Lepchas’ Rights Movement

The Lepcha community today is the most vulnerable community in West Bengal.  The existence of the community itself is highly threatened. It is estimated that  in the next 20 years with the same continued Government Policies, the Lepcha community will parish forever from West Bengal.  The community will be referred in the past tense. The population may be there but it will be a dead community as a community’s identity is always based on its language, literature, custom, culture, tradition, economic stability and region.
Today despite the best efforts by the Lepcha community to conserve its language, literature, culture, custom, tradition and to enhance economic standard, not a single favourable Government Pollicy is in place for the very existence of the Lepcha community. There is a total lack of link and communucation between the Government of West Bengal and Lepcha tribal people living in the Darjeeling District, West Bengal. The effort by a community is not enough in a system where the Government establishes the policy frame work  for general environment and also on every aspect of life. eg.(Lepcha children may speak the Lepcha language at home and at their respective Lepcha Night Schools but they do not have scope to learn the language properly nor master it at formal education.  The fact today is, even with more than 60 years of Independence and the rights enshrined in the Constitution, the Lepcha language is yet to be introduced in formal education system by the Government of West Bengal.)
The Lepcha community is suffering in all fronts just because it has a natural population according to fragile mountain system. Being a minority community it has no political value nor have political representation in the decision making bodies, therefore, the Lepcha community very strongly feel that the Government treats the Lepcha community as untouchables and have discriminated them in all fronts. The policy decisions for natural Lepcha habitat is taken without the slightest protection measures and without considering the Lepcha community’s day to day plight and enormous negetive impact of the Government policies on them.

Therefore, the Lepchas of West Bengal put forward a final plea,with intense emotional requests for the betterment of downtrodden Lepchas to the Government of West Bengal.

1.  A Lepcha Development Council for the protection of their language, literature,culture, tradition and economic development of the Lepcha community of West Bengal without any  territorial jurisdiction.

2.  Introduction of Lepcha language in Formal Education System.

3. Representation in the House of the People, both State and Central.

The Lepchas’ demands for their better tomorrow are not of today’s making.  The Lepchas’ Rights Movement can be traced back to 7 June 1947 for their hopes and aspirations for a better and dignified life in independent India. *  The Lepchas of West Bengal met, spoke, pleaded, placed and forwarded countless memoranda to the Government of West Bengal and Central Government of India.  The successive State Governments namely the Congress and C.P.M did not think the Lepchas’ genuine demands are important enough for their considerations.  Meanwhile the Lepchas, the original master of the land, suffered and endured the untold humiliations and hardships for the last sixty years or so.  The democratic rights enshrined in the Constitution of India were denied to the simple, loyal, patience Lepchas.  The Lepchas of West Bengal had had  enough of Government of West Bengal’s total indifferences and insensitive attitudes.

Although it was certainly not in their nature, they were  compelled to come out in the open streets after sixty four years of independence to protest and demand for their Constitutional democratic rights in West Bengal.  In the process, Lepcha youths were arrested twice in Kolkata also.

* Aachuley, A Quarterly Lepcha Bilingual News Magazine, Volume 15, No 2, July 2011, pages 21-24.

Huge protest rallies of the Lepchas were carried out in Kalimpong, Darjeeling, Kurseong and Siliguri in 2009, 2010 and 2011.  West Bengal Bidhan Sabha Election 2011 was boycotted by the Lepchas in the Darjeeling District for the first time in their history showing disapproval of the Government of West Bengal and Central Government of India’s step motherly attitude towards the original Lepchas. This was followed by a huge Dharna in Kolkata from 9 August to 7 September 2011 where more than 200 Lepchas, old and young, men and women, took part under very difficult humid conditions and incessant rain.  The Lepchas also sat on an indefinite Dharna from 1 September in front of the Sub-Divisional Officer’s Office, Kalimpong.  The number of Lepchas started to increase and swell by the day like a wild fire in Kalimpong. Lepchas from the other two Sub-Divisions, Darjeeling and Kurseong, also joined in the Dharna.  These protests and Dharnas were spontaneous and carried out under the “Lepchas’ Rights Movement”.  It should be made very clear here that no one encouraged or motivated the Lepchas’ movements.  Our hearts bled for those Lepchas who were sitting in Dharna down in Kolkata and those Lepchas who are still sleeping in a raw hides in remote villages in the Darjeeling Hills.  When the original Lepcha tribes plight, abject condition and victim of sheer neglect by the Government of West Bengal and Central Government of India were exposed by the media, various concerned institutions, organisations, NGOs like the Association for Democratic Rights Movement, Human Rights, Youth Manch, Hindu - Muslim Relationship, Naaree Morcha and others willingly came in support of the Lepchas’ genuine cause in Kolkata.  Mahasweta Devi, a renown writer, scholar and tribal activist, came to meet the Lepchas sitting in Dharna on 1 September 2011 in Kolkata and openly declared her full support for the original Lepcha tribes’s genuine demands.  She also read and sang three songs from Guru Dev’s Gitanjali, a translation work from Bengali into Lepcha.
On 2 September 2011 huge rally of the Lepchas with various Kolkata based organisations, institutions and NGOs took place in Kolkata where many leaders, intellectuals, thinkers, scholars in supports of the Lepchas very seriously spoke on the Lepcha tribes and their genuine demands.

The same day, 2 September 2011, the Hon’ble Chief Minister, Government of West Bengal, Ms Mamata Banerjee, made a sensational announcement in the Assembly to the sheer delight of the original Lepchas of West Bengal on their very long standing genuine demands; she announced that a “Lepcha Development Council” will be established for the betterment, advancement of the original Lepcha tribes in West Bengal.
With this announcement by the Chief Minister of West Bengal, the protest rallies for their genuine demands were put to rest in Kolkata and Kalimpong.
As I write these words, the Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association is in contact with the Government of West Bengal and taking the necessary steps to speed up the negotiations for the establishment of a Lepcha Development Council.






A Senior Correspondent