From Revival to Confident Pride

Editorial:
Sikkim will celebrate Tendong Lho Rum Faat on Monday. The festival was almost lost and had become a shrivelled form of itself until it re-appropriated its position of significance with the declaration of a State Holiday. A State-level celebration followed, as did the revival of and patronage for the traditional worship at Mount Tendong itself. This process of recovery has noticeably subdued of late and should be revitalised. It is important for the community to realise that State patronage should ideally be expected only for the initial renaissance, after which people’s participation and involvement of its representative organisations should sustain and nurture the observation. This requires collaborative planning which rises above divisions of political ideology or even faith, because at their core, these rituals and celebrations are more cultural than religious.
The return to prominence of Tendong Lho Rum Faat was a significant development in that, in a way, it initiated the process of the ‘vanishing tribe’ rediscovering more about itself as a people and establishing channels of communication with Lepchas elsewhere in the region. It will be through these processes that the community will be able to demolish the many myths created about them, many of which even they have started believing now. Take the belief that Lepchas lack a scientific temper. What fallacy! At a time [in the 1840’s] when the British were just discovering the botanical treasures that Sikkim contained, the Lepchas had already named every plant here and even fleshed out an exhaustive knowledge base on the virtues of every herb. The information that every Lepcha kid once grew up with could provide enough data for present-day academics to make a career out of. Their understanding of nature was so respected by the British that ever since Dr. Joseph Dalton Hooker endorsed their acumen, Lepchas became essential support staff for every botanical or anthropological expedition launched by the British in regions ranging from nearby South East Asia to distant Africa. Much of this knowledge base is lost now, as a recent researcher, keen on working on indigenous use of forest resources had to shift his field study to Eastern Nepal because he could not find enough evidence of this knowledge still in use here. Then there is the belief that Lepchas are lost [because of naiveté] when pulled out of areas and regions they are familiar with; that they are not resourceful enough. Absolute hogwash! British documents record that the only survivors of an ill-fated mission to Congo in end-19th century were the three Lepcha “collectors” accompanying the expedition! Not only did they survive disease and violence that wiped out the rest of the expedition, they also made it back to Darjeeling! And then, the most common myth – that the Lepchas are timid, non-confrontational. The only general to defend Sikkim’s frontiers successfully was a Lepcha. Till he was leading Sikkim’s defences, even the numerically stronger Gurkhas could not make any substantial inroads into Sikkim. Fickleness is another character trait that is attached to the Lepcha people. One only needs to ask the State Government and power developers who have had to contend with one of the longest, most consistent, protests in State, whether this is an accurate depiction. The stereotyping probably resulted from well-meaning writers trying to romanticize their introduction to the autochthons of Sikkim in a bid to attract more compassion for them. Over time, unfortunately, even the Lepchas started believing these stereotypes about themselves. They should now deliver fresh introductions.
The stereotyping is thankfully now being disproved by committed academics and professionals from within the community and a fresh study initiated by researchers from elsewhere. A case in point is the consummate professionalism of activist Dawa Lepcha who has been consistently improving on his film documentation of the Lepcha way of life. He retains the passion with which he started the exercise nearly a decade back, and through consistent efforts at improving his skills, has now put together an ethnographic study of a Lepcha Bongthing in Dzongu, put together in a 75-minute film, “Ritual Journeys” which recently received the endorsement of experts with a commendation certificate at the Royal Anthropological Institute International Ethnographic Film Festival in London. Dawa conveys an important lesson on how the return to the roots movement sweeping through the world should be nuanced- a rediscovery is necessary to establish identities which infuse pride, not through a confused sense of superiority, but through the inculcation of confidence.