceptable reading the pages of the Govt. of India Acts since the time Darjeeling District was formed in 1866 and its respective relevance to the Constitution of India, 1950. This scheme is applicable and suitable only while considering Sikkimese Darjeeling, the three subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Siliguri which areas formed a separate unit since 1935 and 1950. Apart from that Bhutanese Kalimpong 1865, was amalgamated with the former to form Darjeeling District in 1866. Hence the issue of merging the entire Darjeeling District does not fit into the political background of the scheme. It is however, plausible to consider under the recent time and space frame with the conclusion of and in application of the updated Indo- Bhutan Friendship Treaty, 8 February 2007. The new Treaty contains no more Article 3 of the Treaty of 1949, per-se, the provision of, ‘ temporary subsidy of Rupees one lakh per annum granted in 1942 as a follow up of the Treaty of Punakha 1910 (8 Jan 1910) which itself was advanced from the Treaty of Sinchula (11 Nov 1865).
The present 2007 Treaty is clearly only an update as it neither mentions abrogation nor repeal of the 1949 Treaty is an interesting feature for a minute study of the implications in regard to the annual subsidy paid to Bhutan since British rule and continued till the updated Treaty in 2007. this is an interesting new chapter in Indo Bhutan relationship. The total cession of erstwhile Bhutanese territory of Dalimkote Kalimpong and the18 Dooars (Jalpaiguri District) is now a closed chapter. It is probable within the meaning of this understanding the entire Darjeeling District maybe allowed to be merged with Sikkim state. A feasible proposition which can be implemented if other factors prove to be agreeable.
If at all D.K.Bomzan, President, Gorkha Rashtriya Congress (GRC) is serious in his proclivity, the intended merger of Darjeeling to Sikkim requires a thorough analysis of the above two premises in order not to embark sailing on a boat without neither sails nor oars, unless otherwise he intends using his limbs in substitution – a Herculean transformation indeed.
In conclusion, GM Rai President Gorkha Prajatantrik Party (GPP) probably inspired by various Gorkha brands to wit, Bharatiya Gorkha Parishad (BGP), is a non starter neither as a social nor a political body headed by ‘have been’ politicians of yore and heralding the Nepali/Gorkha cause in the country is now messed up as a mindset, itself intending politicization of the various hill communities under the umbrella of Nepali/Gorkha brand name implied for political advantage in the rest of India. Since the formation of Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League (ABGL) in 15 May 1943, Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) 5 April 1980 (the party was formed for the sole intention of demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland for the first time) to be followed after 27 years by the present ongoing agitation led by Bimal Gurung’s Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) since August 2007.
The genesis of the appellation Gorkha has a historical background after the conclusion of the First World War in 1914-18 when retired British Gorkha ex-servicemen formed an association. An interesting sequel to the history of Darjeeling is according to Sikkim & Darjeeling by Dr. Sonam B. Wangyal that, Drs. D.K.Sarkar and D.Bhaumik version, Kalimpong Samity led by Sardar Bhimdal Dewan and the People’s Association of Darjeeling, clamoured not for ‘exclusion’ but for the ‘inclusion’ of Darjeeling into Bengal “for the obvious purpose of enjoying the fruits of constitutional reforms under the Act of 1919”. This was in exact opposition to the memorial presented to the Govt. of Bengal on 8 Nov 1917 by “Lepchas, Bhutias and Nepalese representing the opinion of the people of Darjeeling District” in anticipation of the Mongatu Chelmsford Reforms Commission 1918.
The idea of the Commission was, institute primarily to study and introduce the process of reforms towards increasing association of Indians in every branch of administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire. Taking advantage of this consideration was the effort made by the Hillmen’s Association to retain the exclusion of Darjeeling District from the application of general administration by forwarding the application of Backward Tracts(1870) which is now understood to mean these tribal inhabited areas located throughout India were ‘outside’ British India, which later on in the Govt. of India Act 1935 and Order 1936 were referred to as Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas which implications were further forwarded to the Constitution of India in the Fifth and Sixth Schedule.
Whether at that point of time the Hillmen’s Association, Darjeeling actually understood the reasoning’s for their memorial, “the one point was creation of a separate unit comprising of the present Darjeeling District with the portion of Jalpaiguri District which was annexed from Bhutan in 1865”, the same area now applied by GJMM for the creation of a new state for the Darjeeling hill peoples, by addressing the Centre to register ‘all Gorkhas’ (whereas in substance it only applies to the Darjeeling hill communities). This has the same implication as the earlier meaning of Backward Tracts updated in 1936 and 1936 with the provisions implied in 1950 wherein in the Fifth Schedule, Scheduled Area is consonant with Backward Tracts.
Hence applying the word Gorkha to address whether issues in the Darjeeling hills or elsewhere in India is antithetic to the space occupied by the more relevant and constitutional recognized status of Scheduled Tribes. This is historically proper and constitutionally acceptable, unless and otherwise the Gorkha communities are merged in the holding of the Scheduled Tribes. This is now being accepted by GJMM as well as GNLF who infact had highlighted this program before being superseded by the former in 2007. From this argument it can now be deciphered improper application of Gorkha, except in reference to the Gorkha soldiers in Nepal as per the Britain-India-Nepal Tripartite Agreement signed 1947 concerning the rights of Gorkhas in military service, superceding it in any other context whether ethnically, socially or politically seems out of context. Although its use, unintentionally misguided since its implication to the darjeleing hills in the history just retold, has been total, somewhat in political adventurism but totally a mismatch as far as its results and implementation are concerned. Therefore it seems more proper and pertinent, in the future politics of the Darjeleing hills and Sikkim, the less the term is referred in politics, the better the stance for the concerned units.
Infact if at all anybody is truly serious to solve the Gorkha conundrum the subject requires a research level program by universities recognizing Nepali/ Gorkhali as a subject in their curriculum. It would be only proper if the universities of North Bengal, Sikkim, Kolkata take up the cudgel to settle the issue once and for all. As Darjeeling already possesses a person of Dr. Mahendra P.Lama as the Vice Chancellor of Sikkim University, it perhaps falls on his shoulders to take up the subject to its conclusive end.
There is no question, at the moment, politicians of all hues and colour have and may still extract sufficient mileage in various states where the Nepali/ Gorkha population has sizable vote bank as an asset, and which surreptiously the BJP, linked to a majority religion national party, as most of the communities concerned profess aspects of Brahmanical Hinduism, taking advantage of this situation suffices to ride piggy back during the elections. This was displayed in the recent last elections by voting BJP, MP, Jaswant Singh under the GJMM banner. The MP thrown out of the party has now been reinstated, perhaps for the good fortune of GJMM which still remains to be seen as till date there is little or no indication of formalizing the Darjeeling hill peoples demand for separation from West Bengal.
The experimental victory of BJP in Darjeeling District is now seen, and rightly so, intended forwarding its promotion to the other Himalayan states where the Nepali/Gorkha vote bank is promiscuous – Himachal Pradesh, Uttarkhand, Sikkim, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and maybe elsewhere in India too. The desire to fill the political wilderness of the communities in diaspora certainly deserves a viable concretization program but not by default exchanging the original namesake of the constellation of Himalayan communities under the Nepali/Gorkha brand. This will be better addressed instead by preserving the distinct features of the different communities under the Indian identity of their distinct community names, simply as Rai, Limbu, Tamang, Magar, Gurung and others as tribes. This is suitably acceptable for recognition and claim.
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source:THE HIMALAYAN BEACON [BEACON ONLINE]
BY DARJ MAN
Sub: In response to Post Barun Roy 21 June 2010, from Haalkhabar.net article Darjeeling/Sikkim: Supporting the issue of Darjeeling Sikkim unification is suicidal -G.M.Rai.
Title: Probably the Khas-Khasis- the original Gushan -Gurkhan, Gurkha/Gorkha.
Before approaching the question of the proposed merger of Darjeeling District in Sikkim the protagonist of the concept need address a few pertinent questions on the very foundations in order to lay the idea. The historical relevancy and its application in entirety, Darjeeling-Sikkim state is controversial even if the title is juggled to identify the larger parental area as ‘Sikkim Darjeeling’ nomenclature. The idea no matter how feasible may not be entirely acceptable to the Sikkimese although the inhabitants are closely linked in the broad spectrum of the Sikkim Himalayan cultural background. However the concept is playing into the hands dealt out by Bengal – division of Darjeeling District into Sikkim Darjeeling (1835) and Bhutanese-Kalimpong (1865) which areas belonged to the respective foreign countries amalgamated to form the present District of the same name.
For the moment this is the point of stress needed to be relieved from the process of contemplated fragmentation of Darjeeling District by West Bengal by carving out DGHC area (1988 by Subhas Ghissing, President GNLF) to divide Siliguri subdivision into a separate administrative unit in the District and gradually over period of time amalgamated visibly into Jalpaiguri District already seen in the economic plan of Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Corporation eventually converted into a statutory authority including the Siliguri Municipality Corporation (SMC) within the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad All this backstage acts being rehearsed without an inkling of suspicion aroused in the minds of the hill people without any scheme of their own for implementation in the fertile Terai land now converted into a gold mine of real estate wheeling and dealing. These areas though originally belonging to Sikkim at the moment belongs to the Darjeeling hill peoples with or without the consensus of the ethnic ruling majority community of the state in which the hill people never belonged (Govt. of India Absorbed Area (Laws) Act 1954), on the contrary, besides some of the plains tribes the rest of the population are recent migrants after independence and the inflow begun then is now an endless chain entirely marginalizing the original hill tribes. It is retold in history at the time of the Darjeeling Grant in 1835 the Sikkim king while ceding Darjeeling to East India Company, infact understood acceptance of Grant in exchange for the Siliguri Terai plains land which was diplomatically sidelined by Major Lloyd deputed by Lord William Bentinck to negotiate the proposed cession.
Bengal as a matter of fact seems advantaged from the recurring use of the Gorkha appellation designated to imply, whether properly or improperly, reference to describe the ethnology of the constellation of hill communities, genuinely the Darjeeling ‘hill people’. This reference was conspicuously implied in the drafting the Constitution of India in 1946 (Cripps Cabinet Mission). In the question of debating Darjeeling District as a “Partially Excluded Area” (Govt. of India Act 1935 and Order 1936) is contained in the process of forwarding the District in the provisions of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution.
The future of Darjeeling District was earmarked in the Final Interim Report submitted to the Advisory Committee of the Union Constituent Assembly of India, by the Chairman A.V.Thakkar of the Sub Committee on “Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas (other than Assam)” in 18 Aug 1947. Darjeeling District was forwarded with the provisions of a “Partially Excluded Area”, particularly, it was argued, “the hill peoples” required a measure of protection while in contact with the more advanced people from the plains land.
So true and sagacious were the foresight of the fathers of the Constitution realizing this scene in advance, which, unfortunately is being undermined in subservience to the wishes of Bengal by frequently applying the Gorkhaland mantra merely to advance its political authority, infact not sanctioned by the constitutional writ wherein the Darjeeling tribes and the ‘hill people’ are provided protection under the Fifth Schedule. This otherwise unbefittingly, like Major Lloyd, is misused in disadvantaging the people for which the provision was made.
It is perceived, believed somehow, applying Gorkha designation to ensure symbolic relevance, ethnic, linguistic or cultural to Darjeeling District and Sikkim (in India) is alluded to raise more controversy than otherwise gain recognition while attempting to address issues anywhere in the Himalayas including Nepali from whence the word originated. The word is identified, peculiarly in reference to the Kings of the Gorkha under Shah dynasty since 1769 which period the indigenous people, the Newari Malla rulers of Katmandu valley and the adjoining tribes were overcome by Prithivinarayan Shan the Gorkha king. The monarchial dynastic rule ended in 2007 by overthrowing the ruling Gorkha king Birendra Bikram Shah by a popular Maoist doctrinated uprising under ‘Prachanda’ Pushpa Kumar .Dahal adventing a democratic federal republic nation. Paradoxically the sole aim of the Nepali Maoist was targeted to bring down the 238 years rule of the Gorkha kings, the only Hindu theocratic nation in the world, while on the other hand strangely enough Gorkha symbolism is asserted in adventuring recognition of Nepali/Gorkha as Indian identity. The paradox ends on the grounds if ethnic emigrant Indians having settled in Gorkha, the immediate ancestors of Prithivinarayan Shah are considered domiciled Nepalese.
Extract from Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun from China to India translated from the Chinese by Samuel Beal : In about 30 BC the five tribes of the great Yuchi (who had been driven by their enemies in the northern frontiers of India) united the five tribes under Khieu-tsiu-ki, the chief of the Gushan (Kuei-shang) horde: quote, “ proceeded to advance further south to the conquest of Kashmir and Cabul (Kabul). It is conjectured that the same chief who consolidated the power of the Yuchi, is the same as Hyrkodes of the coins. Who probably effected his conquest about 50 BC and died at 35 BC at 84 years of age. The chieftain left the throne to his son, Yen-kao-ching, to whom the Chinese assign the conquest of India to the west of the Jamuna. He has been identified with Hima Kadphises of the coins. His successor was Kanishka (about 15 BC) to whom frequent allusion is made in the following memoirs. From the Raja Tarangini (History of Kashmir) we learn that Kanishka and his two brothers, Hushka and Jushka ruled over Kashmir for 60 years”. The Gushan horde could possibly be the Gurkhans and later the Gurkhas of the present times.
There is also an element of speculation in considering Gorkha was ruled by Khan kings (not necessarily religious Muslims) which meaning was transferred to the Shah designation (Khan=Shah) whereas it is inferred the Khan was in reference to Gur-Khans (Gorkhas) meaning King of kings in Mongolian language. This is an extract from I.S.Chemjong’s book History and culture of Kirat People (2003 4th Edition) which is believed to be banned for sale in Nepal. Interesting however is his finding the Gur-khans ancestral homeland was the Tarim river basin along the infamous Silk Route to China via the Takla Makan desert presently the Chinese province of Sinkiang. The Gur-Khans had their capital in Kashgar(h) meaning the fort of the Khas people (referring to the Khus Parbhatiyas) of western Nepal.
In order to understand the ancient history of the Khas of Nepal dating possibly before the Christian era the formation of the caste by crossing recent migrants from India Rajputs or Brahmins and the Khas Mongolian women of the country, being the infamous progeny of a Brahmin and a Mlechha, to whom, in greater defiance of their creed, communicated the rank of second order of Hinduism, as Kshatriyas with the patronymic title of the first order.
It is this writer’s view point the word Khus, Khas, Khasi, Khasis is an abbreviation of Khus are totally different from the neighbouring hill tribes, though presently occupying space as an autochthones of Meghalaya. In the historical past the tribe inhabiting in Meghalaya and Tripura as Khasi probably were displaced from North West India and migrated to different parts of the country under new nomenclatures suitable to the new area. The new names under which their original tribal identity persists are mentioned in the table:
States ST/SC No. Names of Tribes / Caste
Assam ST 6 Khasi, Pnar, War, others (4)
Andhra Pradesh SC 22 Ghasi, others (3)
Bihar SC 12 Ghasi
Chattisgarh SC 25 Ghasi, Ghasia
Gujarat ST 4 Bhil, Bhil Garasia, etc
Meghalaya ST 6 Khasi,Pnar, War, others (4)
Mizoram ST 6 Khasi,Pnar, War, others (4)
Maharashtra ST 23 Ghasi, Ghasia;
Madhya Pradesh SC 26 Ghasi, Ghasia
Orissa ST 31 Ghasi, Ghasia
Rajasthan ST 5 Garasia (excld. Rajput Garasia)
Earlier having mentioned the Khasis is said to have inhabited Northwest India as the Khas in western Nepal, also seems to have close affinity with the Mon-Khmer (Burma and Cambodian tribes) as well as the Lalung tribe of North Burma. The Khasis who are linguistically connected with the group once known as Kolarian in the Indian peninsula, but now generally known as Munda inhabiting the hilly regions of Chutia Nagpur and parts of Satpura Range in the Central provinces. In physical character the indo Chinese Khasis differ greatly with the Mundas. But the points of resemblance in the languages and in some of the institutions cannot be denied.
It does not seem coincidental the War tribes close to Khasis, too is believed to have inhabited and close proximity to the former since ancient times, both the tribes being displaced by pouring hoards of Indo Aryan immigrants from the west. The Wars now inhabit the North East states of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Assam co-jointly with the others as tribes. Like the Khasis, the Wars too intermingled in marriage with other tribes in India of both Austric and Dravidic stock with implications of changed nomenclatures as given below in the table:
States ST/SC No. Names of Tribes / Caste
Andhra Pradesh ST 4 Chenchu, Chenchwar ;
Bihar ST 15 Kharia (16). Kharwar
Chattisgarh ST 20 Kawar Kanwar, others (5); (21) Khairwar, Kondar (22). Kharia
Chandigarh SC 19 Khatik
Delhi SC 21 Khatik
Himachal Pradesh SC 34 Khatik
Jharkhand ST 15 Kharia (16). Kharwar
Madhya Pradesh ST 14 Dhanwar (20). Kawar, Kanwar, others (5).(22) Khairwar,Kondar (23). Kharia
Maharashtra ST 23 Khairwar (24). Kharia
Orissa ST 28 Kawar (29). Kharia, Kharian (30) Kharwar
Punjab SC 20 Khatik
Rajasthan SC 36 Khatik
Tripura SC 20 Kharia
Uttarkhand SC 44 Karwal (45). Kharatia (46).Kharwar (excld. Vanwasi)(47). Khatik
Uttar Pradesh SC 44 Karwal (45). Khairaha (46). Kharwar (excld Bendansi) (47).Khatik
West Bengal SC 33 Khaira (34).Khatik (37).Konwar
ST 17 Kharwar
States ST/SC No. Names of Tribes / Caste
Andhra Pradesh SC 35 Mala(36).Maladasi(37).Maladasu(38).Malahannai(39).Malajangam (40). Malamasti (41). Malasale (42). Mala Sanyasi
ST 20 Malis (excld. 9 dists )
Bihar ST 23 Malpariya
Delhi SC 25 Malla
Jharkhand ST 23 Malpariya
Karnataka ST 65 Mala Maladasi (66). Malahannai (67).Malajangam (68).Malamasti
(69). Malasale (70). Malaka (71).Malasanyasi
Kerela SC 45 Palan (46) Palluvan
ST 23 Malakkuravan (24).Malasar (25).Malayan (26).Malayarayar
Maharashtra SC 39 Mala (40).Maladasi (41).Malahannai (42).Malajangam
(43).Malamasti (44).Malasale, Netkani (45).Mala Sanyasi
Orissa SC 56 Mala, Mala, Jhala, (Zala)
Pondicherry SC 7 Mala, Malamasti
Tamil Nadu SC 40 Mala
ST 23 Malakkuravan (24) Malasar (25) Malayali (26) Malayekandi
Tripura SC 27 Mali
West Bengal SC 43 Mallah
44 Mallah
ST 28 Malpahariya
The Gnar (or Synteng) tribe of Cherrapunji who coexists with the Khasia and War tribe in the states of Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram requires racial clarification. It could either be Austric, Dravidic or Mongolian. If it is not the last but either the first or the second it seems plausible to determine from the pronunciation of Gnar as Nayar (Nair) of Tamilnadu and Kerala. While professing aspects of South Indian Hinduism the early Malla (Mal-detailed ethnicity in attached table) kings of Katmandu valley, in order to proselytize Hinduism by inviting ethnic priests from the plains, the Nayars. The priests (Nayar/Nair/Gnar) intermingling within the Nepali social structure, besides professing religion, cohabited, possibly with the Mallas as well as with the War tribes, which contributed towards the new generation of population known as the Newars (Gnar+War) of Nepal. The usual reference citing the allusion of the South Indian community Nayar (Nair) connected by blood and name to Nepali Newar could partly be true, provided the Gnar tribe is a derivative from Nair (pronounced Gnar).
This deduction is justifiable on the basis of the fact the War tribe inhabiting present day Himachal Pradesh has historical reference whereas the Gnar tribe has been simultaneously mentioned with the War tribes simultaneously in Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
It s now the duty of ethnologists to determine whether Nair community can be considered indifferent to Gnar while sieving ancient history of North India. It is possible the oft reference to the mythical sage ’Ne’ of Nepal maybe referred to the Nayar (Gnar) who may have introduced some aspect of the southern culture into the Katmandu valley. The name Nepal, referred by Huien Tsang as Ni-polo visiting India in 6th century may not have visited the valley, presently Katmandu, but Swayambunath, the self evolved deity, in reference to the eternal burning flame- day and night, may already have existed at the time. Huien Tsang however only refers to Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautama Buddha where the Mauryan king Asoka’s edict pillar, commemorating the teacher’s birthplace, was discovered by Major L.A.Wadell, the Tibetologist. It is possible Nepal as a country was first time mentioned in history by the Chinese traveler as a result of which in reference to his visit, ancient sage ‘Ne’, may have applied ‘pala’ = look after, combined to derive the name Nepala, (looked after by the sage ‘Ne’).
Could it ever be possible some bloodline of ‘Ne’ the Chinese traveler maybe lurking in the chromosomes gene pool of the Nair would be an interesting subject for investigation to understand the history of Nepal which polity is still under process of ethnological evolution to determine its political space.
This being the background the Gorkha terminology is incidental to the history of Nepal of recent origin only just as the case of Indian history where foreign invaders have left their bits of mark contributing to the diversity of the nation, formed only in 1947, sixty three years ago, comparatively still young and further evolving.
The frequent and flagrant proposition of the Gorkha appellation, in context to the socio-political administrative history of the Darjeeling hills, while identifying the movement under a Gorkha stance unseemingly suppresses the provisions of the “Partially Excluded Area” regional identity of the Darjeeling hill peoples expression to detach themselves from West Bengal seems to deter the cause in more than one ways. This message is slowly seeping into the minds of the stakeholders, although belatedly, and a new approach is advanced by way of converting all the hill communities, read as Gorkhas into Scheduled Tribes. Darjeeling hill people on its own have been guaranteed by the Constitution to demand a state by virtue of its legal precedence the Govt. of India Act 1935 and Order 1936 which provisions were transferred, after independence into the Constitution of India in 1950. Per se which Darjeeling District under the provisions of the Fifth Schedule, based on the qualification as ‘Scheduled Tribes’ has rightly appealed for an Interim Setup, anticipating a Union Territory, is a process in the right direction. The more important qualification of the Fifth Schedule as a ‘Scheduled Area’, which requires vesting more hill communities as tribes in time, which the two factors combined would eventually fulfill the provisions of the Fifth Schedule in delivering the much aspired state.
Reverting back to the subject of attempting merger of Darjeeling District to Sikkim is plausible but relatively unacceptable reading the pages of the Govt. of India Acts since the time Darjeeling District was formed in 1866 and its respective relevance to the Constitution of India, 1950. This scheme is applicable and suitable only while considering Sikkimese Darjeeling, the three subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Siliguri which areas formed a separate unit since 1935 and 1950. Apart from that Bhutanese Kalimpong 1865, was amalgamated with the former to form Darjeeling District in 1866. Hence the issue of merging the entire Darjeeling District does not fit into the political background of the scheme. It is however, plausible to consider under the recent time and space frame with the conclusion of and in application of the updated Indo- Bhutan Friendship Treaty, 8 February 2007. The new Treaty contains no more Article 3 of the Treaty of 1949, per-se, the provision of, ‘ temporary subsidy of Rupees one lakh per annum granted in 1942 as a follow up of the Treaty of Punakha 1910 (8 Jan 1910) which itself was advanced from the Treaty of Sinchula (11 Nov 1865).
The present 2007 Treaty is clearly only an update as it neither mentions abrogation nor repeal of the 1949 Treaty is an interesting feature for a minute study of the implications in regard to the annual subsidy paid to Bhutan since British rule and continued till the updated Treaty in 2007. this is an interesting new chapter in Indo Bhutan relationship. The total cession of erstwhile Bhutanese territory of Dalimkote Kalimpong and the18 Dooars (Jalpaiguri District) is now a closed chapter. It is probable within the meaning of this understanding the entire Darjeeling District maybe allowed to be merged with Sikkim state. A feasible proposition which can be implemented if other factors prove to be agreeable.
If at all D.K.Bomzan, President, Gorkha Rashtriya Congress (GRC) is serious in his proclivity, the intended merger of Darjeeling to Sikkim requires a thorough analysis of the above two premises in order not to embark sailing on a boat without neither sails nor oars, unless otherwise he intends using his limbs in substitution – a Herculean transformation indeed.
In conclusion, GM Rai President Gorkha Prajatantrik Party (GPP) probably inspired by various Gorkha brands to wit, Bharatiya Gorkha Parishad (BGP), is a non starter neither as a social nor a political body headed by ‘have been’ politicians of yore and heralding the Nepali/Gorkha cause in the country is now messed up as a mindset, itself intending politicization of the various hill communities under the umbrella of Nepali/Gorkha brand name implied for political advantage in the rest of India. Since the formation of Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League (ABGL) in 15 May 1943, Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) 5 April 1980 (the party was formed for the sole intention of demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland for the first time) to be followed after 27 years by the present ongoing agitation led by Bimal Gurung’s Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) since August 2007.
The genesis of the appellation Gorkha has a historical background after the conclusion of the First World War in 1914-18 when retired British Gorkha ex-servicemen formed an association. An interesting sequel to the history of Darjeeling is according to Sikkim & Darjeeling by Dr. Sonam B. Wangyal that, Drs. D.K.Sarkar and D.Bhaumik version, Kalimpong Samity led by Sardar Bhimdal Dewan and the People’s Association of Darjeeling, clamoured not for ‘exclusion’ but for the ‘inclusion’ of Darjeeling into Bengal “for the obvious purpose of enjoying the fruits of constitutional reforms under the Act of 1919”. This was in exact opposition to the memorial presented to the Govt. of Bengal on 8 Nov 1917 by “Lepchas, Bhutias and Nepalese representing the opinion of the people of Darjeeling District” in anticipation of the Mongatu Chelmsford Reforms Commission 1918.
The idea of the Commission was, institute primarily to study and introduce the process of reforms towards increasing association of Indians in every branch of administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire. Taking advantage of this consideration was the effort made by the Hillmen’s Association to retain the exclusion of Darjeeling District from the application of general administration by forwarding the application of Backward Tracts(1870) which is now understood to mean these tribal inhabited areas located throughout India were ‘outside’ British India, which later on in the Govt. of India Act 1935 and Order 1936 were referred to as Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas which implications were further forwarded to the Constitution of India in the Fifth and Sixth Schedule.
Whether at that point of time the Hillmen’s Association, Darjeeling actually understood the reasoning’s for their memorial, “the one point was creation of a separate unit comprising of the present Darjeeling District with the portion of Jalpaiguri District which was annexed from Bhutan in 1865”, the same area now applied by GJMM for the creation of a new state for the Darjeeling hill peoples, by addressing the Centre to register ‘all Gorkhas’ (whereas in substance it only applies to the Darjeeling hill communities). This has the same implication as the earlier meaning of Backward Tracts updated in 1936 and 1936 with the provisions implied in 1950 wherein in the Fifth Schedule, Scheduled Area is consonant with Backward Tracts.
Hence applying the word Gorkha to address whether issues in the Darjeeling hills or elsewhere in India is antithetic to the space occupied by the more relevant and constitutional recognized status of Scheduled Tribes. This is historically proper and constitutionally acceptable, unless and otherwise the Gorkha communities are merged in the holding of the Scheduled Tribes. This is now being accepted by GJMM as well as GNLF who infact had highlighted this program before being superseded by the former in 2007. From this argument it can now be deciphered improper application of Gorkha, except in reference to the Gorkha soldiers in Nepal as per the Britain-India-Nepal Tripartite Agreement signed 1947 concerning the rights of Gorkhas in military service, superceding it in any other context whether ethnically, socially or politically seems out of context. Although its use, unintentionally misguided since its implication to the darjeleing hills in the history just retold, has been total, somewhat in political adventurism but totally a mismatch as far as its results and implementation are concerned. Therefore it seems more proper and pertinent, in the future politics of the Darjeleing hills and Sikkim, the less the term is referred in politics, the better the stance for the concerned units.
Infact if at all anybody is truly serious to solve the Gorkha conundrum the subject requires a research level program by universities recognizing Nepali/ Gorkhali as a subject in their curriculum. It would be only proper if the universities of North Bengal, Sikkim, Kolkata take up the cudgel to settle the issue once and for all. As Darjeeling already possesses a person of Dr. Mahendra P.Lama as the Vice Chancellor of Sikkim University, it perhaps falls on his shoulders to take up the subject to its conclusive end.
There is no question, at the moment, politicians of all hues and colour have and may still extract sufficient mileage in various states where the Nepali/ Gorkha population has sizable vote bank as an asset, and which surreptiously the BJP, linked to a majority religion national party, as most of the communities concerned profess aspects of Brahmanical Hinduism, taking advantage of this situation suffices to ride piggy back during the elections. This was displayed in the recent last elections by voting BJP, MP, Jaswant Singh under the GJMM banner. The MP thrown out of the party has now been reinstated, perhaps for the good fortune of GJMM which still remains to be seen as till date there is little or no indication of formalizing the Darjeeling hill peoples demand for separation from West Bengal.
The experimental victory of BJP in Darjeeling District is now seen, and rightly so, intended forwarding its promotion to the other Himalayan states where the Nepali/Gorkha vote bank is promiscuous – Himachal Pradesh, Uttarkhand, Sikkim, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and maybe elsewhere in India too. The desire to fill the political wilderness of the communities in diaspora certainly deserves a viable concretization program but not by default exchanging the original namesake of the constellation of Himalayan communities under the Nepali/Gorkha brand. This will be better addressed instead by preserving the distinct features of the different communities under the Indian identity of their distinct community names, simply as Rai, Limbu, Tamang, Magar, Gurung and others as tribes. This is suitably acceptable for recognition and claim.
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OPINION: Tribes Conversion to Hindu Caste – in the Himalayas and Rest of India
source: THE HIMALAYAN BEACON
BY DARJ MAN
It should be pertinent, under the present situation of the renewed Gorkhaland agitation under a different banner headed by GJMM having continued the agitation since August 2007 till date deserves an undivided attention to focus on the issue of the statehood demand vis-à-vis converting ‘Gorkha’ communities into tribes. The reason why this is necessitated basically has two primary reasons both interrelated but somehow disbanded in Census 1931. Thereby creating a dismissive which frequency raised to the required decibel, in a manner of politics within the Gorkha space, rightly or wrongly, occupies a place. This has recognized to be so as an important factor in advancing it implicitly to the demand of Darjeeling District and Terai Dooars, jointly demanding a different administrative unit at a time before independence of India which post promulgation of the Constitution in 1950, is read to mean, within its framework, a state.
With the passage of each day it is slowly unfolding and with sourcing information’s at the push of a button from the internet issues are exposed at various levels of study forums. It is however of utmost importance the readings are done on an investigative basis. This is in order not to arrive at any subjective considerations but instead, on the other hand to arrive at an analytical thesis. This is an interesting point of view as much water has run under the Gorkha bridge, in forming a sea in an ocean full of misrepresentation which requires objectivity and mot subjective interpretation. Therefore the emphasis on a proper study of the topic is the need of the hour as further misapplication is seen to be more damaging than bearing fruit.
In an attempt to discover the factor which seem to have deprived the Darjeeling hill tribes endemic to the Himalayan ethnic regional identity, distinct culture, habit, tradition, religion and language constitute an entirely different civilization in contrast to the Indian plains ethnic groups. This is realized while referring to the ethnological history of The People of India by Sir Herbert Risley, 1915.
At the time of writing, obviously the case of Darjeeling hill peoples did not exist as such but the implication and meaning wherein the Governor General in 1870 was allowed to legislate separately for a Backward Tracts. Extending the position of Backward Tracts forward which implies these areas were left out from the purview of being integrated into British India. Hence Central and Provincial administrative rules and regulations were not imposed in the general administration of these areas, which besides Darjeeling District, composed of many tribal inhabited areas in India. The Backward Tracts was identified as Scheduled Districts listed in the First Schedule of the Act in the Govt. of India Scheduled Districts Act of XIV of 1874. Thus being designated as a Scheduled Area for providing special consideration in their administration. In the Constitution of India 1950, the provisions of Scheduled Areas in the Fifth Schedule implies the right to state formation within the interpretation and meaning of “Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas” in the Govt. of India Act 1935 and Order 1936 .
As Darjeeling District and Chittagong Hill Tracts only in erstwhile Province of Bengal was provided implication of the Act 1935 and Order 1936, it is derived within the framework of the constitution Darjeeling District has a right to state formation by virtue of implying the Fifth Schedule , however , without the provisions of Scheduled Area, but only as Scheduled Tribes which thereby marginalizes a complete state formation and instead provided the implication of an interim administrative setup either as a Union Territory (UT) or a Centrally Administered Area (CAA).
This above is explained in detail in order to emphasis the importance of Census 1941 which removed practically the entire constellation of Hinduised Darjeeling hill tribes communities accepting Nepali as the spoken mother tongue. Census 1931 declared the Himalayan tribal population at 68% which figure after many tribes were deregistered for the reason given above, Census 1941 shows a tribal population at 37.54%, and that too enhanced by including the population of Sikkim 29.04%. Whatever the implication of the scheme it becomes very important to deliberate on the topic in the subject to find out the reasons for tribes being converted into caste within the meaning of the Hindu religion.
It is seldom discussed why many tribal communities prefer to remain outside the tribal fold. Although at this point of time, however there is a reverse osmosis of non tribes and castes aspiring to become Scheduled Tribes. Whereas in earlier times the tribals were considered as an Mlechha (barbarian) enigma, looked upon as degraded, degenerated lot of uncivilized, basically, non-Aryan groups. In order to lift themselves from this disgrace within the aspects of the Hindu religious society of communities the non Aryan groups were accepted into the Hindu fold accepted or converted as castes within the Varna as per the code of Manusmriti.
This is in order not to repeat the infamous story of the luxury liner Titanic which in 1912 met its end with loss if 1500 lives, although considered invincible but only to sink to its historical doom in its first ever maiden voyage intended to cross the Atlantic as a ‘titan’ but on the contrary succumbed to the wrath of an unseen iceberg accidentally damaging the frontal fold, sinking it at the very onset.
In a similar fashion Gorkha invincibility has been applied in various times in the history of Darjeeling District in order to elk out a separate state. Many politicians of all hues have attempted some semblance of claim by the same application, however unsuccessfully. The last great struggle of immense magnitude was initiated by the GNLF in 1980 -2007 with loss of recorded 1200 lives but unaccounted figures estimated at over 4000 lives, only to be subjugated, like the Titanic, without sailing to the statehood journey for the Darjeeling hill people however attaining namesake instead a Gorkha ‘hills’ only within Bengal – the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council 1988.This at the cost of Darjeeling District sacrificing the Siliguri Terai the fertile plains by fragmenting Siliguri subdivision for special economic development, under the Siliguri Mahakuma as well as the Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Corporation. All this exercise seems premeditated eventually to release Siliguri from Darjeeling District, amalgamating it with Jalpaiguri District.
According to a Study of genetic relationships of Indian Gurkha population on the basis of HLA-A and B Loci Antigens by M. Debnath and Tapas.K.Chaudhuri, NBU, quote extract
1. Among them, Gurkhas form the major population group in Darjeeling District of West Bengal and Sikkim. These groups are endogamous (Chatterjee 1974). Gurkhas are grouped into a large number of tribes, the chief of which are Mangar, Rai, Limbu, Sunwar and Tamang (Coon 1983: Subba 1985). It appears from the evidence that in ancient times people of Tibeto-Burman families spread themselves over the high plateau of the Himalayas and the country round about the mouth of the Ganges (Northey and Morris 1987). Gurkha population is suppos3d to belong to the above mentioned race. The ancestors of Gurkha population are also thought to be migrants from the neighboring Mongolian region.
2. The tribes of Mongolian stock are found along the whole length of Himalayas with languages close akin to those of the Tibetans on the Northern side, while further east similar people have driven the older Austro Asiatic speaking population out of most of Burma and Siam. The Aryan speakers from India entered Nepal probably both from west, along the hills, and from the plains from the south, although certainly much lese in number then the Mongolian element (Northey and Morris1987). It may be noted: that the identity of languages does not necessarily connote identity of the races and in Nepal itself the aborigines of whatever race largely changed the language for that of Mongoloid invaders, while today the same process of the language of the latter is gradually replaced by the Aryan.
3. Gurkhas were compared with other major world population it was found that HLA-A2 and A11 were higher in Greeks (Pachoula-Papasteriadis et al. 1989), Ukranian, Tibetan (Imanshi et al.1992), Chinese, Korean, Mongolian and Japanese (Tanaka et al.1997).
4. Several HLA-A and B haplotypes were significant in Gurkhas. Amongst them only A33-B44 which is characteristic haplotype of Korean and Japanese population occur with a significant positive linkage disequilibrium among Gurkhas. The distribution of these haplotypes supports a strong genetic affinity of Gurkhas with Korans and Japanese populations.
5. It has been reported earlier that Gurkha may have originated on the course of evolution from the Mongolian population directly, or from the stock of Mongoloid origin. It can be assumed from the philo genetic constructed by N.G.method that Gurkha has originated from mongoloid stock directly or Tibetan stock or there maybe one or more intermediate population between Gurkha and Mongolians/ Tibetans from which Gurkhas might have originated
These factors contribute to the theory the ethnological and anthropological background of the Gorkhas presume quite convincingly the Gorkhas racially are Mongoloid in origin related to the hoards of prototypes having descended in ancient times from central, east and south Asia and settled along the length and breadth of Himalayan hills, the tributaries of Indus basin, as well in the Gangetic and Jamuna northern plains. (cf. Probably the Khas-Khasis- the original Gushan -Gurkhan, Gurkha/Gorkha).
However this contemplation is akin to building castles in the air. Darjeeling District falls under provisions of the Govt. of India Absorbed Area (Laws) Act 1954 wherein the District (3149 sq.kms) as a ‘Partially Excluded Area’ is provided in the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of India and hence the state govt. tampering with any of its provisions is an infringement on the legal aspects of the Constitution.
It is perceived at the moment, the state require to come out clean and transparent on the constitutional provision of Darjeeling District within the interpretation of the Absorbed Areas (Laws) Act and whether it has fulfilled its commitment in protecting the Darjeeling hill people under provisions of the Fifth Schedule, Control and Administration of Scheduled Tribes, by implementing the statutory formation of Tribes Advisory Council (TAC) which is mandated to consist of 20 members of which not less than three fourth of the members being representatives of the state Legislative Assembly and the remaining five members amiable to the tribes. Although the TAC was specific to the provisions for Darjeeling District, being the only Partially Excluded Area in West Bengal it is a matter of great regret the Darjeeling hill people have been de-linked from the very purpose of the Fifth Schedule provision which as a matter of fact specifically provided for them within the framework of the Constitution, however perceived to be denied in implementation. Instead the provisions of TAC are seemingly applied only to the plains tribe more specifically to the tribes of Jalpaiguri District and elsewhere.
However interpreting the provisions of TAC in another aspect, it is probable the provision for the tribes of Darjeeling District maybe the implementation of DGHC in the tripartite accord 1988. If this is so it is the duty of the state to clarify the matter to the stakeholders, the Darjeeling hill peoples and not simply the leader and politicians highlighting any cause related to Gorkhaland or more properly all matters related to Darjeeling District which has a constitutional undertaking as provided in the deliberations of the Union Constituent Assembly, vide Advisory Committee’s Interim Report of 18 Aug 1947 of the Sub Committee on “Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas (other than Assam)” chaired by A.V.Thakkar.
Whereas the TAC largesse doled out to the Scheduled Tribes of Jalpaiguri District, if so is the case, is naturally considered out of purview from the statutory provision. This argument is based on the ground Jalpaiguri District was totally removed from the provisions of Backward Tracts transferred as Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas in the Govt. of India Order 1936 and the District effectively having come under the total administration of the State.
Both Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri District basically considered as Backward Tracts since the origination of the phrase in 1870 depicting areas inhabited by the autochthones, indigenous peoples, in India referred to as primitive people, and for which the territories inhabited by such people were never ever brought under the administrative reforms process at all. Since 1935 their interests were protected under the Excluded and Partially Excluded Area provisions, instilled with the idea of preserving these areas with a differential administrative setup unlike the Provinces till the time of the promulgation of the Constitution in 1950.
After which these Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas were forwarded into the provisions of Fifth and Sixth Schedule still instilled with the idea of an interim setup before formal integration within the federation as a Union state. This is to imply Darjeeling District as a Partially Excluded Area is constitutionally provided to integrate into the Union as a state which unfortunately is somehow considered being hindered by the state in violation of Constitutional legality.
The emphasis of GJMM applying for conversion of Gorkhas into tribes requires consideration irrespective of whether the scheme is applicable to the entire genre or not. A process of selection by the proper authority Registrar General of India (RGI) will eventually decide the fate. However with the implication of the B.K.Roy Burman Commission CRESP Report 2008 by the Govt. of Sikkim, recommending various Sikkimese hill communities to tribal status is an indication in view, similar communities when recognized in Sikkim as Scheduled Tribes would automatically apply to West Bengal based on the formation of Darjeeling District in 1866 as areas extracted from the kingdoms of Sikkim and Bhutan..
In the process of rightly demanding ST status for the Darjeeling hill communities some aspects of reference maybe recalled from the history of people in Nepal which is responsible for the origin of many of the Himalayan tribes.
On start it might be advisable to quote Sir Herbert Risley from The People of India, quote page 72, “All over India at the present moment tribes are gradually and insensibly being transferred into castes”. His research assertions mention in complete extract from the book, the underlined.
1. The leading men of an aboriginal tribe, having somehow got on in the world and become independent landed proprietors, managed to enroll themselves in one of the more distinguished castes. In early stages of heir advancement they generally find great difficulty in getting their daughters married, as they will not take husbands from their original tribe and Rajputs of the adopted caste will, of course, not condescend to alliance with them., but after a generation or two their persistency obtains its reward and they inter marry, if not with pure Rajputs, at least with the superior order of manufactured Rajputs…thus a real change of blood may take place …while in any case the tribal name is completely lost and with it all possibility of correctly separating this class of people from the Hindus of purer blood and tracing them to any particular Dravidian or Mongoloid tribe.
2. A number of aborigines, as we may conveniently call them, though the term begs an insoluble question, embrace the tenets of a Hindu religious sect, losing thereby their tribal name and becoming Vaishnavas, Lingayats, Ramayats or other like. Anyway, the identity of the converts as aborigines is usually, though not invariably, lost,…a case of true absorption.
3. A whole tribe of aborigines, or a large section of a tribe enroll themselves in the ranks of Hinduism under the style of a new caste, which claiming an origin of remote antiquity, is readily distinguishable by its name from any of the standard and recognized caste. Thus the great majority of the Kochh inhabitants of Jalpaiguri, Rangpur, and part of Dinajpur now invariably describe themselves as Rajbansis or Bhanga Kshtriyas – a designation which enables them to represent themselves as an outlying branch of the Kshtriyas of Hindu tradition who fled to Northeastern Bengal in order to escape from the wrath of Parasu-Rama. In a country where history masquerades in the garb of legend there is nothing prima facie improbable in the conjecture that the story of the Bhanga-Kshtriyas maybe really a mythological version of the true origin of the reigning family of Cooch Bihar. A chief of the higher race ruling a people of the lower is a phenomenon too common to require explanation.
4. A whole tribe of aborigines, or a section of a tribe, become gradually converted to Hinduism without, like the Rajbansis, abandoning their tribal designation. This is what happened to Bhumj (probably Bhowmik) of western Bengal. Here a pure Dravidian race have lost their original language and now speak only Bengali: they worship Hindu gods…and the more advanced among them employ Brahmins as family priests. The tribe will then have become a caste in the full sense of the word and will go on stripping itself of all customs likely to betray its true descent. The physical characteristics of its members will alone survive.
By such processes as these, and by a variety of complex social influences whose working cannot be precisely traced, a number of types or variety of castes have been formed which admit or being grouped as follows:
(i). The Tribal type, where a tribe like the Bhumj…insensibly converted into caste preserving its original name and many of its characteristic customs, but modify its animistic practices more and more in the direction of orthodox Hinduism, and ordering its manner of life in accordance with the same model. It has even been supposed that the Sudras of Indo Aryan tradition were originally a Dravidian tribe which was thus incorporated into the social system of the conquering race. As illustrations of the transformations that has taken place the Bagdi, Bauri, Chandal (Namasudra), Kaibartta, Pod and Rajbansi-Kochh of Bengal. In Madras the Mal, Nayar, Vellala and Paraiyan or Pariah, of whom the last retain traditions of a time hen they possessed an independent organization of their own and had not relegated to a low place in the Hindu social system.
The table of social precedence attached to the Cochin Census report 1901, Vol I p.181 shows that while a Nayar can pollute man of a higher caste only by touching him, people of the Kammalan group, including masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, etc, pollute at a distance of twenty four feet, toddy drawers (Iluvan or Tiyan) at thirty six feet ; Pulayan or Cheruman cultivators at forty eight feet; while in the cse of Paraiyan (Pariahs) who eat beef the range of population is stated to be no less than sixty four feet..
(ii). The functional or occupational type of a caste is so numerous and so widely diffused and its characteristics are so prominent that community of function is ordinarily regarded as the chief factor in the evolution of caste. Changes of occupation in their turn, more specially among the lower caste, tend to bring about the formation of separate caste.
(iii). The sectarian types comprises a small number of castes which commenced life as religious sects founded by philanthropic enthusiasts who, having evolved some metaphysical formula offering a speedier release from the taedium vitae which oppresses the east, had further persuaded themselves that all men were equal, or at any rate that all believers in their teaching ought to be equal. The Banhra of Nepal- Newars, who were originally Buddhist priests but abandoned celibacy and crystallized into a caste. Race dominates religion: sect is weaker than caste.
(iv). Caste formed by crossing: Modern criticism has been specially active in its attack on that portion of the traditional theory which derives the multitude of mixed or inferior caste from an intricate serious of process between members of the original four.
An older and more instructive illustration , dating probably from before the Christian era, of the formation of the caste by crossing, is furnished by the Khas of Nepal who are the off-spring of mixed marriages between Rajputs or Brahman immigrants an the Mongolian women of the country …but their off-spring must not be stigmatized as a progeny of a Brahman and a Mlechha-must on the contrary, be raised to eminence in the new order of things proposed to be introduced by their fathers. To this progeny also, then, the Brahmans, in still greater defiance of their creed, communicated the rank of the second order of Hinduism: and from these two roots, mainly, sprung the now numerous, predominant, an extensively ramified tribe of the Khas, originally the name of a small clan of creedless barbarians, now the proud title of the Kshatriyas, or military order of the kingdom of Nepal.
The offspring of original Khas females and of Brahmans, with the honours and rank of the second order of Hinduism, got the patronymic titles of the first order, and hence the key to the anomalous nomenclature of so many stirpes of the military tribes of Nepal is to be sought in the nomenclature of the sacred order. It maybe added, as remarkably illustrative of the lofty spirit of the Parbattias, that in spite of the yearly increasing sway of Hinduism in Nepal, and of the various attempts of the Brahmans in high office to procure the abolition of a custom so radically opposed to the creed both parties now profess, the Khas still insist that the fruit of commerce (marriage is out of the question) between their females and males of the sacred order shall be ranked as Kshatriyas, wear the thread, and assume the patronymic title. The Khas now call themselves Chhattris or Kshatriyas- a practice which, according to Colonel Vansittart, dates from Sir Jang Bahadur’s visit to England in 1850. Allied to the Khas are the Ektharia and the Thakurs, both of Rajput parentage on the male side, the Thakur ranking higher because their ancestors are supposed to have been rulers of various petty States in Nepal. The Matwala Khas, again, are the progeny of Khas men and Magar women, and the Uchai Thakurs of the same lineage on the female side.
(v). Castes of the national type: Where there is neither nation nor national sentiment, it may seem paradoxical to talk about a national type of caste. There exists, however, certain groups, usually regarded as castes at the present day, which cherish traditions of bygone sovereignty and seem to preserve traces of an organization considerably more elaborate than that of an ordinary tribe. The Newars, a mix people of Mongoloid origin, who were the predominant race in Nepal proper until the country was conquered and annexed by the Gurkha Prithivi Narayan in 1768, maybe taken as an illustration of such a survival. The group comprises both Hindus and Buddhists. The two communities are quite distinct, and each is divided into an elaborate series of castes. Thus among the Hindu Newars, we find at the top of the social scale the Devabhaja, who are Brahmins and spiritual teachers; the Surjyabansi Mal, members of the old royal family; the Sreshta, consisting of ministers and other officials; and the Japu who are cultivators.
According to Mr. Enthoven, the Bombay Marathas may be classified as a tribe with two divisions, Maratha and Maratha Kunbi, of which the former are hypergamous to the latter, but were not originally distinct.
(vi).Castes formed by migration: If members of a caste leave the original habitat and settles permanently in another part of India, the tendency is for them to be separated from the parent group and to develop into a distinct caste. Mr. Gait has pointed out that “the prolonged residence of persons of Bihar caste in Bengal generally results in their being placed under a ban as regards marriage, …that up-country barbers who settled in Bengal are called khotta and practically form a separate sub caste, as Bengali barbers will not intermarry with them, while they are regarded as impure by the barbers of upper India and Bihar by reason of having taken up residence in Bengal..
(vii) Castes formed by changes of custom: The formation of new castes as a consequence of the neglect of established usage or the adoption of new ceremonial practices or secular occupations has been a familiar incident of the caste system from the earlier times. We are told in Manu how men of the three twice-born caste, who have not received the sacrament of initiation at the proper time, or who follow forbidden occupations, become Vratyas or outcasts, intercourse with them is punished with a double fine, and whose descendents are graded as distinct castes. The Babhans or Bhuinhars of the United Provinces and Bihar, are supposed, according to some legends, to be Brahmins who lost their status by taking to agriculture, and the Mongoloid Kochh of Northern Bengal describe themselves as Rajbansis, or as Vratya or Bhanga (broken) Kshatriyas – a designation which enables them to pose as an outlying branch of that exalted community who fled to these remote districts before the wrath of Parasu Rama, and there allowed their characteristic observation to fall into disuse.
source: THE HIMALAYAN BEACON
BY DARJ MAN
It should be pertinent, under the present situation of the renewed Gorkhaland agitation under a different banner headed by GJMM having continued the agitation since August 2007 till date deserves an undivided attention to focus on the issue of the statehood demand vis-à-vis converting ‘Gorkha’ communities into tribes. The reason why this is necessitated basically has two primary reasons both interrelated but somehow disbanded in Census 1931. Thereby creating a dismissive which frequency raised to the required decibel, in a manner of politics within the Gorkha space, rightly or wrongly, occupies a place. This has recognized to be so as an important factor in advancing it implicitly to the demand of Darjeeling District and Terai Dooars, jointly demanding a different administrative unit at a time before independence of India which post promulgation of the Constitution in 1950, is read to mean, within its framework, a state.
With the passage of each day it is slowly unfolding and with sourcing information’s at the push of a button from the internet issues are exposed at various levels of study forums. It is however of utmost importance the readings are done on an investigative basis. This is in order not to arrive at any subjective considerations but instead, on the other hand to arrive at an analytical thesis. This is an interesting point of view as much water has run under the Gorkha bridge, in forming a sea in an ocean full of misrepresentation which requires objectivity and mot subjective interpretation. Therefore the emphasis on a proper study of the topic is the need of the hour as further misapplication is seen to be more damaging than bearing fruit.
In an attempt to discover the factor which seem to have deprived the Darjeeling hill tribes endemic to the Himalayan ethnic regional identity, distinct culture, habit, tradition, religion and language constitute an entirely different civilization in contrast to the Indian plains ethnic groups. This is realized while referring to the ethnological history of The People of India by Sir Herbert Risley, 1915.
At the time of writing, obviously the case of Darjeeling hill peoples did not exist as such but the implication and meaning wherein the Governor General in 1870 was allowed to legislate separately for a Backward Tracts. Extending the position of Backward Tracts forward which implies these areas were left out from the purview of being integrated into British India. Hence Central and Provincial administrative rules and regulations were not imposed in the general administration of these areas, which besides Darjeeling District, composed of many tribal inhabited areas in India. The Backward Tracts was identified as Scheduled Districts listed in the First Schedule of the Act in the Govt. of India Scheduled Districts Act of XIV of 1874. Thus being designated as a Scheduled Area for providing special consideration in their administration. In the Constitution of India 1950, the provisions of Scheduled Areas in the Fifth Schedule implies the right to state formation within the interpretation and meaning of “Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas” in the Govt. of India Act 1935 and Order 1936 .
As Darjeeling District and Chittagong Hill Tracts only in erstwhile Province of Bengal was provided implication of the Act 1935 and Order 1936, it is derived within the framework of the constitution Darjeeling District has a right to state formation by virtue of implying the Fifth Schedule , however , without the provisions of Scheduled Area, but only as Scheduled Tribes which thereby marginalizes a complete state formation and instead provided the implication of an interim administrative setup either as a Union Territory (UT) or a Centrally Administered Area (CAA).
This above is explained in detail in order to emphasis the importance of Census 1941 which removed practically the entire constellation of Hinduised Darjeeling hill tribes communities accepting Nepali as the spoken mother tongue. Census 1931 declared the Himalayan tribal population at 68% which figure after many tribes were deregistered for the reason given above, Census 1941 shows a tribal population at 37.54%, and that too enhanced by including the population of Sikkim 29.04%. Whatever the implication of the scheme it becomes very important to deliberate on the topic in the subject to find out the reasons for tribes being converted into caste within the meaning of the Hindu religion.
It is seldom discussed why many tribal communities prefer to remain outside the tribal fold. Although at this point of time, however there is a reverse osmosis of non tribes and castes aspiring to become Scheduled Tribes. Whereas in earlier times the tribals were considered as an Mlechha (barbarian) enigma, looked upon as degraded, degenerated lot of uncivilized, basically, non-Aryan groups. In order to lift themselves from this disgrace within the aspects of the Hindu religious society of communities the non Aryan groups were accepted into the Hindu fold accepted or converted as castes within the Varna as per the code of Manusmriti.
This is in order not to repeat the infamous story of the luxury liner Titanic which in 1912 met its end with loss if 1500 lives, although considered invincible but only to sink to its historical doom in its first ever maiden voyage intended to cross the Atlantic as a ‘titan’ but on the contrary succumbed to the wrath of an unseen iceberg accidentally damaging the frontal fold, sinking it at the very onset.
In a similar fashion Gorkha invincibility has been applied in various times in the history of Darjeeling District in order to elk out a separate state. Many politicians of all hues have attempted some semblance of claim by the same application, however unsuccessfully. The last great struggle of immense magnitude was initiated by the GNLF in 1980 -2007 with loss of recorded 1200 lives but unaccounted figures estimated at over 4000 lives, only to be subjugated, like the Titanic, without sailing to the statehood journey for the Darjeeling hill people however attaining namesake instead a Gorkha ‘hills’ only within Bengal – the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council 1988.This at the cost of Darjeeling District sacrificing the Siliguri Terai the fertile plains by fragmenting Siliguri subdivision for special economic development, under the Siliguri Mahakuma as well as the Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Corporation. All this exercise seems premeditated eventually to release Siliguri from Darjeeling District, amalgamating it with Jalpaiguri District.
According to a Study of genetic relationships of Indian Gurkha population on the basis of HLA-A and B Loci Antigens by M. Debnath and Tapas.K.Chaudhuri, NBU, quote extract
1. Among them, Gurkhas form the major population group in Darjeeling District of West Bengal and Sikkim. These groups are endogamous (Chatterjee 1974). Gurkhas are grouped into a large number of tribes, the chief of which are Mangar, Rai, Limbu, Sunwar and Tamang (Coon 1983: Subba 1985). It appears from the evidence that in ancient times people of Tibeto-Burman families spread themselves over the high plateau of the Himalayas and the country round about the mouth of the Ganges (Northey and Morris 1987). Gurkha population is suppos3d to belong to the above mentioned race. The ancestors of Gurkha population are also thought to be migrants from the neighboring Mongolian region.
2. The tribes of Mongolian stock are found along the whole length of Himalayas with languages close akin to those of the Tibetans on the Northern side, while further east similar people have driven the older Austro Asiatic speaking population out of most of Burma and Siam. The Aryan speakers from India entered Nepal probably both from west, along the hills, and from the plains from the south, although certainly much lese in number then the Mongolian element (Northey and Morris1987). It may be noted: that the identity of languages does not necessarily connote identity of the races and in Nepal itself the aborigines of whatever race largely changed the language for that of Mongoloid invaders, while today the same process of the language of the latter is gradually replaced by the Aryan.
3. Gurkhas were compared with other major world population it was found that HLA-A2 and A11 were higher in Greeks (Pachoula-Papasteriadis et al. 1989), Ukranian, Tibetan (Imanshi et al.1992), Chinese, Korean, Mongolian and Japanese (Tanaka et al.1997).
4. Several HLA-A and B haplotypes were significant in Gurkhas. Amongst them only A33-B44 which is characteristic haplotype of Korean and Japanese population occur with a significant positive linkage disequilibrium among Gurkhas. The distribution of these haplotypes supports a strong genetic affinity of Gurkhas with Korans and Japanese populations.
5. It has been reported earlier that Gurkha may have originated on the course of evolution from the Mongolian population directly, or from the stock of Mongoloid origin. It can be assumed from the philo genetic constructed by N.G.method that Gurkha has originated from mongoloid stock directly or Tibetan stock or there maybe one or more intermediate population between Gurkha and Mongolians/ Tibetans from which Gurkhas might have originated
These factors contribute to the theory the ethnological and anthropological background of the Gorkhas presume quite convincingly the Gorkhas racially are Mongoloid in origin related to the hoards of prototypes having descended in ancient times from central, east and south Asia and settled along the length and breadth of Himalayan hills, the tributaries of Indus basin, as well in the Gangetic and Jamuna northern plains. (cf. Probably the Khas-Khasis- the original Gushan -Gurkhan, Gurkha/Gorkha).
However this contemplation is akin to building castles in the air. Darjeeling District falls under provisions of the Govt. of India Absorbed Area (Laws) Act 1954 wherein the District (3149 sq.kms) as a ‘Partially Excluded Area’ is provided in the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of India and hence the state govt. tampering with any of its provisions is an infringement on the legal aspects of the Constitution.
It is perceived at the moment, the state require to come out clean and transparent on the constitutional provision of Darjeeling District within the interpretation of the Absorbed Areas (Laws) Act and whether it has fulfilled its commitment in protecting the Darjeeling hill people under provisions of the Fifth Schedule, Control and Administration of Scheduled Tribes, by implementing the statutory formation of Tribes Advisory Council (TAC) which is mandated to consist of 20 members of which not less than three fourth of the members being representatives of the state Legislative Assembly and the remaining five members amiable to the tribes. Although the TAC was specific to the provisions for Darjeeling District, being the only Partially Excluded Area in West Bengal it is a matter of great regret the Darjeeling hill people have been de-linked from the very purpose of the Fifth Schedule provision which as a matter of fact specifically provided for them within the framework of the Constitution, however perceived to be denied in implementation. Instead the provisions of TAC are seemingly applied only to the plains tribe more specifically to the tribes of Jalpaiguri District and elsewhere.
However interpreting the provisions of TAC in another aspect, it is probable the provision for the tribes of Darjeeling District maybe the implementation of DGHC in the tripartite accord 1988. If this is so it is the duty of the state to clarify the matter to the stakeholders, the Darjeeling hill peoples and not simply the leader and politicians highlighting any cause related to Gorkhaland or more properly all matters related to Darjeeling District which has a constitutional undertaking as provided in the deliberations of the Union Constituent Assembly, vide Advisory Committee’s Interim Report of 18 Aug 1947 of the Sub Committee on “Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas (other than Assam)” chaired by A.V.Thakkar.
Whereas the TAC largesse doled out to the Scheduled Tribes of Jalpaiguri District, if so is the case, is naturally considered out of purview from the statutory provision. This argument is based on the ground Jalpaiguri District was totally removed from the provisions of Backward Tracts transferred as Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas in the Govt. of India Order 1936 and the District effectively having come under the total administration of the State.
Both Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri District basically considered as Backward Tracts since the origination of the phrase in 1870 depicting areas inhabited by the autochthones, indigenous peoples, in India referred to as primitive people, and for which the territories inhabited by such people were never ever brought under the administrative reforms process at all. Since 1935 their interests were protected under the Excluded and Partially Excluded Area provisions, instilled with the idea of preserving these areas with a differential administrative setup unlike the Provinces till the time of the promulgation of the Constitution in 1950.
After which these Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas were forwarded into the provisions of Fifth and Sixth Schedule still instilled with the idea of an interim setup before formal integration within the federation as a Union state. This is to imply Darjeeling District as a Partially Excluded Area is constitutionally provided to integrate into the Union as a state which unfortunately is somehow considered being hindered by the state in violation of Constitutional legality.
The emphasis of GJMM applying for conversion of Gorkhas into tribes requires consideration irrespective of whether the scheme is applicable to the entire genre or not. A process of selection by the proper authority Registrar General of India (RGI) will eventually decide the fate. However with the implication of the B.K.Roy Burman Commission CRESP Report 2008 by the Govt. of Sikkim, recommending various Sikkimese hill communities to tribal status is an indication in view, similar communities when recognized in Sikkim as Scheduled Tribes would automatically apply to West Bengal based on the formation of Darjeeling District in 1866 as areas extracted from the kingdoms of Sikkim and Bhutan..
In the process of rightly demanding ST status for the Darjeeling hill communities some aspects of reference maybe recalled from the history of people in Nepal which is responsible for the origin of many of the Himalayan tribes.
On start it might be advisable to quote Sir Herbert Risley from The People of India, quote page 72, “All over India at the present moment tribes are gradually and insensibly being transferred into castes”. His research assertions mention in complete extract from the book, the underlined.
1. The leading men of an aboriginal tribe, having somehow got on in the world and become independent landed proprietors, managed to enroll themselves in one of the more distinguished castes. In early stages of heir advancement they generally find great difficulty in getting their daughters married, as they will not take husbands from their original tribe and Rajputs of the adopted caste will, of course, not condescend to alliance with them., but after a generation or two their persistency obtains its reward and they inter marry, if not with pure Rajputs, at least with the superior order of manufactured Rajputs…thus a real change of blood may take place …while in any case the tribal name is completely lost and with it all possibility of correctly separating this class of people from the Hindus of purer blood and tracing them to any particular Dravidian or Mongoloid tribe.
2. A number of aborigines, as we may conveniently call them, though the term begs an insoluble question, embrace the tenets of a Hindu religious sect, losing thereby their tribal name and becoming Vaishnavas, Lingayats, Ramayats or other like. Anyway, the identity of the converts as aborigines is usually, though not invariably, lost,…a case of true absorption.
3. A whole tribe of aborigines, or a large section of a tribe enroll themselves in the ranks of Hinduism under the style of a new caste, which claiming an origin of remote antiquity, is readily distinguishable by its name from any of the standard and recognized caste. Thus the great majority of the Kochh inhabitants of Jalpaiguri, Rangpur, and part of Dinajpur now invariably describe themselves as Rajbansis or Bhanga Kshtriyas – a designation which enables them to represent themselves as an outlying branch of the Kshtriyas of Hindu tradition who fled to Northeastern Bengal in order to escape from the wrath of Parasu-Rama. In a country where history masquerades in the garb of legend there is nothing prima facie improbable in the conjecture that the story of the Bhanga-Kshtriyas maybe really a mythological version of the true origin of the reigning family of Cooch Bihar. A chief of the higher race ruling a people of the lower is a phenomenon too common to require explanation.
4. A whole tribe of aborigines, or a section of a tribe, become gradually converted to Hinduism without, like the Rajbansis, abandoning their tribal designation. This is what happened to Bhumj (probably Bhowmik) of western Bengal. Here a pure Dravidian race have lost their original language and now speak only Bengali: they worship Hindu gods…and the more advanced among them employ Brahmins as family priests. The tribe will then have become a caste in the full sense of the word and will go on stripping itself of all customs likely to betray its true descent. The physical characteristics of its members will alone survive.
By such processes as these, and by a variety of complex social influences whose working cannot be precisely traced, a number of types or variety of castes have been formed which admit or being grouped as follows:
(i). The Tribal type, where a tribe like the Bhumj…insensibly converted into caste preserving its original name and many of its characteristic customs, but modify its animistic practices more and more in the direction of orthodox Hinduism, and ordering its manner of life in accordance with the same model. It has even been supposed that the Sudras of Indo Aryan tradition were originally a Dravidian tribe which was thus incorporated into the social system of the conquering race. As illustrations of the transformations that has taken place the Bagdi, Bauri, Chandal (Namasudra), Kaibartta, Pod and Rajbansi-Kochh of Bengal. In Madras the Mal, Nayar, Vellala and Paraiyan or Pariah, of whom the last retain traditions of a time hen they possessed an independent organization of their own and had not relegated to a low place in the Hindu social system.
The table of social precedence attached to the Cochin Census report 1901, Vol I p.181 shows that while a Nayar can pollute man of a higher caste only by touching him, people of the Kammalan group, including masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, etc, pollute at a distance of twenty four feet, toddy drawers (Iluvan or Tiyan) at thirty six feet ; Pulayan or Cheruman cultivators at forty eight feet; while in the cse of Paraiyan (Pariahs) who eat beef the range of population is stated to be no less than sixty four feet..
(ii). The functional or occupational type of a caste is so numerous and so widely diffused and its characteristics are so prominent that community of function is ordinarily regarded as the chief factor in the evolution of caste. Changes of occupation in their turn, more specially among the lower caste, tend to bring about the formation of separate caste.
(iii). The sectarian types comprises a small number of castes which commenced life as religious sects founded by philanthropic enthusiasts who, having evolved some metaphysical formula offering a speedier release from the taedium vitae which oppresses the east, had further persuaded themselves that all men were equal, or at any rate that all believers in their teaching ought to be equal. The Banhra of Nepal- Newars, who were originally Buddhist priests but abandoned celibacy and crystallized into a caste. Race dominates religion: sect is weaker than caste.
(iv). Caste formed by crossing: Modern criticism has been specially active in its attack on that portion of the traditional theory which derives the multitude of mixed or inferior caste from an intricate serious of process between members of the original four.
An older and more instructive illustration , dating probably from before the Christian era, of the formation of the caste by crossing, is furnished by the Khas of Nepal who are the off-spring of mixed marriages between Rajputs or Brahman immigrants an the Mongolian women of the country …but their off-spring must not be stigmatized as a progeny of a Brahman and a Mlechha-must on the contrary, be raised to eminence in the new order of things proposed to be introduced by their fathers. To this progeny also, then, the Brahmans, in still greater defiance of their creed, communicated the rank of the second order of Hinduism: and from these two roots, mainly, sprung the now numerous, predominant, an extensively ramified tribe of the Khas, originally the name of a small clan of creedless barbarians, now the proud title of the Kshatriyas, or military order of the kingdom of Nepal.
The offspring of original Khas females and of Brahmans, with the honours and rank of the second order of Hinduism, got the patronymic titles of the first order, and hence the key to the anomalous nomenclature of so many stirpes of the military tribes of Nepal is to be sought in the nomenclature of the sacred order. It maybe added, as remarkably illustrative of the lofty spirit of the Parbattias, that in spite of the yearly increasing sway of Hinduism in Nepal, and of the various attempts of the Brahmans in high office to procure the abolition of a custom so radically opposed to the creed both parties now profess, the Khas still insist that the fruit of commerce (marriage is out of the question) between their females and males of the sacred order shall be ranked as Kshatriyas, wear the thread, and assume the patronymic title. The Khas now call themselves Chhattris or Kshatriyas- a practice which, according to Colonel Vansittart, dates from Sir Jang Bahadur’s visit to England in 1850. Allied to the Khas are the Ektharia and the Thakurs, both of Rajput parentage on the male side, the Thakur ranking higher because their ancestors are supposed to have been rulers of various petty States in Nepal. The Matwala Khas, again, are the progeny of Khas men and Magar women, and the Uchai Thakurs of the same lineage on the female side.
(v). Castes of the national type: Where there is neither nation nor national sentiment, it may seem paradoxical to talk about a national type of caste. There exists, however, certain groups, usually regarded as castes at the present day, which cherish traditions of bygone sovereignty and seem to preserve traces of an organization considerably more elaborate than that of an ordinary tribe. The Newars, a mix people of Mongoloid origin, who were the predominant race in Nepal proper until the country was conquered and annexed by the Gurkha Prithivi Narayan in 1768, maybe taken as an illustration of such a survival. The group comprises both Hindus and Buddhists. The two communities are quite distinct, and each is divided into an elaborate series of castes. Thus among the Hindu Newars, we find at the top of the social scale the Devabhaja, who are Brahmins and spiritual teachers; the Surjyabansi Mal, members of the old royal family; the Sreshta, consisting of ministers and other officials; and the Japu who are cultivators.
According to Mr. Enthoven, the Bombay Marathas may be classified as a tribe with two divisions, Maratha and Maratha Kunbi, of which the former are hypergamous to the latter, but were not originally distinct.
(vi).Castes formed by migration: If members of a caste leave the original habitat and settles permanently in another part of India, the tendency is for them to be separated from the parent group and to develop into a distinct caste. Mr. Gait has pointed out that “the prolonged residence of persons of Bihar caste in Bengal generally results in their being placed under a ban as regards marriage, …that up-country barbers who settled in Bengal are called khotta and practically form a separate sub caste, as Bengali barbers will not intermarry with them, while they are regarded as impure by the barbers of upper India and Bihar by reason of having taken up residence in Bengal..
(vii) Castes formed by changes of custom: The formation of new castes as a consequence of the neglect of established usage or the adoption of new ceremonial practices or secular occupations has been a familiar incident of the caste system from the earlier times. We are told in Manu how men of the three twice-born caste, who have not received the sacrament of initiation at the proper time, or who follow forbidden occupations, become Vratyas or outcasts, intercourse with them is punished with a double fine, and whose descendents are graded as distinct castes. The Babhans or Bhuinhars of the United Provinces and Bihar, are supposed, according to some legends, to be Brahmins who lost their status by taking to agriculture, and the Mongoloid Kochh of Northern Bengal describe themselves as Rajbansis, or as Vratya or Bhanga (broken) Kshatriyas – a designation which enables them to pose as an outlying branch of that exalted community who fled to these remote districts before the wrath of Parasu Rama, and there allowed their characteristic observation to fall into disuse.
Saturday, 26 June 2010
SIBLAC tells to MEF over the surging threat to environment from Mega Hydel Projects
source VoiceofSikkim on Jun 26, 2010
25 June, New Delhi
To
Mr. Jairam Ramesh
Hon’ble Union Minister of State
(Independent Charge)
Ministry of Environment & Forest
Government of India
Paryawaran Bhawan, CGO Complex
New Delhi 110003
Sub: Haphazard Mega Hydel Power Projects in Sikkim vis-à-vis systematic genocide of Sikkimese identity
It is very strange and disgusting that despite popular rejections and protest against most of the haphazard mega hydel-power projects in Sikkim that has posed immense threat to our local environment, demography, National Security and geography, your Ministry is simply acting like a mute spectator.
These mega hydel projects particularly in the Dzongu area where alone more than six mega projects are either being cleared or under the process of commissioning as against the mere indigenous and vanishing tribal population of 6000 is beyond imagination.
Your Ministry speaks big about global climatic changes and concern but for all practical purposes you care least sidelining the basic facts prevailing in remote parts like Sikkim in your own country.
Your Ministry, without verifying the ground realities and recommendations of reputed national environmentalists and institutes, accords go ahead to all and sundry in Sikkim for reasons best known to you.
Under the circumstances, I once again request you to give a rethink to all the projects as already given go ahead by you in Sikkim. You must appreciate that development, an important factor, however should not and must not be at the very cost of one’s identity and survival.
With highest regards.
Tseten Tashi Bhutia
Former Minister, Sikkim
Dated: June 25, 2010 Cum
Camp: New Delhi
source VoiceofSikkim on Jun 26, 2010
25 June, New Delhi
To
Mr. Jairam Ramesh
Hon’ble Union Minister of State
(Independent Charge)
Ministry of Environment & Forest
Government of India
Paryawaran Bhawan, CGO Complex
New Delhi 110003
Sub: Haphazard Mega Hydel Power Projects in Sikkim vis-à-vis systematic genocide of Sikkimese identity
It is very strange and disgusting that despite popular rejections and protest against most of the haphazard mega hydel-power projects in Sikkim that has posed immense threat to our local environment, demography, National Security and geography, your Ministry is simply acting like a mute spectator.
These mega hydel projects particularly in the Dzongu area where alone more than six mega projects are either being cleared or under the process of commissioning as against the mere indigenous and vanishing tribal population of 6000 is beyond imagination.
Your Ministry speaks big about global climatic changes and concern but for all practical purposes you care least sidelining the basic facts prevailing in remote parts like Sikkim in your own country.
Your Ministry, without verifying the ground realities and recommendations of reputed national environmentalists and institutes, accords go ahead to all and sundry in Sikkim for reasons best known to you.
Under the circumstances, I once again request you to give a rethink to all the projects as already given go ahead by you in Sikkim. You must appreciate that development, an important factor, however should not and must not be at the very cost of one’s identity and survival.
With highest regards.
Tseten Tashi Bhutia
Former Minister, Sikkim
Dated: June 25, 2010 Cum
Camp: New Delhi
Friday, 18 June 2010
SIKKIM: Prime Minister of Tibetan govt-in-exile in Sikkim
Gangtok, June 18 (PTI) Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-exile Samdung Rinpoche today asked community members to take the middle path as espoused by the Dalai Lama in their long-drawn struggle for freedom.
Rinpoche, who is on a two-day visit here, held a meeting with the members of the Tibetan community at the Tsokhasum Hall at Nam-Nang here.
Rinpoche advised the community members to continue their struggle for the cause of Tibetan Freedom and the welfare of Tibetans especially those in Tibet. He also appreciated the support of the community members in this regard.
He also emphasized the middle path as espoused by the Dalai Lama and urged the Tibetan people to continue on this path for fulfillment of their aims and objectives.
The meeting was attended by the Tibetan Welfare Officer, D Dorjee, Sherab Phal chen from Ralang Monastery and a huge gathering of Tibetans from Gangtok.
Gangtok, June 18 (PTI) Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-exile Samdung Rinpoche today asked community members to take the middle path as espoused by the Dalai Lama in their long-drawn struggle for freedom.
Rinpoche, who is on a two-day visit here, held a meeting with the members of the Tibetan community at the Tsokhasum Hall at Nam-Nang here.
Rinpoche advised the community members to continue their struggle for the cause of Tibetan Freedom and the welfare of Tibetans especially those in Tibet. He also appreciated the support of the community members in this regard.
He also emphasized the middle path as espoused by the Dalai Lama and urged the Tibetan people to continue on this path for fulfillment of their aims and objectives.
The meeting was attended by the Tibetan Welfare Officer, D Dorjee, Sherab Phal chen from Ralang Monastery and a huge gathering of Tibetans from Gangtok.
Jammu & Kashmir Annual Plan 2010-11 Finalized
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17:49 IST
The Annual Plan for Jammu & Kashmir for the year 2010-11 was finalized here today at a meeting between Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission Shri Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Chief Minister of J & K Mr. Omar Abdullah. The Annual Plan was finalized at Rs.6000 crores.
Planning Commission appreciated State’s plan to develop 690 MW power generation capacity in PPP mode. The balance hydro power generation potential also needs to be similarly exploited, as it holds the key to State’s economic growth and for generating resources to fund its development schemes. Wind farm based capacity should be expanded and non-conventional systems based on solar and bio-mass also need to be encouraged.
Employment generation in J&K is a priority area. Handicraft and Tourism sector hold high potential in absorbing unemployed youth. The State should take steps to draw up a skill development plan to enhance employability of its youths.
There are large gaps in the delivery of health services mainly due to shortage of manpower. The State should take appropriate steps to fill these critical gaps and have focussed attention on inclusive growth. On infrastructure development incentives in the form of policies should be offered to make private sector active partner in the development of both social and physical infrastructure.
Science & Technology and innovation have played a critical role in economic growth and development of States. The State Science & Technology Council, through the State Department of Science & Technology must be playing a catalytic role in integrating Science & Technology into the development process of the State. The S&T council should formulate a Science & Technology Vision for the State with a definite road map for S&T intervention. Technological solutions that are available, affordable, accessible and appropriate will have to be provided.
Mr Ahluwalia said that the State Government should work out an action plan for rapid development of the State during twelfth plan period which ensures that the fruits of development reach people in all parts of the State equally. More avenues of revenue generation should be explored and State has abundant natural resources to create more streams of revenue generation.
Briefing the Commission on the development strategy for the State, Mr Abdullah said that the Government would create investment friendly environment and fiscal discipline would be maintained to make process of development more sustainable. Horticulture and tourism would be focal point of development. Social services and road development would get priority in the plan outlay.
NNK/RK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17:49 IST
The Annual Plan for Jammu & Kashmir for the year 2010-11 was finalized here today at a meeting between Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission Shri Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Chief Minister of J & K Mr. Omar Abdullah. The Annual Plan was finalized at Rs.6000 crores.
Planning Commission appreciated State’s plan to develop 690 MW power generation capacity in PPP mode. The balance hydro power generation potential also needs to be similarly exploited, as it holds the key to State’s economic growth and for generating resources to fund its development schemes. Wind farm based capacity should be expanded and non-conventional systems based on solar and bio-mass also need to be encouraged.
Employment generation in J&K is a priority area. Handicraft and Tourism sector hold high potential in absorbing unemployed youth. The State should take steps to draw up a skill development plan to enhance employability of its youths.
There are large gaps in the delivery of health services mainly due to shortage of manpower. The State should take appropriate steps to fill these critical gaps and have focussed attention on inclusive growth. On infrastructure development incentives in the form of policies should be offered to make private sector active partner in the development of both social and physical infrastructure.
Science & Technology and innovation have played a critical role in economic growth and development of States. The State Science & Technology Council, through the State Department of Science & Technology must be playing a catalytic role in integrating Science & Technology into the development process of the State. The S&T council should formulate a Science & Technology Vision for the State with a definite road map for S&T intervention. Technological solutions that are available, affordable, accessible and appropriate will have to be provided.
Mr Ahluwalia said that the State Government should work out an action plan for rapid development of the State during twelfth plan period which ensures that the fruits of development reach people in all parts of the State equally. More avenues of revenue generation should be explored and State has abundant natural resources to create more streams of revenue generation.
Briefing the Commission on the development strategy for the State, Mr Abdullah said that the Government would create investment friendly environment and fiscal discipline would be maintained to make process of development more sustainable. Horticulture and tourism would be focal point of development. Social services and road development would get priority in the plan outlay.
NNK/RK
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