From the Statesmen
"The Government of West Bengal is like a cow, with big-big eyes. It looks and looks, it stares right at you, but it can’t comprehend a thing it sees”
- Mr PT Lepcha, Sahitya Samman awardee
shiv karan singh
KOLKATA/BHOPAL, 17 APRIL: It’s a slap in the face of the Union of India, the government of West Bengal, and all its Governors since Independence that leaders of the original inhabitants of the Darjeeling Hills have, as an expression of despair, appealed to the estimated 45,000 voters in the community to boycott the 18 April poll. The Mutanchi Rongkup Runkup, i.e. children of the snowy peaks, known to outsiders by the exoethnonym Lepcha, have tired of being marginalised in their homeland, denied constitutional rights, not the least of which is a long-standing demand to be able to study Rongring, their language having its own ancient script, at the primary and secondary level in government schools.
Most Lepchas live in Sikkim and the Darjeeling Hills, their Mayel Lyang or homeland, situated around the mountain deity Kanchenjunga, while a minority resides in the adjoining Ilam district of east Nepal and Paru valley in west Bhutan. The Sikkim government teaches 11 languages in schools, including the Lepcha’s Rongring, which is taught right up to the BA level. But, in West Bengal, just across the border, despite concerted efforts by the community, no government has given the Lepcha child this right even at the primary level, never mind as a medium of instruction, as guaranteed by Article 350A of the Constitution and now the Right to Education law.
Speaking to The Statesman in March 2010, minister for education Mr Partha De waxed on how impressed he is by the rich Lepcha language, gave assurance of addressing the demand soon, and that education secretary Vikram Sen was working on this. Mr Sen informed The Statesman that he awaited the results of a final survey by Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). However, Mr Umapader Chatterjee, additional state project director, West Bengal SSA, confided that that file is still under consideration of Mr Sen. Late last year Mr Chatterjee again admitted the survey had not begun. Such bureaucratic rigmarole has deep history.
“The government of West Bengal is like a cow, with big-big eyes. It looks and looks, it stares right at you, but it can’t comprehend a thing it sees,” said Sahitya Akademi Bhasha Samman awardee Mr PT Lepcha in 2010, when speaking to The Statesman. Mr Lepcha, who has gifted a copy of his Rongring translation of Tagore’s Gitanjali to education minister Mr Partha De, might well have been using the metaphorical Rongring tungbor, but the frustration of the scholar couldn’t be plainer.
Take the year 2007. In April 2007, the joint secretary, National Commission of Scheduled Tribes wrote to the Bengal chief secretary to consider introducing the language. In June, Bengal joint secretary Mr S Mahapatra wrote to the education department of DGHC to conduct a survey on how many children wished to learn the language in primary and secondary schools. Unable to conduct the survey themselves, in November the DGHC turned to the Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association (ILTA), which then conducted an exhaustive survey finding 7,331 children in 220 schools of Darjeeling, Kurseong, and Kalimpong sub-divisions awaiting studies in the language. In November 2008, the DGHC education department wrote to Mr Mahapatra strongly recommending primary and
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BENGAL BETRAYS LEPCHAS:
(continued from page 1)
secondary stage introduction of the language for these children. Nothing resulted, save for Mr Partha De’s multiple ‘I will do something for the Lepcha language’ promises to the community, promises in the vein of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s 2001 proclamation: ‘Mein Lepcha bhasha ko marne nahin doonga.’ Mr De is now not even contesting the election.
When contacted yesterday, ILTA President L.S. Tamsang said: ‘Abstaining has nothing to do with other communities or political parties. We have just lost faith in this system, specially the government of West Bengal. They have done nothing for us in 60 years, nothing for our language.’ Reacting to the boycott decision recently, GJM president Bimal Gurung has expressed sadness and stated that the party’s nominee Harka Bahadur Chetri from Kalimpong will raise the Lepcha demands in the state Assembly.
Given tension in the Hills, the Lepcha community has usually been guarded when commenting on ‘Gorkhaland’, though their very existence and living history as original inhabitants expose many contradictions in the clamour, even more so given the constitutional right to their language has remained unaddressed by all political groups. The origin myths of the Lepchas show their innate connection to the hills around Kanchenjunga; the names for towns, rivers, ravines, and mountains still used today are known to have Lepcha origins, right from Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Mirik, and Kurseong, to Teesta. However, notably, while announcing the boycott this month ILTA members stated that Lepchas have never demanded separation from West Bengal.
Primary schools in Bengal impart education through Nepali, Urdu, Oriya, and Santhali, besides Bengali. Frustrated at not meeting their language in schools, the Lepcha community has slowly built 40 one-room village night schools, where children, who can only learn Bengali or Nepali in government schools by day, are taught Rongring and English by community teachers in fire light. The ILTA conducts teacher training. It has created primers, dictionaries, textbooks right up to grade XII, and runs bilingual magazines, but cannot fulfill the infrastructure needs of thousands of students. Will the next government sitting atop the same insensitive bureaucracy continue ignoring the Lepchas, who are certainly not helpless, but could use help in bequeathing Rongring to subsequent generations?
- Mr PT Lepcha, Sahitya Samman awardee
shiv karan singh
KOLKATA/BHOPAL, 17 APRIL: It’s a slap in the face of the Union of India, the government of West Bengal, and all its Governors since Independence that leaders of the original inhabitants of the Darjeeling Hills have, as an expression of despair, appealed to the estimated 45,000 voters in the community to boycott the 18 April poll. The Mutanchi Rongkup Runkup, i.e. children of the snowy peaks, known to outsiders by the exoethnonym Lepcha, have tired of being marginalised in their homeland, denied constitutional rights, not the least of which is a long-standing demand to be able to study Rongring, their language having its own ancient script, at the primary and secondary level in government schools.
Most Lepchas live in Sikkim and the Darjeeling Hills, their Mayel Lyang or homeland, situated around the mountain deity Kanchenjunga, while a minority resides in the adjoining Ilam district of east Nepal and Paru valley in west Bhutan. The Sikkim government teaches 11 languages in schools, including the Lepcha’s Rongring, which is taught right up to the BA level. But, in West Bengal, just across the border, despite concerted efforts by the community, no government has given the Lepcha child this right even at the primary level, never mind as a medium of instruction, as guaranteed by Article 350A of the Constitution and now the Right to Education law.
Speaking to The Statesman in March 2010, minister for education Mr Partha De waxed on how impressed he is by the rich Lepcha language, gave assurance of addressing the demand soon, and that education secretary Vikram Sen was working on this. Mr Sen informed The Statesman that he awaited the results of a final survey by Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). However, Mr Umapader Chatterjee, additional state project director, West Bengal SSA, confided that that file is still under consideration of Mr Sen. Late last year Mr Chatterjee again admitted the survey had not begun. Such bureaucratic rigmarole has deep history.
“The government of West Bengal is like a cow, with big-big eyes. It looks and looks, it stares right at you, but it can’t comprehend a thing it sees,” said Sahitya Akademi Bhasha Samman awardee Mr PT Lepcha in 2010, when speaking to The Statesman. Mr Lepcha, who has gifted a copy of his Rongring translation of Tagore’s Gitanjali to education minister Mr Partha De, might well have been using the metaphorical Rongring tungbor, but the frustration of the scholar couldn’t be plainer.
Take the year 2007. In April 2007, the joint secretary, National Commission of Scheduled Tribes wrote to the Bengal chief secretary to consider introducing the language. In June, Bengal joint secretary Mr S Mahapatra wrote to the education department of DGHC to conduct a survey on how many children wished to learn the language in primary and secondary schools. Unable to conduct the survey themselves, in November the DGHC turned to the Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association (ILTA), which then conducted an exhaustive survey finding 7,331 children in 220 schools of Darjeeling, Kurseong, and Kalimpong sub-divisions awaiting studies in the language. In November 2008, the DGHC education department wrote to Mr Mahapatra strongly recommending primary and
turn to page 2
BENGAL BETRAYS LEPCHAS:
(continued from page 1)
secondary stage introduction of the language for these children. Nothing resulted, save for Mr Partha De’s multiple ‘I will do something for the Lepcha language’ promises to the community, promises in the vein of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s 2001 proclamation: ‘Mein Lepcha bhasha ko marne nahin doonga.’ Mr De is now not even contesting the election.
When contacted yesterday, ILTA President L.S. Tamsang said: ‘Abstaining has nothing to do with other communities or political parties. We have just lost faith in this system, specially the government of West Bengal. They have done nothing for us in 60 years, nothing for our language.’ Reacting to the boycott decision recently, GJM president Bimal Gurung has expressed sadness and stated that the party’s nominee Harka Bahadur Chetri from Kalimpong will raise the Lepcha demands in the state Assembly.
Given tension in the Hills, the Lepcha community has usually been guarded when commenting on ‘Gorkhaland’, though their very existence and living history as original inhabitants expose many contradictions in the clamour, even more so given the constitutional right to their language has remained unaddressed by all political groups. The origin myths of the Lepchas show their innate connection to the hills around Kanchenjunga; the names for towns, rivers, ravines, and mountains still used today are known to have Lepcha origins, right from Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Mirik, and Kurseong, to Teesta. However, notably, while announcing the boycott this month ILTA members stated that Lepchas have never demanded separation from West Bengal.
Primary schools in Bengal impart education through Nepali, Urdu, Oriya, and Santhali, besides Bengali. Frustrated at not meeting their language in schools, the Lepcha community has slowly built 40 one-room village night schools, where children, who can only learn Bengali or Nepali in government schools by day, are taught Rongring and English by community teachers in fire light. The ILTA conducts teacher training. It has created primers, dictionaries, textbooks right up to grade XII, and runs bilingual magazines, but cannot fulfill the infrastructure needs of thousands of students. Will the next government sitting atop the same insensitive bureaucracy continue ignoring the Lepchas, who are certainly not helpless, but could use help in bequeathing Rongring to subsequent generations?
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