article swatahsiddha sarkaar 31jan2016 sinhas 20(1) (1)

8/17/2019 Article Swatahsiddha Sarkaar 31Jan2016 SINHAS 20(1) (1)

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NEPALI NATION AND NATIONALISM IN DARJEELING | 31

NEPALI NATION AND NATIONALISM IN DARJEELING:

KUMAR PRADHAN IN PERSPECTIVE

Swatahsiddha Sarkar

Introduction

The social history of Nepali nation and nationalism as a subject matter of

study has attracted adequate scholarly attention over the years (e.g., Regmi

1971; Burghart 1984; Onta 1996a; Gellner, Pfaff-Czarnecka and Whelpton

1997; Hachhethu 2003; Malagodi 2013; Lawoti and Hangen 2013). As a

diasporic community Nepalis by now have assumed global prominence

(Gellner 2013; Subba and Sinha 2016). However, the attempt to study Nepali

nation and nationalism outside Nepal is piecemeal. The largest number of

Nepalis outside Nepal resides in India. The fact whether the Nepalis settled

in India for generations are to be reckoned as Nepali diaspora or as Indian

citizen largely denes the contours of Gorkha ethnicity and nationalism inIndia whose roots are concretized in Darjeeling and in due course its pan Indic

manifestations were also realized. Scholarly attempts largely concentrated

their focus either to explore the origin and evolution of Gorkha ethnicity and

politics in the context of Darjeeling hills (Subba 1992; Samanta 2000) or to

examine the rising ethnic aspiration of the Indian Gorkhas/Nepalis in North

East and elsewhere in India (Subba et al. 2009; Sinha and Subba 2003). The

question of Nepali nation and nationalism in India and its historicity has

rarely been subjected to scholarly pursuits. Besides some notable attemptslike those of I.B. Rai’s (1994) and Michael Hutt’s (1997), Nepali nation

and nationalism in the context of Darjeeling have been comprehensively

studied by Dr Kumar Pradhan, a historian by training from Darjeeling who

died recently (20 December 2013).

Though Pradhan has not published widely but the worth of his scholarship

can be appreciated through his two major English pieces and several other

little known quality pieces written in Nepali. The name of Pradhan became

familiar in the Eastern Himalaya centric global scholarship since the 1990s.

Of late, Gorkha Conquests (1991), Pradhan’s magnum opus, brought him

recognition in the wider academy, which he deserved since the days of Pahilo

Pahar (1982) – another signicant piece written by him in Nepali. It is worth

Studies in Nepali History and Society 20(1): 31–68 June 2015

© Mandala Book Point


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32 | SWATAHSIDDHA SARKAR

noting a point that Kumar Pradhan has been widely cited by the Himalayan

Studies practitioners like Michael Hutt, David N. Gellner, Mark Turin, Susan

Hangen, Rhoderick Chalmers, Sara Shneiderman and Pratyoush Onta, amongothers. In his ‘Introduction’ to the second edition of Gorkha Conquests John

Whelpton (2009) has even praised Kumar’s efforts eloquently. Pradhan’s

major contribution involves the analysis of the processes and consequences

of nationalism and nation building in Eastern Nepal nevertheless his writings

are equally insightful in understanding the historical evolution and spread of

Nepali nationalism outside Nepal as well. Besides Gorkha Conquests and

Pahilo Pahar three of his other major publications, namely, A History of

Nepali Literature (1984), Dàrjiliïgmà Nepàlã Jàti ra Janajàtãya Cinàrãkà Nayƒ Uóànharå (2005) and Agam Singh Girãko Kavitàmà Jàtãya Bhàvanà (2005[1982]) would be of central interest for the present review. These texts

share a common theme – the issues relating to nation and nationalism as

their analytical foci. Kumar’s arguments are most prudently elaborated in

these texts and by pursuing a systematic analysis of these texts we will try

to develop Kumar’s distinctive propositions, if any, relating to Nepali nation

formation in Darjeeling.This paper claims that in the writings of Kumar Pradhan the history of

Nepali nation formation in Darjeeling has been elaborated at length. Drawing

upon Kumar Pradhan the present paper thus seeks to illuminate the question

of Indian Nepali national identity with special reference to Darjeeling in some

detail. However, the objective of the present exercise is not merely to celebrate

Pradhan’s engagement with issues like nation and nationalism; rather a modest

attempt has been made to state and evaluate Pradhan’s arguments on the question

of Nepali national identity outside Nepal. We shall subject Pradhan’s arguments

as set forth in his major publications, to a close reading and critical analysis,

attempting to demonstrate its (in)adequacy both as a theoretical statement and

as an account of Nepali nation formation in India. We shall also attempt to tease

out at least some implicit theoretical notions elaborated by him and work out our

reformulation and critique thereby to enlarge the scope of Pradhan’s argument in

analyzing Darjeeling’s social history in an intriguing manner. The entire exercise

thus should be considered as a working effort in order to justify our position asto why and how Kumar Pradhan and his works, which are both inspiring and

mystifying at the same time, be considered rather seriously.

Besides his well founded critique of Nepali Nationalism vis-à-vis the

history of Gorkha conquest and empire with special reference to eastern


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It is argued here that Pradhan’s contribution can be appreciated properly

provided one is ready to accept the term Nepali as culturally articulated

rather than politically oriented. What comes out of all these elucidations is acritique much similar to that of Prasenjit Duara (1995) who has interrogated

the linear histories of national time and identities in a way to rescue the

history of the nation from that of the nation-state. Pradhan’s position on the

Nepali identity also ts well with what Andreas Wimmer and Nina Glick

Schiller called ‘methodological nationalism’ – a critique that disparages the

collapse of nation, state, society and culture on the one hand and denounces

its naturalization on the other (Wimmer and Schiller 2002). He thus cautioned

us about the indiscriminate use of such terms like nation, nationality and

nationalism the way they occur in the western academia. His has been a

thorough critique of the collapse of the nation (cultural) and state (political)

– an understanding that drew its intellectual impetus from the Westphalian

formulation of equating the idea of nation with a state. The tendency to

equate the themes like nation or nationality with a mono-lingual/-cultural

foundation, which may have its epistemic value in the West, is insufcient

to unearth the intricacies of nation formation in the East, he reasoned. Infact, the issue of Nepali nation in India itself questions, if not nullies the

monolingual foundation of the nation state project. Nationality of a citizen

of Nepal is Nepali who speaks Nepali – the national language of the nation;

but such terms of reference would turn up as a devastating logic if applied to

those Indian citizens who also speak Nepali language (a scheduled language

of the Indian constitution) and share a Nepali ancestry of distant past. Pradhan

seems to be critical – though not that eloquent like that of I.B. Rai2 – towards

those estimations which often framed the nationality question of the Nepalis

in Indian situation as a case of ‘sub-nation,’ who speak Nepali language and

are Indian citizens.

2 I.B. Rai, the noted Nepali literary gure from Darjeeling and the rst Indian Nepali writer

to receive the Sahitya Academy Award in 1976, has vehemently opposed the ‘governmental

view’ that insisted, as Rai puts it, on unique singularity of the Indian nation and offered the

constituting ethnic/linguistic collectivities the ‘ofcial’ designation of ‘sub-nations.’ He

straightforwardly registered his disagreement towards such a ‘politically idealist view’ ofnation and nationalism. He instead maintained that India is a home for many nations and Nepali

(much like the Assamese, Gujrati, Bengali, Sikh, Naga and many others) is not a ‘sub-nation.’

By “Indian Nepali nation” he meant the ethnically and linguistically distinctive community

of people – a nation per se but not a “sub-nation” – who are of Nepali origin and are Indian

citizens (Rai 1994: 149).


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What are the Indian Nepalis: Ethnic or Diasporic?

Pardhan’s 2004 Mahesh Chandra Regmi Lecture clearly indicates that he was

thoroughly aware of the genealogy of the term ethnicity and was reluctant to

brand the Nepali nationality question in India as an ‘ethnic’ issue (Pradhan

2005). For him the connotation of the term ethnic was more close to what in

Nepali is called Janajàti – that refers to different community identities likeKirat, Tamang, Newar, Sunuwar and so on. As constituting elements of a

broader Nepali nation in India these different Janajàtis or ethnic groups wereappropriated organically. Hence the micro community identities, which were

considered by Pradhan as ‘ethnic,’ are not to be confused with the idea of Nepali nation in their singularity. Pradhan begins his analysis by emphasizing

that Nepali nationalism in Nepal grew out of a pluralist social fabric whereas

syncretic unity served as the basis of forging the Nepali nation in Darjeeling.

He further argues that nation formation in Nepal has undergone a process that

may be called as kamilà prakçyà (a process in which people forage in groupmuch like the ants) while maurã prakçyà (swarming of bees) was the actual

process that explains Nepali nation formation in Darjeeling (Pradhan 2005: 3).

By emphasizing the Nepali nation formation process in Darjeeling asmaurã prakçyà Pradhan might have hinted at the diasporic foundation of

Nepali nation in India. Michael Hutt has also labeled Pradhan as a historian

who contributed towards understanding Nepali ethnicity in the so-called

“Nepali diaspora” (1997: 102). However, it needs to be qualied as to

whether Pradhan himself considered the Nepali nation in India as a diasporic

nation. This is indeed a signicant issue on which T.B. Subba has made some

interventions. In an autobiographical essay Subba (2008: 216) holds that

though the Nepalis in India in most cases share a Nepal root (coincidentally

it was the case with him too) but the Indian Nepalis hardly refer to Nepal as a

desired place of their return. Needless to mention that ‘the desire to come back

home’ is the principal qualier of being a diasporic community and on this

count the Indian Nepalis could hardly be considered as diasporic nationality

(Subba and Sinha 2016). However, there are categories of Nepalis (those who

worked as armed servicemen, coal-mine workers in the North East India or

the migrant porters seasonally available in Darjeeling town) who bet thelabel ‘diasporic Nepalis’ since these categories of people visit their homes in

Nepal on a regular basis, and remit their income back home in Nepal. They

do not consider the region as their home and they have a longing to go back

to Nepal as soon as they are sanctioned leave or the mining work stops with


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the onset of rainy season or the seasonal demand of porters decline. They

establish no or very nominal social, political or cultural linkages with the

host societies. They rarely marry with local women or learn local language beyond what is necessary for their survival (Subba n.d.). Gellner has also

observed that in order to try and establish themselves in their new host

societies – Darjeeling and Sikkim – people of Nepali cultural background

sometimes are obliged to deny that they have any diasporic leanings (Gellner

2013: 137). The denial of the diasporic leaning for the Indian Nepalis has

been advocated by Pradhan as well. He, in fact, made his critical estimation of

such labeling meant for the Indian Nepalis in the essay ‘Agam Singh Girãko

Kavitàmà Jàtãya BhàvanàÙ (Pradhan 2005[1982]). He did criticize the efforts

of the Indian national leaders to equate the Indian Nepalis as the citizens of

Nepal but also those Nepali leaders who thought that a reference to Nepal

would be worthwhile to build up national consciousness among the Indian

Nepalis. Hence he thought that the use and popularity of the term pravàsã(non-resident) would unnecessarily complicate the nation building process

of the Indian Nepalis (Pradhan 2005[1982]: 126–127).

Kirat and Mongoloid Predominance in Darjeeling

The tract known as Dorje-ling (Darjeeling), ceded to British India from

Sikkim in 1835, was previously occupied by Nepal from 1788 to 1816 and

restored back to Sikkim in 1817 through British intervention. From being

a deserted space Darjeeling soon became a center for trade and commerce

and also a place for regaining “Saxon energy” for the war fatigued British

soldiers, military personnel and high ranking colonial ofcials (Kennedy

1996: 33). With its growing economic and political prominence in the wider

colonial administration, Darjeeling also emerged as a place with largest

concentration of Nepali population outside Nepal. With the incorporation of

Kalimpong, occupied by Bhutan till 1865, Darjeeling acquired the shape of

a district by 1866 and when the rst regular census of the district was taken

during the winter of 1871–1872 the preponderance of the Nepali population

became readily visible. However, on closer scrutiny of facts it appears that

the preponderance was basically of the Kirat communities who formed the biggest segment of this Nepali population, since it became an easy refuge

for coming from the adjoining eastern Nepal (Pradhan 1991: 190). Besides

the Kirats the presence of the Mongoloid communities were also fairly

large. This Mongoloid and Kirat predominance in the hill population helped


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Kumar develop his argument as to how Darjeeling’s social composition was

distinctive and different from that of Nepal.

Out of the total population of 94,712 of the District in 1872 (Magrath’scompilation, quoted in Hunter 1974: 41) 32,350 (34 percent) were Nepalis

all of whom were immigrants from the state of Nepal (Hunter 1974: 53).3

Pradhan further adds that out of these 32,350 Nepalis Kirats – including

Dewan, Dilpali, Durlami, Yakha, Jamadar (Jimdar), Khambu, Limbu Rai,

and others in the Rai-Limbu group shown under separate heads in Magrath’s

compilation – constituted about 42 percent (13,692) of the total Nepali

population of the District. Compared to this the gure for the higher castes

like Chhetris – including Basnet, Gurkha, Pahariya, Parbatiya – was as low

as 166. It needs to be pointed out that Magrath’s Census compilation have

neither recorded Chhetris nor Bahuns under the heading ‘Nepali’ who were

shown as other than natives of India and British Burma (as quoted in Hunter

1974: 44–47). In short, out of the total Nepali population of 32,350, the

matwàlã s and ‘untouchables’ constituted 32,080. The Kirats (13,692) formedthe largest group of the Nepali population followed by Tamangs (6,570) and

Magars (3,011). If the Kirats formed about 14 percent of the total populationof Darjeeling in 1872, they constituted about 20 percent in 1901, and still

formed the largest group of the Nepali population (Pradhan 1991: 192). In

order to prove this trend of Mongoloid preponderance in general and Kirat

predominance in particular in Darjeeling’s population growth over the

years, Pradhan has prepared a table (see Table 1) by making use of the data

available in Hunter (1974: 40–47), O’Malley (1999[1907]: 35–45), Dash

(1947: 65–79), Banerjee (1980: 102–105). Table 1 distinctively proves his

position that the history of the Nepali population in Darjeeling is actually

usurped by Kirat and Mongoloid predominance.4 These groups of population

3 Pradhan in his Mahesh Chandra Regmi Lecture has challenged Hunter’s analysis of

Magrath’s data. He was of the view that instead of 34 percent the share of the Nepali population

in the total population of the district would be 38.40 percent (35,380 out of a total of 94,712).

Out of this 35,380 Nepali population 31,000 would be the matwàlã s who belonged to theTibeto-Burman language group (Pradhan 2005: 9).

4 Michael Hutt while reecting upon the Nepali diaspora outside Nepal has also noted thisMongoloid predominance phenomenon. He mentioned that around 84 percent of the Nepali

population of Darjeeling consists of Rais, Limbus, Tamangs, Magars, Gurungs, Sunwars and

Newars (Hutt 1997: 114). However, Hutt hardly deciphered the past painstakingly the way

Pradhan did, for an explanation as to how this Mongoloid predominance has been the result of

the ‘internal social conditions’ of eastern Nepal.


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were however, traceable in the territories like the eastern Himalaya, the sub-

Himalayan Bengal and the eastern India since ancient times. It needs to be

mentioned here that these various ethnic groups who later constituted the Nepali nation in Darjeeling did maintain their own respective indigenous

cultures and dialects.

Table 1: Population Distribution in Darjeeling District (1872–1951)

Caste/

Community

Year

1872 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951

Rai 6,754 33,133 40,409 41,236 47,431 56,794 63,745

Chhetri – 11,597 12,599 – – 25,941 30,463

Sanyasi 267 1,151 1,060 – – – 1,085

Bahun 904 6,470 6,195 8,174 8,791 8,999 11,317

Bhujel – – – – – 5,816 5,745

Yogi – – – – – 454 474

Magar 3,020 11,912 12,451 14,934 16,299 17,262 19,413

Newar 1,120 5,770 6,927 8,751 10,235 12,242 14,827

Tamang 6,567 24,465 27,226 30,450 33,481 43,114 49,890

Gurung 3,687 8,738 9,628 9,575 11,154 15,455 17,864

Limbu 4,663 14,305 13,804 14,191 16,288 17,803 19,835

Sunuwar 1,194 4,428 3,820 3,691 4,055 4,822 4,803

Yakha 242 1,143 1,119 – 850 824 –

Damai 252 4,643 4,453 5,781 5,551 8,162 9,116

Kami 1,886 9,826 10,939 11,779 11,331 16,272 19,432

Sarki 328 1,823 1,992 2,036 2,432 2,778 2,932

Gharti 1,419 3,448 3,584 – 2,053 496 998

Majhi 275 – – – – – 327

Thami 13 – – – – – 475

Thakuri 56 – – – – – 804

Thapa 447 – – – – – –

Gurkha 51 – – – – – –

Pahariya 92 – – – – – –

Parbatiya 21 – – – – – –

Source: Pradhan 2005: 32.


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The Material Basis of Nepali Nation: Class Question in Darjeeling

Pradhan shifted his analysis towards the diverse community background of

the people of Nepali origin settled rather permanently there in Darjeeling and

was curious to nd out a clear cut answer to the question how the ideas of

solidarity and nationality grew up out of the Kirats, Mongoloids and people

belonging to Hindu caste groups who shared different languages, if not

different cultures. Pradhan attributed this phenomenon to several factors and

elaborated their signicance in hierarchic manner. He was of the opinion that

the ‘principal’ causal factor that has augmented the feeling of national unity

among the heterogeneous communities was the notion of class and languagehas been considered by him as the ‘second’ signicant causal factor of Nepali

nationality question in India. This is, indeed, a very signicant observation

– as against the existing stock of literature (Bandhu 1989; Rai 1994; Hutt

1997; Chalmers 2003) – that leads us appreciate the class concerns of the

Nepali nationality question in India, which would have remained unexplored

had Kumar Pradhan undermined it as worth considering.

While locating the grooming of national consciousness during the late

19th century Darjeeling Pradhan held the view that almost all the Nepalissettled there in the hills were ‘proletariats’ (sarbahàrà varga) as most ofthem were having working class background. Consequently intra community

class exploitation and coercion hardly took shape among the Nepalis. Late

19th century Nepali society in Darjeeling did not experience the rise of the

capitalists or the landed gentries ( jamindàr) nevertheless a lower middleclass was germinating. The ideas of ruling class and the ruled did not take

shape within the Nepali society as all of them were ruled by the alien rulers

in Darjeeling. The British were the owners of everything including the tea

gardens. They occupied all the top ranking positions and even the subordinate

positions in government and non-government ofces were lled up by non-

Nepali plainsmen. There were Biharis and Rajasthanis who dominated the

petty business sector of the hills (like carpentry, tailoring, shoe making,

etc.) while the subordinate positions in government ofces were lled up

by Bengali bàbå s (gentlemen). The Nepalis of Darjeeling were under the

vicissitudes of economic exploitation as they could only afford to sell out theirlabor power. Those who had left Nepal encountering the feudal atrocities,

soon realized that feudal exploitation of Nepal was usurped by the forces of

British colonial exploitation in Darjeeling and became aware of the very fact

that Ràmràjya did not prevail in the then Darjeeling. Nationality question


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of the Nepalis in Darjeeling was not the brainchild of the rising middle

class nor did even it reect the interests of the capitalist class as the Nepali

society of the then Darjeeling was entirely composed of sipàhã s (corps),majdur s (laborers), agriculturalists and plantation (tea, cinchona) workers

(Pradhan 2005: 11).

Nation Formation without a Middle Class

Pradhan was aware that the role of the middle class has been of utmost

signicance in the process of nation formation that took place during the

moments of rapid social transformation where older (feudal) traditions ceasedto fulll the task for which they were designed (Pradhan 2005[1982]: 113).

He has also pointed out as to how the interpretations of the Marxist historians

on Indian nationalism were informed by such arguments. He was of the view

that the histories of social change, transformation vis-à-vis nation formation

have been most convincingly interpreted by Marxism. But his view was that

the blind application of Marxist interpretation cannot yield any true to life

historical analysis. This is precisely why, Pradhan held, the national identity

of the Nepalis in Darjeeling cannot straight away be considered as the productof feudalism or capitalism. The earlier generations Nepalis were exposed to

feudal exploitation in Nepal and upon their arrival in Darjeeling they had to

face colonial capitalist exploitation nevertheless it would be too immature

to conclude that the situation approximated the state of affairs outlined by

the Marxist historians. The nature and degree of exploitation was different

and there was hardly any scope to run away from this exploitation. Sipàhã s and majdur s were there in the barracks and towns, peasants were there in

the villages, plantation workers were there in cinchona and tea gardens but

there were no capitalists and even the rise of the middle class was on a low

web. 19th century Nepali society in Darjeeling in this way became largely

a working class or a proletarian society. They did not have land rights,

any ownership in the trade and business or other enterprises. The only

opportunity they had was to sell their cheap labor. In such a situation, it is

absurd to maintain that the nation and nationality questions of the Nepalis

were instigated by the interests of the capitalists or by the aspirations of themiddle class (Pradhan 2005[1982]: 118–120).


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Cultural Appropriation of the Class Question

Pradhan hints at a signicant question that relates to the argument as to

whether social oppressions of various kinds are as important as class

exploitation in understanding hill history and the ways in which the idea of

Nepali nation did evolve by transposing class polarization into community

aspirations. This becomes evident in his analysis when he points out:

Those who had left Nepal encountering the feudal atrocities, soon realized that feudal

exploitation of Nepal was usurped by the forces of British colonial exploitation in

Darjeeling and became aware of the very fact that Ràmràjya did not prevail in the then

Darjeeling. Nationality question of the Nepalis in Darjeeling was not the brainchild

of the rising middle class nor did even it reect the interests of the capitalist class as

the Nepali society of the then Darjeeling was entirely composed of sipàhãs, majdurs,agriculturalists and plantation (tea, cinchona) workers. (Pradhan 2005: 11)

Unlike Nepal, the origin and evolution of Nepali national identity in

Darjeeling was not the result of state unication process rather this feeling

of national consciousness was encouraged by the common interest of the

working class Nepalis. However, his notion of class was more cultural thaneconomic. Renouncing the concept of class as an economic category, Pradhan

much like E.P. Thompson viewed class in relational terms and argued “the

national consciousness of the Indian Nepalis emerged on the pretext of a

subjective feeling of commonality in the life experiences of the exploited

and subjugated classes” (Pradhan 2005: 11–12).

It is also remarkable to note that, in Pradhan’s analysis the white collar

workers, small traders and petty businessmen were not absorbed, as the

Marxists would hold, into the proletariat rather they created a distinctive

class in itself besides the colonial ruling class. This constituted the crux of

Pradhan’s analytical synthesis. How a class divided society became culturally

polarized that too amongst the members sharing similar class position

(when viewed in terms of their structural relationship with the forces of

production) is indeed a grave issue of theoretical concern. In order to explain

how community solidarity rather than class polarization unfurled among the

settled Nepalis of Darjeeling Pradhan extended his thesis beyond Marxistapproach to class and class analysis. This led him inquire how in the historical

progression of the hill society these relations of exploitation and domination

prepared the fertile ground in which ‘us’ versus ‘them’ division between the

Nepalis and the plainsmen grew even though none of them actually owned


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the means of production. Besides the economic standing the notion of ‘us,’

according to Pradhan, incorporated in it a socio-cultural connotation too.

Apart from the British, the educated clerks and the conformist Hindus fromthe plains did consider the matwàlã s (as the Nepalis commonly referred to fortheir drinking habit) as mlecchas (impure castes) and the vertical difference

between the Nepalis and plainsmen based on caste, religion, culture, and

language differential went on increasing. Educated Bengali bàbå s andmoney lenders from the plains (mahàjan) continued considering the laboring

Nepalis derogatorily as ‘coolies.’ ‘Us’ versus ‘them’ divide did originate

and accentuate in such a historical context and their class experience was

expressed more in the ideas, traditions, language and customs of the people

who were exposed to the vicissitudes of colonial modernity (that came handy

to the natives through the rapid spread of education, communication, science

and technology, white-collar professions, urbanization and market) and class

at the same time. Class analysis for Pradhan emerged as a way to examine

and understand the experience of what it meant to be a hill people or let us

say a Nepali in Darjeeling’s history.

Surprisingly there is much similarity in the theoretical position Pradhanheld and the social class analysts5 maintained on the question of class

analysis. On many count Pradhan echoed Marshall who held the view that

the objectivity of class consists, not in the criteria that distinguish it, but in

the social relations that it produces, and its subjectivity in the basic need

for mutual conscious recognition (Marshall 1934: 61). Fundamentals of

Pradhan’s emphasis on the class basis of the Nepali nation in this sense

imply power relations. He attempted to show that class relations arise out

of market capacities, and that class relations were in fact maintained by a

process of ‘mobility closure.’6 The greater the mobility closure (i.e., the

less individual mobility or less chances for the individual to acquire the

opportunities available in the local resource niche) between groups with

different market capacities, the more readily will social class assume a

communitarian cleavage. Such courses of mobility closure in the economic

5 Social class analysis ourished through the writings of a host of American social scientistslike T.H. Marshall (1934), Milton M. Gordon (1949), Llewellyn Gross (1949), J.H. Goldthorpe

and G. Marshall (1992) who had extended Marx’s class analysis with a Weberian tint and

led it towards the direction of a more inclusive category of what they called as ‘social class.’6 The notion of ‘mobility closure’ has been used here the way it occurred in Parkin’s neo-

Weberian interpretation of class (Parkin 1972, 1979).


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domain of erstwhile Darjeeling have also been noted by Michael Hutt (1997:

119). The argument that comes out of all this is that mobility restrictions

make class-community cohesion more probable. It is worth noting a pointthat in Pradhan’s analysis the class-community nexus of the Indian Nepalis

that occurred through a societal process of mobility closure, projected

inter-class differentiations as a species of power relations while intra-

class differentiations were usurped by community solidarity. This bears

resonance with what Parkin labels as “usurpationary closure,” by which

he meant “collective attempts by the excluded to win a greater share of

resources” (1979: 45). Much like the social class theorists, the essence of

class for Pradhan therefore lied in the ways a man is treated by his fellows

and reciprocally how he treats them, and not the qualities or the possessions

which cause the treatment. By illuminating Pradhan in this manner one can

appreciate how he would have theoretically conceived of the process through

which the inter class differentiation in Darjeeling provided leeway to the

‘we’ vs. ‘they’ differential necessary for nation formation, which perhaps

thwarted the intra-class differentiations from assuming greater signicance

than national unication.This approach helps us understand the theoretical problem of overlapping

between material and cultural questions. To return to the central question

once again: how this material and cultural overlapping help explain the

class basis of Nepali nation in Darjeeling? Let us revise. Pared down, how

the class interests of the Mongoloids and Kirats (majority of whom were

workers) vis-à-vis the bàbå s and other plainsmen (majority of whom fellunder petty-bourgeois category) were transpired in ethnic ‘we’ vs. ‘they’

terms and furthered the sentiments of a nation? In fact, Pradhan’s emphasis

on the ‘we’ vs. ‘they’ syndrome implies the existence of ‘cultural division

of labor’ situation,7 in which the people coming from Nepal were placed

grossly in the working class category and were looked down upon by

the plainsmen in general and the Bengali bàbå s in particular who shareda different (metropolitan) culture and were placed in all available high

status occupations. This helped create a commonality of interest amongst

7 The notion of cultural division of labor used here in the way Michael Hechter (1978) has

used it. By cultural division of labor Hechter meant a system of stratication where objective

cultural distinctions are superimposed upon class lines. High status occupations tend to be

reserved for those who shared metropolitan culture; while those who belonged to indigenous

culture cluster at the bottom of the stratication system.


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the Mongoloids, Kirats and tàgàdhàrã s who were placed in the bottom ofthe stratication system. The roots of national mobilization among the

Mongoloids, Kirats, and others who came from Nepal were viewed by

Pradhan in this manner as an outgrowth of persistent economic segregation

of a community from the plainsmen – the ‘other’ – and the associated

cultural expressions of such materially rewarding positions enjoyed by the

two (hill vs. plainsmen) sets of communities differentially. This was how

class and cultural questions overlapped and this overlapping paved ways

for the growth of nation as a higher order cultural integration for a host of

culturally and linguistically divergent communities, irrespective of the fact

that some among them did actually emerge as petty bourgeois elements.

Pradhan’s causation helps us understand the interlocking of class and

ethnicity questions among the Indian Nepalis to a great extent without which

the discernment of Gorkha/Nepali identity may be fragmentary. Nevertheless

his approach to class question involves several grey areas. Pradhan’s texts

provide us less a systematic alternative theory of class formation than a

set of admonitions whose value is largely determined by their place in a

specic polemic. Pradhan admonishes us to avoid sterile formalisms andto be ever aware that there could be contradictions between classes but

not amongst the members of the same class. In fact, Pradhan implicitly

assumes the essential correctness of the theory of class that he seems to be

denying. Pradhan’s conceptual categories are so formed upon his polemical

opponent that his attempt to transcend classical Marxism appears to be far

from being satisfactory. He was unhesitant in using the term proletariat

(sarbahàrà varga) rather loosely to imply the plantation (tea and cinchona)workers, agriculturalists, laborers and even the sipàhã s. In fact, his analysisof class question of Nepali national identity in Darjeeling is not restricted

to the quintessential Marxian notion of class. Treating proletariat more as

a denotative term rather than as the historic role player in Marxian sense

– Pradhan actually hinted at the inections of the term proletariat in the

non-industrial settings.

Furthermore, his emphasis that Darjeeling’s Nepali society was not

internally class divided as majority of them were workers (i.e., they did not possess the means of production) seems to be an overstated assessment. At

least since the early 20th century, if not earlier, traces of well off Nepalis are

available in the hill history (Biswas and Roy 2003: 128–129; Sarkar 2011).

Some even traced out aristocratic elements represented by the landholding


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class and the retired army and police ofcials (Dasgupta 1999: 56–57). In

fact, just to take account of Pradhan’s emphasis on the absence of class

differentiation among the Nepalis of Darjeeling would be a debilitating movefor further analysis while considering the emergence of class differences

in the 20th century Darjeeling hills. The history of Darjeeling suggests that

theoretical claims and actual practice can be at great variance which could

be traced in the contradictions among the Nepalis whom Pradhan called

sarbahàrà varga. The socio-economic experiences of being a sipàhã , amahàjan (trader) and even a sardàr (labor agent) differed widely than to theexperiences of a wage earner (majdur ), coolie (plantation labor) or a bhariyà(porter). Their interests cannot simply be reduced to their class positions.

Although economic exploitation did not exist amongst them but one cannot

escape the growing social and cultural hiatus that dened much of their

intra-class/community relationships historically. Likewise the women-folk

especially as wage-earners in the plantations shared an exploitative relation

with the owners of means of production who exploited their labor much

similar to the fate of their male counterparts, but the exploitation doubled

at the label of reproduction of labor in the domestic space where they wereexploited by men of the same class. What is argued here is that even though

the women plantation workers undoubtedly fall within what Pradhan called

sarbahàrà varga, it is too impressionistic to propose that the experience ofclass exploitation subsumes within it the concerns of gender exploitation too.

Cultural Foundation of Nepali Nation: Linguistic Nationalism in Darjeeling

Besides considering the material basis of nation formation among the

Nepalis of Darjeeling Pradhan has detailed out the further progression and

maturation of Nepali nation through a cultural plane. The cultural foundation

of Nepali nation in Darjeeling has been located by Pradhan in two ways:

rstly, by delving deep into the linguistic basis of Nepali nation formation

and secondly, by tracing out the (in)signicance of religion and caste as

factors in the expression of Nepali nation in Darjeeling.

Pradhan began his analysis by emphasizing the contextual differences

and specicities of Nepal vis-à-vis Darjeeling within which Nepali language became a lingua franca. In Nepal, Pradhan continues, Mongoloid tribes were

able to understand and speak Nepali language besides their own tribal dialects

belonging to Tibeto-Burman language family since in the post unication

period Nepali (known as Gorkhàlã ) was introduced in Nepal as the state


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language. Unlike Nepal, Nepali language in Darjeeling did not ourish

through state endorsement (Pradhan 1984: 15). It is pertinent to mention

here that there is much similarity in the way Pradhan analyzed the beginningof Nepali nation formation outside Nepal and Hobsbawm charted out the

possibilities of nation formation in the diaspora. Hobsbawm held the view

that bodies of immigrants into foreign countries were very likely to discover

national sentiments, whether or not they were met by local xenophobia. The

increasing rate of immigration of people and the rapid development of cities

and industry further the possibility of discovering national consciousness

among the uprooted masses (Hobsbawm 1989: 153–154). People coming

from Nepal to Darjeeling encountered almost similar situation. By the middle

of 20th century Darjeeling had attracted huge number of people from Nepal.

Either to work in the plantations or to serve as manual labor for developing

the required infrastructure of the upcoming hill station, or for enlistment

purposes, the incoming of the people from Nepal has been a continuous

phenomenon throughout the 19th century. It is worth mentioning here that

Gorkha recruitment in its institutional form did start in 1886 soon after the

establishment of a recruiting depot at Jalapahar near Ghoom. From 1886 to1904 as many as 27,428 Gorkha soldiers were recruited by the Darjeeling

recruiting depot (Sen 1987: 23).

For Hobsbawm nationality in diasporic situation evolves out of real

network of personal relations. This personal networking is feasible, argues

Hobsbawm, simply because far away from home every Slovene actually

had a potential personal connection with every other Slovene when they

met (1989: 154). Language undoubtedly played a great role in materializing

this network of personal relations. Contrary to this Pradhan’s account does

reveal that this was practically impossible in 19th century Darjeeling where

people of Nepali origin met with each other in the market place, in the town

space, but every time they met as ‘strangers’ (àgantuk ). They did sharedifferent beliefs and practices, different heritage, different political culture,

and above all different languages unintelligible to each other. Moreover, the

people of eastern Nepal mainly the Kirats and the Mongoloids were rather

loosely integrated into the hegemonic Nepali Hindu fold of Nepal. Hencethe presence of the people of Nepal away from their home in Darjeeling

hardly had experienced comparable situations that Slovenes or the Italians

in the United States did.


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Pradhan’s emphasis that the 19th century Darjeeling actually possessed

a polyglot population, despite Kirat and Mongoloid predominance, also

gets reected in other colonial documents. Hunter, for example, noted thatthe people of Nepal settled in Darjeeling were divided into several castes

and tribal groups. While Hunter has divided them into 12 septs, Magrath’s

district census compilation classied the Nepali population of the district

under 41 heads (as cited in Hunter 1974: 53). O’Malley’s Darjeeling

District Gazetteer provides us a convincing picture that in fact, substantiates

Hodgson’s comment that the district did practically become a “Babel of

tribes and Nations” (as quoted in O’Malley 1999[1907]: 41 ). It needs to be

mentioned here that all these various communities of Nepal were having

their own languages/tribal dialects (kurà ). Based on his analysis of 1901census data O’Malley maintained:

Nearly half the people speak languages of the Tibeto-Burman family, of which no less

than 19 different dialects were shewn in the census returns of 1901....In the hills Limbu

is another fairly common dialect....Among the Nepalis of Darjeeling Khambu (Jimdar),

Murmi and Mangar, are the commonest tribal dialects, but Newar, Gurung, Sunuwar

and Yakha are also spoken....Nearly one-fth of the whole population speaks Khas,

i.e., Nepali Hindi, or as it is sometimes called Paharia or Parbatiya....It is gradually

ousting the various tribal dialects, and is now current as a lingua franca both in the

principality of Nepal and the polyglot district of Darjeeling. (1999[1907]: 47–48)

Besides these languages/tribal dialects O’Malley’s account also included

the several other languages like the Lepcha, Tibetan, Dhimal, Hindustani,

Mundari, Oraon and Santhali.

However, the need to have some degree of commonality did emerge insuch a polyglot situation rather autonomously which was articulated more

systematically in the 20th century through the individual efforts of some native

intellectuals and the institutional endeavors undertaken by the native cultural

associations like Nepali Sahitya Sammelan. Pradhan further maintained

that during the initial years of Darjeeling’s development Nepali was not

introduced in the schools. Hindi, Lepcha, English, Urdu and Persian were

the available languages used in the schools as medium of instruction. Even

amidst such an adverse situation Nepali language did not survive merely as

an ‘endangered language’ rather it experienced a spontaneous growth and

an autonomous existence with a rich variety of new literary genres. Had the

educationally backward workers not mobilized by their ‘private’ concern


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for a common language to conduct everyday interactions in an intelligible

way, the question of Nepali nation in Darjeeling would have hardly emerged

(Pradhan 2005: 12). However, it is worth noting a point that during 19 th century the people of eastern Nepal were not at all unaware of Nepali as a

lingua franca, even though they might have maintained their respective kurà sfor private use. But the growth of Nepali linguistic solidarity in Darjeeling

was autonomous in the sense that it did not resemble the social and cultural

currents of the then Nepal.

It needs to be pointed out that though the urgency of Nepali as a

lingua franca was mooted as a result of mobilizing the ‘private’ concerns

of a polyglot population the issue of Nepali language hardly remained

an ‘underived private’ issue all through. The concerns of ‘public’ in the

derivation of a national identity through language have been pointed out

by several scholars. Hutt, for example, maintained that the terms ‘Nepali’

and ‘Nepalese’ were rst used by the British (Hutt 1988: 33; 1999: 113).

Likewise Chalmers points out: “By the late nineteenth century a vibrant

Nepali publishing industry had been established in Banaras and as the

twentieth century progressed formal education within India and Nepal greatlyincreased the use of the language” (2007: 88). Pradhan himself has argued

that “[t]he use of this name [Nepali] gained currency more in India than

in Nepal” (1984: 10). He further noted that institutionalization of Nepali

language began in the rst decade of the 20th century with the introduction

of it in the curriculum of Calcutta University, which replaced the earlier

usages of Khas-kurà , Parbate, or Gorkhàlã . Interestingly it was only in the1930s that the use of Nepali was ofcially introduced in Nepal. It is also

worth noting that the rst ever institution to use Nepali, in the fashion of

Nepali Sahitya Sammelan, was established in Darjeeling in 1924 (Pradhan

1984: 10). Moreover, by 1901 the use of Nepali had become mandatory in the

land revenue arrangement of the district in general and in Kalimpong estate

in particular. It is mentioned in C.A. Bell’s Kalimpong Settlement Report

in clear terms that the ability to read and write Khas-kurà (as Nepali wasknown that time) was a mandatory appointing criteria for a Maõóal (village

headman) as Khas-kurà (or Nepali) has become a common language of theregion (Bell 1905: 14). Moreover, Nepali language was again endorsed by the British military organization. The British ofcers were conversant

only with the Nepali language. The knowledge of Nepali was a sine qua

non for the recruits in these regiments (Sen 1988: 135). Following B.S.


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Cohn (1996: 33) it may be said that for the British, Nepali appeared to be

a ‘language of command’ and was institutionalized as a part of hegemonic

power apparatus between the ruler and the ruled. Conspicuously enoughKumar did not consider these concerns of the colonial rule critically which

in fact created symbols and forms to institutionalize Nepali language at the

cost of delegitimizing the several other creoles, pidgins, and ‘non-standard’

dialects (kurà ).The concern for ‘public’ was on the rise as demands for introducing

Nepali in educational institutes arose. Researchers like Rhoderick Chalmers

have noted the beginning of such campaigns for Nepali language recognition

in India since the early 20th century. By 1911 Nepali had been approved as

a second language for matriculation in the then United Provinces by the

University of Allahabad. In 1918 Calcutta University granted Nepali a status

of a vernacular for composition in matriculation, intermediate, and BA

examinations. In 1935 Nepali was approved for teaching and examination in

all primary schools in Darjeeling district with a majority of Nepali students.

In 1949 it became the medium of instruction up to middle and high school

level in the predominantly Nepali speaking areas of Darjeeling (Chalmers2007: 96). Besides these attempts to recognize Nepali language as medium of

instruction, there was a need to standardize the language through producing

rules of grammars, dictionaries, text books, etc. and to produce popular

literature, newspaper, and quality literary pieces in order to provide a viable

platform to the growing Nepali public sphere in colonial Darjeeling. Began

with the efforts of the colonial ofcials and missionaries the process of

language development was attended by the locals too. Padri Ganga Prasad

Pradhan, Paras Mani Pradhan, Pandit Dharani Dhar Sharma (Koirala), Surya

Bikram Gewali were the most prominent among these locals who worked

assiduously to introduce ‘print culture’ which later contributed towards the

imagining of Nepali nation that began with the activities of the Nepali Sahitya

Sammelan. Ganga Prasad Pradhan is credited with the introduction of the

rst Nepali newspaper Gorkhe Khabar Kàgat published from Darjeeling that preceded the publication of Nepal’s rst national newspaper Gorkhàpatra by

a few months. Gorkhe Khabar Kàgat survived for more than three decades(1901–1932). However, Gorkhà Bhàrat Jãvan is said to be the rst Nepali periodical published from India (Banaras) in 1886 (Pradhan 1984: 73–74).

After having documented the circumstantial contingencies that enabled

Nepali to become a link language, Kumar Pradhan has analyzed how a


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situation of linguistic nationalism emerged in Darjeeling that contributed

towards the formation of a unified jàti (nation) feeling among the

heterogeneous mass of the hills. It is worth quoting Pradhan here:

The Nepali language has helped to bring about a closer integration of the Kirats,

Magars, Gurungs, Tamangs, Newars, Brahmans, Chhetris and others. The Nepali

language is spoken in Darjeeling as their rst language or mother tongue. There are

socio-economic factors behind the rise of a feeling of identity among the Indian Nepalis,

and the language serves as a bond of unity among them. (1991: 201)

Paras Mani Pradhan, Dharani Dhar Sharma and Surya Bikram Gewali,the eminent literary trio (popularly referred to as Su-Dha-Pa), have sowed

the seed of cultural nationalism through raising a clarion call of language

unication needed to be achieved by the heterogeneous mass of Darjeeling.

They did also contribute enormously in producing text books, grammars,

vocabularies, dictionaries and literary pieces. Paras Mani Pradhan8 and

Dharani Dhar Sharma went on producing provocative call-to-action pieces.

A Gajal by Paras Mani Pradhan published in the 1 October 1913 issue of

Gorkhe Khabar Kàgat (Chhetri 1993: 33; as quoted in Chalmers 2003: 339)thus reads:

Alas! Gorkhali you still are asleep

Becoming backward with each passing day while other nations arise

Cast off all your fatigue and dormancy

Work together for solidarity

Though we Nepalis are several lakhs (fty) in strength

We have our language retarded, how saddening is this

Our (Nepali) language is nowhere

Not even in the primary schools

Placed in a state of complete hopelessness and despair

8 Paras Mani Pradhan, for example, has written as many as 200 books (including text

books). Some of the them are – Hiraõmayã Carita (Novel 1916), Sundar Kumàr (Play, 1919), Nepàlã Byàkaraõ (Grammar, 1920), Buddha Carita (Play, 1925), Pràthamik øikùa Vidhi (Education/ Pedagogy, 1942), Nepàlã Hàmro Màtç Bhàùà (Language, 1953), Lok Gãt (Folk Song

compilation, 1953), Nepàlã Bhàùà (Language, 1954), Prave÷ikà Nepàlã Byàkaraõ ra Racanà (Intermediate Grammar, 1955), Bañul-Bàñul (Poem, 1957), Bhàùà Prave÷ Nepàlã Byàkaraõ(Language & Grammar, 1960), Nepàlã Bhàùà ko Utpatti ra Vikà÷ (History of language andliterature, 1961), òipan-òàpan (Collection of essays & commentaries, 1969), Nepàlã SàhityakoSàno Akùar (Literatury, 1969), A Short History of Nepali Language and Literature (1970)[Pradhan 2000: 89].


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We should not lose heart to strike back

Nepali will be everywhere for sure, we hope

Aha! The brave Gorkhas how can they forget the yearnings of jatiThey cannot, as they know the beloved language of their own

Carries a rich past heritage though languishing now

Shall we commiserate their valiance

Ahem the valorious!! Where has gone your bravery?

Similar appeals were also made by Dharani Dhar Sharma in his poem

‘Udbodhan’ published in the October 1918 issue of the literary journal

Candrikà :

Awake, awake, now you wake

Waking up the path of progress take.

Deep slumber now forsake,

It’s enough you slept long, now awake. (Translated by Pradhan 1984: 77)

The growth of nationalist sentiment was rst manifested in the renewed

and increasingly widespread vocalization of loyalty towards Nepali language

and literature (Hutt 1988: 142). The road towards this cultural nationalism

was constructed on linguistic plane and for the propagation of such ideas

Nepali Sahitya Sammelan was established in 1924 under the stewardship of

the famous literary trio Su-Dha-Pa. Michael Hutt (1997: 114) is of the view

that the emergence of a cohesive ethnic identity among the Nepalis in India

dates back no further than this time. Kumar Pradhan has also considered

with due seriousness the emergence of the Nepali Sahitya Sammelan and its

role playing as a nation building institution superseding the earlier instancesof several other organizations and associations those used the term Gorkha

instead of Nepali like Gorkha Library, Gorkha National Theatre Party, Gorkha

Samiti, and Gorkha Association. Pradhan mentions that the explanation of

using the term ‘Nepali’ while naming the Sahitya Sammelan can be gleaned

out of the text of the inaugural speech of the Chairman Hari Prasad Pradhan

that reads:

We should call this organization Nepàlã Sàhitya Sammelan because the word ‘Nepali’has a broad meaning. It refers to all the races ( jàti) of Nepal – Magar, Gurung, Kirati,

Newar, Limbu, and so on – and indicates that these and all other races here are parts

of a great Nepali nation (ràùñra)...Nepali nowadays is like a lingua franca in theHimalayan region ( prade÷ ). Although the people living in this region speak differenttongues (bolã ), there is no one who does not understand Nepali...And no one race can


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claim that this language (bhàùà ) belongs to it alone. (Pradhan 1982: 37–38; translated by Hutt 1997: 117)

Kumar Pradhan traced similar attempts also in the efforts of Surya

Bikram Gewali who in the same occasion of inaugural meeting of the

Nepali Sahitya Sammelan argued: “No matter whether we are Nepalis of

Nepal or of Hindustan, we feel that we are an independent nation. Indeed,

we are. However, the chief identity of an independent nation lies in its own

language and literature” (Pradhan 1982: 38). If the independent Nepali jàti (nation) was to record self-improvement, this logic suggested, it needed to

be succeeded by its own literature (Onta 1996b: 53). Paras Mani Pradhan

(1993: 48) has also referred to this bhàùà prem in eloquent terms:

Limbu, Jimdar, Khas, Magar, Gurung

Hayu, Chepang and Kami,

Sunuwar, Lapche (Lepacha), Kusunda, Giri, Puri, Thakuri

Tharu, Newar, Thami –

We all constitute the nation Nepali

We all speak the language Nepali, By heart and soul we accept this our language

As the mother tongue, as our national language.

Paras Mani Pradhan (1993: 47–48) further adds in his òipan òàpan:

Nepali language is neither the language of the upper castes (Khas-Bahun) nor even

of the lower castes (Kami, Damai, Sarki). Nepali emerged as a new language out of

the amalgamation of several dialects spoken by people for several hundred of years

much in a similar manner English as a borrowing language did emerge out of the

combination of dialects spoken by the of Angles and Jutes. Nepali language therefore

is not a property of any particular caste or community. It is the mother tongue of the

Nepali nation as a whole....Hence the task to develop our own language and literature

should be taken over by every Nepali. And those who do not love or care for one’s

own language and literature are not merely the worthless lots, they are the renegades

(drohã ) indeed – renegades to one’s own nation. There is neither any doubt nor evenany exaggeration in framing them as such.

Analyzing the Nepali nation formation in Darjeeling in such a detailed

manner Kumar Pradhan expressed his disgust and criticized those who

feel overwhelmed in considering the Nepalis as a ‘foreigner’ (bide÷ã ). Hemaintained rather harshly that those who misconstrue the Indian Nepalis


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as national/citizen of Nepal are unaware of the history of Darjeeling where

they have established themselves as a distinctive Indian nation. Those who

took such position were not actually aware of the state-nation distinction.The seriousness of this issue has been taken up by Pradhan when he agged

up his position as to what he meant by an Indian Nepali. Several theoretical

explanations focusing on the history of this region for the last two centuries

have well proved this fact beyond any iota of doubt. Blood (ragat ), dress and

religion (dharma) are completely insignicant factors in the germination of

Nepali nation in Darjeeling. There are a variety of bloods, costumes, and

religions in this region but the Nepalis have become nation ( jàti) out ofa bond of common experience, shared mentalities, and a single language

(Pradhan 1982: 44). Though there is no traceable link but it seems probable

that Pradhan’s analysis of Nepali language and Nepali nation formation in

Darjeeling was informed by Gellnerian position on nation and nationalism.

The core propositions of Gellner as outlined in his Thought and Change

(1964: 168) is that: “Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-

consciousness: it invents nations where they do not exist.” Following Gellner

and also Pradhan it is argued here that what happened in Darjeeling was notactually the awakening of nations to self-consciousness rather via language

and literature a new Nepali nation has been successfully invented outside

Nepal.

Much like the Muslims-Urdu link in case of Uttar Pradesh or for that

matter the case of Tamil ‘nation’ in Sri Lanka Nepali nation formation process

in India has yielded socially poignant issues. Pradhan has commented on

this elaborately, which also helps us understand the distinctiveness of Nepali

nation as expressed through Nepali language in India. In the context of Nepal,

Nepali language is considered as a state language (ràùñra bhàùà ) while inDarjeeling Nepali language did emerge as a mother tongue of a wide variety

of mass comprising of upper castes (Bahun, Chhetri), lower castes (Kami,

Damai, Sarki), Mongoloids (Tamang, Mangar, Gurung, Thami, Sunuwar)

and the Kirats (Rai, Limbu, Yakha) and therefore as a language of a nation

( jàtãya bhàùà ). Another interesting aspect related to the development of

Nepali literature in Darjeeling is that Nepali language ourished here throughthe contribution made by the matwàlã s like the Rais, Tamangs, Limbus,Gurungs among others while in Nepal it ourished primarily through the

contributions of the tàgàdhàrã s (Bahuns, Chhetris). Pradhan has noted thattill the 1980s out of the ve recipients of the prestigious Sahitya Academy


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award for contributions in Nepali literature four were Rais (Pradhan 1982: 32,

36).9 While tracing out this caste free origin of Nepali literature in Darjeeling

I.B. Rai has opined: “Indian Nepali literature can justly be proud of its popular and proletarian beginning” (1994: 152). He went further arguing that

Indian Nepali literary writings began with the sawàã s (ballads) penned bythe Gorkha soldiers and laharã s (waves of feelings or emotions in the formof folk songs) composed by the laborers working in the tea plantations. The

soldiers and laborers, most of whom were Mongoloids, charted down their

feelings of love and marriage in the distressful conditions perpetuated in the

plantations and the constraints of caste and disparities of income and wealth.

This stood out in distinction to Nepal where Nepali literary activities had

an elitist foundation and was enriched by the contribution of the Brahmans

who wrote in praise of their kings (Rai 1994: 152).

Such a differential origin has led Nepali literature, produced from

Darjeeling or elsewhere in India, represent an altogether different social

imagining truly colored through Indian protagonists, Indian ideas, Indian

realities and Indian aspirations. For example, Rup Narayan Singh’s Bhramar ,

the rst ever Nepali novel published from Darjeeling in 1939, containedthe characters, their spheres of activities, their aspirations, depiction of

nature, narratives on mentality all were based upon Indian realities (Singh

1992[1939]). During 1960s with I.B. Rai’s emphasis on the third dimension

(tesro àyàm) the beginning of a new genre of existential Nepali literatureourished in Darjeeling. Michael Hutt (1999: 6) has equated Rai’s tesro

àyàm as a literary movement that took shape in Darjeeling and consideredit as the rst articulation of self conscious modernism in Nepali literature in

its reassessment of the nature and role of literature. As part of his àyàmelã writings, I.B. Rai has introduced still another new literary category referred

to as lãlà lekhan that implies a subjectivist turn in Nepali literature securedthrough a deconstuctivist reading of existentialism. Rai sees the ‘subjective’

as something similar to a Kafkaesque trap of semi-personal structures, which

can only be effectively negated through the deconstruction of the ‘subjective’

(Chettri 2014). Besides the differential socio-economic background shared

by the Indian Nepali literary gures, their self-consciously chosen approach

9 Since the 1990s literatures emphasizing Janajàti identity in Nepal is in vogue, however,neither such Janajàti scholarship nor even Janajàti activism in the literary sphere is stilldiscernable in Darjeeling.


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of practicing literature is reective of the distinctiveness that separates Indian

Nepali literature from that of Nepal.

In Pradhan’s understanding the Nepali nation-formation process has, infact, enabled Indian Nepali literature acquire its own uniqueness from that

of Nepal. And in all it renditions Nepali language in Darjeeling has helped

create both the senses of belongingness and unity – hàmã bhanne bhàvanà – amongst a group of people who constituted a class among themselves.

Considering this phraseology hàmã bhanne bhàvanà as the rudimentaryexpression of the Habermasian notion public sphere, Rhoderick Chalmers

has critically examined Pradhan’s arguments. Chalmers is of the opinion

that hàmã bhanne bhàvanà has resonance with an idea of analyzing Nepalisociety of this place (Darjeeling) and period as a nascent ‘public sphere,’

for which the concept of reasoning about one’s identity and articulating it

is essential (Chalmers 2003: 34). It is perhaps only with the emergence of

a public sphere that Kumar Pradhan’s hàmã bhanne bhàvanà can develop.However, the public sphere as a means of analyzing all developments in

Darjeeling Nepali society and the development of Nepali jàti consciousness

has not gone unchallenged. It enables or requires a relatively elitist approachto the formation of community and identity since public sphere by denition,

as Habermas would have it, a bourgeois sphere and not an ‘all-inclusive’

sphere. Chalmers’ take is that the derivation of hàmã bhanne bhàvanà outof working class solidarity, which was the central argument behind Nepali

nation formation in Darjeeling for Kumar Pradhan, does not hold water

(Chalmers 2003: 353).

Chalmers maintained that his critique does not belittle Kumar Pradhan’s

attempt as one seminal approach towards understanding Nepali social

formation in India. However, his critique needs to be further attended so far

as Pradhan’s emphasis on the class analysis of Nepali nation formation in

Darjeeling is considered. As noted earlier, Pradhan’s approach is apparently

Marxist but upon closer scrutiny it reveals neo-Weberian theoretical

underpinnings. The working class category of Pradhan was basically an

occupational category which involved status relations of Weberian variety

rather than production relations of Marxist prototype. If hàmã bhannebhàvanà is to be considered as a kind of critical consciousness then, asour interpretation revealed, it might have emerged out of status relations

that juxtaposed the class and cultural concerns of the Nepalis in the local

resource niche through the Hechterian framework of cultural division of


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labor. If this argument explains much of Pradhan’s position, then obviously

Chalmers’ critique has missed the real problematique of Pradhan. So far

as public sphere’s denitional core is linked with its exclusivity of beinga bourgeois sphere or an elitist space, it may be argued that through hàmãbhanne bhàvanà Pradhan hinted at a space of collective conscience in whichcommunitarian consciousness got preeminence rather than the interests of

the bourgeoisie in the Marxist sense or of the elite in the sense of a liberal

nationalist historian. This is not to argue that the category of elite was non-

existent in the late 19th and early 20th century Nepali society of Darjeeling.

The emergence of middle class was in the making but there was no stress of

the bourgeoisie from among the Nepalis during this period. The tea plantation

ownership was never attended by a Nepali or by any native hill people of

Darjeeling during this period. In fact, the urge for unication or for that

matter the emergence of hàmã bhanne bhàvanà precludes both Marxist classquestions and the bourgeois fed idea of a public sphere too. These concerns

were further elaborated by Pradhan through his efforts to focus on the other

relevant socio-cultural factors. This is reected in his attempts of dislodging

the signicance of the system of caste and religion in the analysis of Nepalination formation in Darjeeling.

(In)Significance of Caste and Religion in Darjeeling

Besides language several other favorable social conditions created congenial

grounds for the fostering of nationhood amongst the Kirats, Mongoloids,

matwàlã s and tàgàdhàrã s of Darjeeling. Among such factors several insignialike the khukurã, daurà suruwàl, ñopã were adopted as distinctive jàti markers

by the Nepalis as a whole despite the vertical and horizontal differences

they shared. It needs to be mentioned that though Pradhan considered

dress, weaponry, or even the typical Nepali cap (ñopã ) as signicant nationalinsignias, he negated the signicance of caste or religion as signicant

factors that could have inuenced the jàti formation process in Darjeelinglike language or class. He was very critical to those who presumed that

Nepali caste system has played a signicant role in the augmentation of

Nepali nation in Darjeeling as the Nepali society is essentially a Hindu castesociety. Some of them went that far in commenting:

The Nepali society of Darjeeling, being a predominantly Hindu society, the caste system

automatically forms the basis of their social organization and almost every aspect of


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the society is pervaded by the same. But they are also class stratied. The inuence of

the caste system, rather than the adoption of ‘Nepali’ as their mother tongue for many,

was instrumental in making their society an organic whole. Remove the caste systemand the constituent parts will fall apart. (as cited in Pradhan 2005: 15)

Pradhan made it amply clear as to why he did not consider the argument

at all convincing that caste system has inuenced signicantly the Nepali

nation formation process in Darjeeling. As noted earlier, his view was that

Darjeeling from the very beginning was mostly populated by matwàlã s thosewho spoke languages belonging to Tibeto-Burman family and this being a

fact the matwàlã s contributed signicantly towards the enrichment of the political and cultural content of the Nepali national identity question in

Darjeeling. It is noteworthy that the hill politics in Darjeeling from the very

beginning was under the control of the matwàlã s and not under the grip of thetàgàdhàrã s – a phenomenon so typical in case of Nepal’s politics. DambarSingh Gurung, Ari Bahadur Gurung, R.D. Subba, T. Menon, Shivkumar Rai,

Debprakash Rai, Subhas Ghising, [Madan Tamang, Bimal Gurung and many

others] – all matwàlã s – are some such persons who in fact, controlled andstill are controlling the hill politics of Darjeeling. Besides politics matwàlã

predominance in the cultural eld too has been noted by Pradhan. Unlike

Nepal, much of the formal literary works – sawàã s , laharã s, play, grammars,text books, children’s literature, publication of newspaper – were actually the

instances of matwàlã accomplishment in Darjeeling (Pradhan 2005: 17–18).The prominence of matwàlã s cannot be attributed as a factor that reduced thesignicance of caste system altogether. However, the rise of the matwàlã s

who were groomed in colonial high time and received an upbringing throughEnglish education made the situation different from the then Nepal. In fact,

the rise of the matwàlã s in positions of eminence gave linguistic nationalismof Darjeeling a different inection but that surely had happened not at the

cost of caste system.

Excepting the Newars all other communities referred to as matwàlã s didnot have any elaborate system of caste. The absence of upper caste hegemony

on the one hand and the predominant numerical presence of the matwàlã s

and their signicant role playing in all possible spheres of social life on theother enabled Darjeeling maintain a social system which was relatively free

from the strict observance of caste principles. However, ethnic differences

between say the Nepalis and Bhoñes (Bhutias) were also maintained. Besidesthis, instances of inter caste and intra-community marriages did receive


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too at the heart of the town could provide us an idea about how these issues

were dealt in the past.

Military establishment has made some notable contribution in this regard.Stephen Cohen’s observation is worth mentioning here who maintains that

military organization often has important social implication for the societies

having caste or caste-like social systems (1969: 453). In case of Darjeeling

hills the social implication of British Gorkha military organization had been

immense and all round. The Gorkha military organization in Darjeeling hills

with its avowed goal to include the people of Mongoloid origin of eastern

Nepal had made the category of Gorkha relatively open to the Kirats, and

other Tibeto-Burman speakers. However, at the same time, the upper castes

were hardly recruited as Gorkhas under the British. Instead of mirroring the

existing caste hierarchy the Gorkha military organization in Darjeeling hills

had unfolded a Gorkha syndrome. In other words, the Mongoloids and the

Kirats of Darjeeling have perceived the Gorkha military position as a channel

of social mobility. Thus even being a matwàlã jàt (alcohol drinkers), eatingalmost all types of meats one could attain economic solvency, a close tie

with the colonial masters and therefore social status and respect, if enlistmentin British military forces (as Gorkhas) was possible. Becoming a Gorkha

hardly had meant the repudiation of one’s own caste/tribal identity for some

higher one. It is important to note that one’s low caste/tribal identity was

not an encumbrance but on the contrary the said low status had been an

incentive, a matter of celebration which facilitated them to raise their social

status in Darjeeling hills, particularly through enlistment. The Gorkha model

had provided a secular stream of social mobility, which accorded a higher

social status (not in caste specic sense but in terms of economic solvency

and assured British patronage) to those who were treated either as non-

enslavable/enslavable alcohol-drinkers (namàsinyà / màsinyà matwàlã jàt )or as untouchables in the traditional caste hierarchy of Nepal.

Another significant factor was the emergence of religious reform

movements in Darjeeling during the latter half of the 19th century. One such

reform movement that gained much prominence in 19th century Darjeeling

was known as Josmani cult. Pradhan gave vivid description of this rarelynoticed new religious movement having signicant sociological purport for

the local society. Through Janaklal Sharma’s work we come to know much

about this new cult that originated in Nepal and spread out like wild re in

Darjeeling and Sikkim. The spread of Josmani creed in Darjeeling started


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with the coming of Saint Jnandil Das, who took his birth in a Upadhyay

( Làmichàne thar) Brahman family of Fikkal village located in Ilam district

in eastern Nepal in 1878 v.s. (Sharma 2020 v.s.: 60). He worked initially athis native village Fikkal, where he was suspected for his anti-Hindu activities

and was imprisoned twice by the state authorities. Dishonored by the state

and the local higher caste people of his own native place the ‘rebellious

prophet’ Jnandil left Nepal and made Darjeeling (Rangbul) and later Sikkim

(Geling) as centers of his activity. Pradhan was of the view that Udayalaharã ,a poetical work of Jnandil Das completed at Darjeeling in 1877 AD, may be

taken as the ‘good summary’ of the Josmani doctrine (Pradhan 1991: 172).

Pradhan traced out the origin of the cult sometimes in the mid-18th century

as most of the early generation rebel poets (like Dhirjedil Das, Sasidhar)

were contemporaries of Prithvinarayan Shah. Even Prithvinarayan’s grandson

Ranabahadur was a follower of Josmani sect, he mentioned. Pradhan draws

our attention about the philosophy of this new religious movement and

the signicance of the ideas that this new cult did preach in 19 th century

Darjeeling. Though the hymns written by the saint poets in pure Nepali

(Jnandil has written 57 bhajans of Udayalaharã in Sàdhukàrã ) have referencesof different deities of Hindu pantheon, the basis of Josmani thought was

based on a higher philosophy of devotion to nirguõa – the attributelessGod. Much like Christianity it was an iconoclastic creed that was against

casteism, commercialization of spiritual knowledge and many other vices

of Brahmanical Hinduism (Pradhan 1991: 171). The signicance of Josmani

cult in the analysis of Nepali nation formation in Darjeeling is that the

Josmani tradition served as a critique and assumed the form of a movement

against the socio-economic milieu marked by high caste domination. It is

interesting to note that in Darjeeling, which was predominated by the Kirats

and Mongoloids, caste was not an issue against which Jnandil would have

preached. The reformist posture of Josmani cult in Darjeeling while keeping

its reformist stance intact might have reacted not so much against the present

but to the past prejudices of caste. This led Pradhan to conclude thus: in the

absence of marked caste domination the “Josmani saints directed their barbs

against Christian missionaries who had become active after the extension ofthe British domination over Darjeeling” (Pradhan 1984: 63).

Much like the Josmani creed, the activities of Arya Samaj, the well

known Hindu reform movement initiated by Swami Dayanand Saraswati

in 1875 in India, had also contributed towards the formation of a plural


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religious texture in Darjeeling. Dilusingh Rai, who joined the Arya Samaj

since its inception at Darjeeling in the year 1882, has translated Dayananda’s

Satyàrthaprakà÷ into Nepali (Pradhan 1984: 49). Pradhan’s overemphasisthat these religious cults have thwarted the growth of caste system needs to

be estimated critically. In fact, the spread and consolidation of reformatory

religious movements in Darjeeling contributed towards the growth of a

social situation anchored on the notions of individual liberty and freedom.

Consequently one may argue that reformatory religious movements (like the

Josmani creed or the Arya Samaj movement) have led the local society move

further in the direction of a free liberal social order congenial for the growth

of ‘horizontal comradeship’ among the members of an emerging Nepali

nation. Moreover, with Christianity making its inroads in Darjeeling from

the very beginning many Nepalis were attracted and embraced Christianity.

The reformatory zeal of these perspectives – Christianity on the one hand

and the Hindu reformatory sects like Josmani and Arya Samaj on the other

– and their subsequent spread in Darjeeling were limited mostly in their

strategies of conversion. The extent of conversion and its perpetuity in case

of Christianity was far wider than either Josmani or Arya Samaj as none ofthem was actually anti-Hinduism as such. On the whole the social system

of Darjeeling contained multiple faiths but neither at the cost of Hinduism

or caste system.

By narrating the signicance of multiple religious creeds Pradhan was

actually hinting at the difference at the level of social system between Nepal

and Darjeeling. Though the Kirats, Mongoloids, matwàlã s , tàgàdhàrã s as awhole constitute what we know as Indian Nepalis but the Nepali society of

Darjeeling so constituted out of a consciousness of a shared identity, a sense

of peoplehood has been markedly different from the social order of Nepal.

Pradhan attributed this distinctiveness of Darjeeling to the emergence of a

liberal social order not thoroughly dictated by the strictures of Hinduism

but lled up with plural religious values propagated through new religious

movements like Arya Samaj, Josmani cult besides Christianity and

Hinduism. This prepared the required socio-cultural, political and economic

circumstances in which vargãya svàrtha (class interest) and Nepali language played the role of building up consciousness of a shared identity. Neither thenew religious movements, nor even the liberal social order of 19th and 20th

century Darjeeling had ever questioned the signicance of Nepali language,

for Pradhan this has been the most crucial aspect that in fact explains why


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caste, community, and religion all became contributory factors in the growth

of a feeling of national solidarity among the Nepalis settled outside Nepal.

This also tells us as to why the Nepali nation in Darjeeling did not entail theascendancy of any class (varga), caste ( jàti) or tribe/community ( janajàti).The emergence of community solidarity necessary for the forging of nation

among the Nepalis outside Nepal therefore, had hardly been forcibly

implanted by a dominant caste/class/tribe over rest of the population (Pradhan

2005: 16–17). The primary basis of the sense of equality shared by the people

was developed out of their working class background (a class in themselves

situation) who later were unied through a common language and the socio-

cultural, economic and political factors attributable to the newer forces (in

the form of religious pluralism, liberal social order and less emphasis on

caste and Hinduism as a mode of governing social order) did prepare the

ground in which the growth of Nepali nation in Darjeeling retained its own

spontaneity and autonomy from Nepal.

Conclusion

Perhaps the signicance of Kumar Pradhan lies in the fact that it is he whohas brought in the question of Nepali nation formation in Darjeeling into

academic limelight for the rst time. Implicit in his writings is a message

that in a nation state context the denitiveness and distinctiveness of a

community’s national identity emerges through its response to the written and

unwritten protocols and imperatives of the nation state itself. The ‘national

question’ of the Indian Nepalis fused these elements through the ways they

participated in the colonial and post colonial social formation of Darjeeling.

They not only contributed towards the growth and prominence of colonial

Darjeeling but in the process they did also learn the need and justication

of a shared identity and its social imagining through the direct encounters of

the forces of colonial modernity meted out by them. This possibly explains

why and how the idea of Nepali nation in India did vary signicantly from

that of Nepal. Pradhan’s approach to the ‘national question’ of the Indian

Nepalis in a certain sense bears resemblance with ‘history from below’

perspective. Not to mention he did follow the same approach in decipheringthe eastern Himalayan social history as part of his doctoral dissertation.

This is reected in the way Pradhan analyzed ‘nation’ as seen not by the

government and spokesmen and activists of nationalist movements but by

the ordinary people who are the objects of their action and propaganda.


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To reach this analytical end Pradhan as a social historian has in

article swatahsiddha sarkaar 31jan2016 sinhas 20(1) (1)

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