www.kalimpong.info

I don’t know how out of control this might get (or not!!), but I’ve installed a ‘chat widget’ to this site which will allow you to talk to me when I’m online. Just click on the link in the sidebar (to the right).

I promise to try and reply when I’m online.

Say hi (if you don’t feel like leaving a comment on the posts.. )

-by Nirnay John Chettri, MARG (Mankind in Action for Rural Growth).

In the hills of North Bengal under the Kalimpong region lies a tiny village of Dukka and Tandrebong where most of the villagers are farmers. Here the main crop is cardamom and ginger which is their cash crop, but lately it has not been giving a good yield because of the prevailing local virus called “Suirey”. This has been a great setback for the economy there.

Although mankind has been rapidly moving towards development, there are certain places where it has taken a U turn because of the rough terrain, peoples’ attitude towards villages and the corruption. YES, the villagers of Dukka and Tandrebong are bearing this wound since a long time. Till date this village is left without a motorable road and electricity which is the basic need towards development.

After getting no response and help from the government, the local panchayat and other authorities, the villagers of Dukka and Tandrabong have stood up and have joined hands in constructing a motorable road which would connect Dukka and Tandrabong to the nearest small town Algarah and make life easier for the villagers living there. This road would be a lifeline for Dukka and Tandrebong.

Since 24th Nov 07 every month the villagers gather in a group of 200 and give one day of their manual labour in constructing the road which passes through the rough terrain of cardamom fields, streams and cliff. The day starts early on that specific day and friends and relatives of that neighboring village walk for approx two to three hours to give a helping hand to the villagers of Dukka and Tandrebong.

On 12th April 08, villagers from Dukka and Tandrebong had gathered again. This was the 7th time they had come together to construct the road. Members from Mankind in Action for Rural Growth (MARG) a local NGO from Darjeeling along with some volunteers set up early from Darjeeling on that very day to encourage and support the villagers working in constructing the road.

The villagers comprising of men and women, old and young were very happy and thankful to MARG for coming and supporting and encouraging them. It was the first time ever that an NGO had come forward to support their cause. The refreshment which was sponsored by the MARG team for the villagers was appreciated by them and in return the elders of the village thanked MARG and its volunteers by offering Khadas.

We all are so engrossed in our own busy life and we fail to realize the pains of our brothers and sisters who are facing in the far flung remote villages in the hills. Let us come forward and support them in our own way, guide them in whatever way we can. Your small initiative can IGNITE a SMILE.

MARG in a special way would like to thank Mr. Sagar Pradhan (Ex Tea Garden Manager), Mr. Arun Pradhan (Secretary Pradhan Samaj Darjeeling), Mr. Manish Pradhan, Mr. Ranjan Pradhan, Mr. Sudip Tamang, Dorjee and Edu Chettri for volunteering in going to Dukka and supporting the villagers.

If you would like to send in your contribution to the villagers of Dukka and Tandrebong then please contact MARG at inform.marg@gmail.com or nirnay.john@gmail.com.

Nirnay John Chettri

Dear Readers,

There is an online petition that has been created, addressed to The Telegraph.

Please read it, and if you agree with its contents, then please sign the petition. It takes just a minute to do so.

http://www.petitiononline.com/b4tav09o/petition.html

A large number of signatories on the petition will help to show The Telegraph that they cannot be callous and irresponsible with their publishing.

Please show your support and solidarity by signing.

Thank you,

-Admin

Update:
Signatures so far:

We need more, please sign and please inform others as well…

The Telegraph published a most distasteful and ill-informed article by Sumanta Sen on April 3, 2008. The article was so disparaging, divisive and just so widely off the mark that I totally ignored it, as one would ignore the rantings of a juvenile blogger online.. Anyone with a keyboard and an opinion can write anything, and responding to all of them is not possible, nor required. That is the reason this site did not feature the contents of that article.

However, the difference here is that even though the quality of the article makes it undeserving of anyone’s attention it is unfortunate that The Telegraph deemed it appropriate to publish the article. By virtue of this blunder wherein Sen’s article slipped through the editorial cracks, the article has been given the credibility that comes with publication in a national newspaper.

The Telegraph should acknowledge their mistake, should retract the article, and offer an apology to the citizens of the Darjeeling district who have been maligned by the careless writings of Mr. Sen.

It has since then come to our attention that Dr. Sonam Wangyal had written to The Telegraph with an appropriate reply. However, the Telegraph has not yet responded to Dr. Wangyal’s correspondence. Hopefully they will do the correct thing and print Dr. Wangyal’s rejoinder in an equally prominent location in their publication. In the meanwhile however, I have received permission from Dr. Wangyal to re-post his letter in this site.

Thanks,

-Admin

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Give Us One More Thing

Writing rejoinders is not my cup of tea but Sumanta Sen’s Fight for a New Home (Fifth Column, 3 April 2008) leaves me no other option than this unpleasant task of responding to his essay that openly betrays lack of access to ground realities and of his little knowledge of the history of Darjeeling’s hills and plains.

Firstly, let us take the case of his profoundly disturbing declaration that “Strictly speaking, the Nepalese in Darjeeling can be dubbed ‘foreigners’ because they have come from another country.” Banking on Sen’s logic the Parsis scattered all over India, people of Ahom descent in Assam, the Aryans who came to India from Europe, the Sindhis since Sindh is primarily in Pakistan and as a matter of sad but ’strictly speaking’ contention all the Bengalis that migrated to West Bengal from East Pakistan are also foreigners. It is foolhardy to throw stones at others unless one lives in a bullet-proof glass house. And Sen does not have that protection for all we have to do is take a peek at Tripura, the very name suggests the place belongs to the Tripuris, where hordes of refugees poured in from East Pakistan and settled in the fringes of the small kingdom. Today the original inhabitants are in the fringes, very akin to refugees anywhere, and, to use Sen’s term, ‘immigration’ has seen to it that the centre of political, financial, cultural, linguistic and administrative fields are with the Bengalis: from the Chief Minister down to almost every officer that matters is a Bengali. Business is conducted in Bengali, the colleges and schools are predominantly Bengali and even the restaurants smell Bengali or should I say they smell of elish, rhui and bhetki. One could ask the same question Sen has asked in the essay, “Should numbers alone be the deciding factor when it comes to determining the future of the hills (read natives of Tripura)?” Has Sen ever wondered what ever happened to the Reangs, Chakmas, Malsums (Halam), Mogs, Darlongs and the other tribes besides the ruling Tripuris. Nevertheless, these are realities that one must learn to accept and by extension learn to accept that Gorkhas in Darjeeling are as much Indians as Parsis in Mumbai or Bengalis in Tripura.

There was a suggestion that the Indo/Darjeeling-Nepal border could be fenced to check “such a high rate of influx“. Permit me to mention that the Indo-Nepal Treaty of 1950, Article VII, states, “The Government of India and Nepal agree to grant, on reciprocal basis, to the nationals of one country in the territories of the other the same privileges in the matter of residence, ownership of property, participation in trade and commerce, movement and privileges of a similar nature.” If any type of barricading is to be resorted to then the treaty or the specific Article has to be revoked. Who stands to gain or lose by annulling the Article makes an interesting work but is beyond the scope of the present subject. What I find most amusing is that the Government of West Bengal has, even today, a department for Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation headed by the Hon’ble Minister of State, Shri Binay Krishna Biswas (Secretary: Smt. R. Venkataraman, IAS, and Officer on Special Duty: Shri A. Kanugo, WBCS). The Department was formed in 1950 with the following objective: “The Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department was created to handle the enormous dimensions of the human tragedy that West Bengal had to face following the partition of India in 1947…” It has been over six decades since partition and the Department has been around for almost as long and its existence clearly suggests that the infiltration still continues and the illegal immigrants even have a department to welcome them. On the other hand if there is no illegal immigration why do we have the Department sixty years to the unfortunate events.

Mention has been made that the hills suffers from cultural hegemony, Gorkhas and Nepalis are different, and that the Sixth Schedule is best for the hills. In the first case the article mentions that “display of muscle power has also ensured that they (Gorkhas) ride roughshod over a Buddhist culture, which advocates peace, friendship and harmony.“. The British may have been past masters in the art of divide and rule but Sen’s divisionary line will only raise a lot of dust and disgust. I am a Buddhist, a member of a minority community, but in my almost sixty years of existence not once have I been intimidated or my faith questioned, let alone my Buddhist culture being ridden “roughshod”. It is because of the tolerance that exists in the hills that Buddhist Bhutia women volunteered to fast till death for Gorkhaland, it is because of the same reason that Pemba Tshering Bhutia has been elected the chief of the Municipality, it is the very same reason that makes Kambachen (a Bhutia) and Cheten Sherpa (also a Bhutia) raise their fists and voices for Gorkhaland. Bhutias and Gorkhas may be culturally different but when it comes to Gorkhaland they speak the same language and run the same mile. Sen has even made an attempt to bring about a collision between the Gorkhas by writing that, “The Gorkhas, however, are a small community in Nepal.”. The scheme is to suggest that the others are not Gorkhas. I think it is best left to us to decide who is or is not a Gorkha: the semantics of the terms Gorkha and Nepali might confuse Sen and it is better that he makes peace with what little he knows. Where the Sixth Schedule is concerned I have never known a giver/donor being so utterly excited and frenzied to give the Sixth Schedule and conversely I have never seen the proposed receivers so absolutely hostile to the proposal. Need anything more be said on the matter!

There was one piece where Sen hit the nail on the head: Darjeeling belonged to Sikkim and it was gifted to the British by the Maharajah of Sikkim. In other words Darjeeling never belonged to Bengal. Now keeping that in mind the question that automatically arises is, “How does West Bengal fit into the slot?” Maybe there is a shared culture (No), could there be a shared history (No), possibly the physiognomy of the people of Bengal and Darjeeling are similar (No), since they share a common boundary the terrain could be similar (No), or since the languages spoken by the two communities are derivative of Sanskrit…(don’t even think about it), script (No), food habits (No), dress (No), music, religion, mental temperament (No, No, No, and NO a lot many more things)! Bengal has to let go, if not today definitely sometime later.

Mr. Sen and his ilk must realize the hillmen are not Bengal’s or Bengalis’ enemies. Talk to any intellectuals like Krishna Singh Moktan, Dr. Indra Bahadur Rai, Dr. Harkabahadur Chhetri, Prof. Samten Norbu, to name a few, and not only do they love the Bengalis but they hold anything Bengali in awe and reverence. I myself was taught by Bengalis, my colleagues are Bengalis, my workers are Bengalis and some of my most trusted friends are Bengalis. On 23 March 2008 Raja Surajit Sen, former Manager of Debpara Tea Estate passed away and six of us, all hillmen, closed shop and took the long ride to Shillong to pay our respect to a Bengali gentleman who was also our good friend. In front of hundreds of mourners all six of us cried like children because we loved that Bong and there are many others for whom we will do the same. Most hillmen simply love Bengalis for they have given us so much in terms of education, vocational guidance, thriftiness, the value of tourism, politics, pride in one’s culture, exposure to a wider world and much much more, and it will be difficult to find one adult Gorkha who has not been touched by a Bengali. Despite what you have written it does not dilute our love for the Bengalis but Mr. Sumanta Sen, please give us one more thing, give us Gorkhaland and you will forever touch our hearts.

Sonam B. Wangyal

I received this email from a reader which I would like to share with everyone:

Dear Administrator,

I happen to come across your website. Here in Minnesota, USA, is a Kalimpong born native - Jigme Ugen who has created history - not only was he the first Tibetan to be elected Officer in the entire US labor history but he could very well be the first Indian born, too. This is groundbreaking. (http://www.seiuhealthcaremn.org)

He is part of the largest labor Union in North America. I just saw this statement from him in http://www.seiu.org/media/pressreleases.cfm?pr_id=1617
and thought I’d pass it on to you.

Hope you are all very proud of him and will someday highlight his success.

Thank you
Choephel

Update:
It is indeed quite an achievement. Congratulations to Mr. Ugen, you make Kalimpong proud.
-Admin

Update:
Here is a photograph of Mr. Ugen with US presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama.

One more update:
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/article/2008/04/03/seiu-healthcare-s-jigme-ugen-first-tibetan-elected-union-leader-u-s.html

Hi All..

I have added a new page to this site.

http://www.kalimpong.info/list-of-schools-in-kalimpong/. (See the navigation bar on the top of the page.)

As the name says, this is list of the schools and other educational establishments in Kalimpong.

Please check it out, and I’ll really be grateful for comments and/or additional information.

If any representatives of the schools/institutes want to add/edit additional information please contact me.

Thanks,

Cheers

-Admin

Dear Readers,

I must apologize for being so lax in posting more recent photographs. I have been sitting on a set of photographs that were taken in April 2007 and didn’t get around to posting them until now.

Anyway, here they are:

You can view (and comment upon) these photographs at the following link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kalimpong/KalimpongApril2007

Enjoy.

-Admin

http://savethehills.blogspot.com/2008/03/now-that-rains-are-here.html

(Mr. Praful Rao has been spotlighting the landslides issue in the Darjeeling Hills in the site, savethehills.blogspot.com since Sept 07. The site contains detailed records of the work done by ‘Save The Hills’, along with photographs of the landslide affected areas, and correspondences with various agencies and experts. This latest post contains expert advice on recognizing landslide prone areas, warning signs and the emergency responses in the event of a landslide. )

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Yesterday we had the first big premonsoon shower in Kalimpong… since nothing much has been done by way of landslide prevention, I thought might as well post the do’s and don’ts from the Geological Survey of India website (kindly help by giving as much publicity as possible) :-

Areas that are generally prone to landslides

• Old and/or recent existing landslides,
• Base or top of slopes
• Base of minor drainage hollows
• Base or top of an old fill slope
• Base or top of a steep cut slope

Areas generally safe from landslides

• Hard, non-jointed bedrock that has not moved in the past
• Flat-lying areas away from slopes and steep river banks
• The nose of ridges, set back from the tops of slopes

Landslide warning signs

• Sticking or jamming of doors or windows.
• Appearance of cracks in plaster, tile, brick, or foundations.
• Pulling away from the building of outside walls or stairs.
• Slow development of widening cracks on the ground or on paved areas such as streets..
• Breakage of underground utility lines.
• Appearance of bulging ground at the base of a slope
• Emergence of flowing ground water in new sites.
• Sudden decrease in creek water levels though rain is still falling or just recently stopped.
• Tilting or moving of fences, retaining walls, utility poles, or trees.
• Faint rumbling sound that increases in volume as the landslide nears.The ground slopes downward in one specific direction and may begin shifting in that direction under your feet.

Immediate steps for imminent Landslide

• Contact your local fire, police or public works department
• Inform affected neighbors
• Leave the area quickly

Actions to be taken before Intense Rainfall

• Become familiar with the land around you. Slopes where landslides or debris flows have occurred in the past are likely to experience them in the future.
• Buildings should be located away from known landslides, debris flows, steep slopes, streams and rivers, intermittent-stream channels, and the mouths of mountain channels.
• Observe the patterns of storm-water drainage on slopes near your home, and watch especially the places were runoff water converges, increasing flow over soil-covered slopes. Observe the hillsides around your home for any signs of land movement, such as small landslides or debris flows or progressively tilting trees.
• Contact your local authorities to learn about the disaster management response, and develop your own emergency plans for your family and business.

During Intense Rainfall

• Be observant. Many landslide and debris flow fatalities occur when people are sleeping. Listen to radio for warnings of intense rainfall. Intense short bursts of rain may be particularly dangerous, especially after longer periods of heavy rainfall and damp weather.
• Unusual sounds might indicate moving debris, such as trees cracking or boulders knocking together. A trickle of flowing or falling mud or debris may precede larger landslides. Be alert for any sudden increase or decrease in water flow in streams or channels. Such changes may indicate landslide activity upstream, so be prepared to move quickly.
• If you live in areas susceptible to landslides and debris flows, consider leaving if it is safe to do so. If you remain at home, move to a part of the house farthest away from the source of the landslide or debris flows, such as an upper floor, but keep an escape route open should it become necessary to leave the house.
• Be alert when on the roads. Embankments along roadsides are particularly susceptible to landslides. Watch the road for collapsed pavement, mud, fallen rocks, and other indications of possible landslides or debris flows.

After Intense Rainfall

• Be alert for signs indicating land movement. Landslides can occur weeks or months after intense storms.

Things to Remember

• Mudflows tend to flow in channels, but will often spread out over a floodplain. They generally occur in places where they have occurred before.
• Landslide and mudflows usually strike without warning. The force of rocks, soil, or other debris moving down a slope can devastate anything in its path. Take the following steps to be ready.
• Plant ground cover on slopes and build retaining walls.
• In mudflow areas, build channels or deflection walls to direct the flow around buildings.
• Remember: If you build walls to divert debris flow and the flow lands on a neighbor’s property, you may be liable for damages.

Precautions to be taken during landslides

If inside a building:

• Stay inside.
• Take cover under a desk, table, or other piece of sturdy furniture.

If outdoors:

• Try and get out of the path of the landslide or mudflow.
• Run to the nearest high ground in a direction away from the path.
• If rocks and other debris are approaching, run for the nearest shelter such as a group of trees or a building.
• If escape is not possible, curl into a tight ball and protect your head.

After Landslide

• Stay away from the slide area. There may be danger of additional slides.
• Check for injured and trapped persons near the slide area. Give first aid if trained.
• Remember to help your neighbors who may require special assistance–infants, elderly people, and people with disabilities.
• Listen to a battery-operated radio or television for the latest emergency information.
• Remember that flooding may occur after a mudflow or a landslide.
• Check for damaged utility lines. Report any damage to the utility company.
• Check the building foundation, chimney, and surrounding land for damage.
• Replant damaged ground as soon as possible since erosion caused by loss of ground cover can lead to flash flooding.
• Seek the advice of geotechnical expert for evaluating landslide hazards or designing corrective techniques to reduce landslide risk.

-praful rao

A blog post detailing the author’s attempts to travel past the blockades on NH-31-A.

- http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/karmapaljor/75/50352/high-and-dry-on-the-highway.html

and

A blog to highlight the agitation in Darjeeling district and to detail and record the movement, something that the Indian media has not been doing.

- http://www.focusdarjeeling.blogspot.com/

From the blog description:

FocusDarjeeling is about drawing the attention of the nation to the ongoing agitation in Darjeeling district. Almost a month after hundreds of thousands have spontaneously rallied for a change in the political climate here, the issue has received minimal coverage in the national media. FocusDarjeeling is also about the thousands of emails/FAXs/letters from citizens of the district to national leaders and VIPs which have gone unanswered. In short, FocusDarjeeling is evidence of our existence.

It gives me great pleasure to report that we will be featuring articles and essays by Dr. Sonam B. Wangyal.

Dr. Wangyal is the author of two books about the Darjeeling Hills: ‘Sikkim and Darjeeling: Division and Deception’ (2002, KMT Press, Bhutan) and ‘Footprints in the Himalayas: People, Places and Practices‘ (2006, KMT Press, Bhutan). In addition he has contributed numerous articles in various publications such as Himal, The Statesman and Himalayan Times (Kalimpong). He has a vast and probably unparalleled knowledge about the culture, traditions and history of our region including languages, customs, religion and personalities.

Dr. Wangyal’s writing is most informative and a must read for all of us associated with Kalimpong and the Darjeeling hills, and we are indeed very fortunate that he has graciously agreed to the posting (or reposting) of his writings here.

I am sure all readers will enjoy these articles and again I encourage you to participate by contributing with your comments and opinions, hopefully leading to lively and productive debate and discussion.

Thank You

Admin