The Lepcha community in the Eastern Himalayas, India

#Lepcha#Himalayas#Indigenous#
Dr. Nandini Bhattacharyya-Panda, D.Phil (Oxon)
[email protected]
Historian, Sanskritist, Author, Reseacher on ethnic communities in the Eastern and Northeastern Himalayas.
In my nomadic academic trajectory, I have been pursuing research and documentation of the marginal ethnic communities of the Eastern and Northeastern Himalayas, including Nepal, on their history, identity and tangible and intangible cultural heritage.The first community I came into contact with, in 2006, was the Lepcha Community, primarily located in Sikkim, Darjeeling and Kalimpong.The Lepcha community (also known as Mutanchi Rong Kupp or Rong) of Sikkim and Darjeeling hills is one of the oldest communities in the world and they are the original inhabitants (‘indigenous’ in anthropological terminology) of the Eastern Himalayas.
They have inhabited Sikkim since time immemorial when the two regions were not divided by geographical/political borders. In 1835, the King of Sikkim surrendered ‘Darjeeling Tract’ to the British conquerors while Sikkim was reduced to the suzerain status within decades. The ethnic fate of the original inhabitants of the land followed the geopolitical destiny of the region. Like almost all original inhabitants or indigenous communities in the world, this community also lost their ‘history’ with colonization; the identity of this vibrant ethnic group was cast in the colonial narrative as a ‘primitive, savage and dying race’.My longstanding projects on the Lepcha community have attempted to re-trace the ‘history’ of the Lepchas, both in textual records and through visual documentation. I authored Culture, Heritage and Identity: The Lepcha and Mangar Communities of Darjeeling and Sikkim, published by Knowledge World in 2015.A full length documentary film has been made under the title The Lepcha CommunityOf The Eastern Himalayas: Quest for the Roots. I have also made smallershort films on various aspects of their culture, heritage, identity movement, life and livelihood.The research and documentation projects on the Lepcha community are primarily based on the methodology of researcher-community participation.I was nominated as Academic Expert of the Primitive Tribal Board of the Department Justice and Empowerment, Government of Sikkim.