DARJEELING HISTORY

Till early nineteenth century, the area around Darjeeling was part of the kingdom of Sikkim.In 1814, British East India Company intervened in a skirmish between Sikkim and Nepal, following which Sikkim, including Darjeeling area, became a buffer state between Nepal and Bhutan. In 1828, a dispute occurred between Nepal and Sikkim. Company representatives were sent from Malda to help resolve the dispute.They found the Darjeeling region very suitable as a sanitarium for British troops.So the company negotiated with the king of Sikkim to lease the area. In 1835, Dr. Campbell, a member of the Indian Medical Service and Lieutenant Napier (later Lord Napier of Magdala) were given the responsibility to found a hill station there.

By 1849, the population grew to 10,000. Following discord between Sikkim and the Company, the Company annexed the Darjeeling region to the British Indian Empire. Soon, the British established experimental tea plantations; these eventually gave rise to a successful commercial tea industry around 1856. Tea estates developed all around Darjeeling in the second half of the 19th century. During this time immigrants, mainly from Nepal, flooded in to work in construction sites, tea gardens, and other agriculture related projects. The arrival of Scottish missionaries saw the construction of schools and welfare centres for the British. In 1864, St. Paul's School was established in Jalapahar area. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway opened in 1881, facilitating rapid communication between the town and the plains below. In 1898, Darjeeling experienced an earthquake that came to be known as the "Darjeeling disaster". Around this time, Darjeeling assumed a unique political status when a Summer Secretariat of the Bengal Government was built there.

The Darjeeling area was a Non-Regulation district; thus acts and regulations did not automatically come into force in the district in line with rest of the country unless they were extended to it. After the 1905 Partition of Bengal, the area came under the jurisdiction of Rajshahi division. In the 1900s, the non-British elites of Kolkata also began visiting Darjeeling. The town continued to grow as a tourist destination, becoming known as the "Queen of the Hills". Darjeeling's elite were either the British ruling class of the time, who visited Darjeeling every summer, affluent Indians who maintained properties there like Maharajas and land-owning Zamindars or some well-known Barristers of the Calcutta High Court. The population slowly rose - 19,000 in 1911 grew to 27,000 by 1941. The town lacked any major contribution to the freedom struggle of India probably due to the moderate political climate prevailing in the region. However, the revolutionaries attempted to assasinate Sir John Anderson, the Governor of Bengal in Darjeeling.

After the independence of India in 1947, Darjeeling became a part of the state of West Bengal. A separate district of Darjeeling was established consisting of the hilly towns of Darjeeling, Kurseong, Kalimpong and some parts of the Terai region. After the People's Republic of China annexed Tibet in 1959, thousands of Tibetans fled to India, migrating to several places in the district, including Darjeeling town. Between 1986 and 1988, the demand for the creation of the separate states of Gorkhaland and Kamtapur along ethnic lines grew strong. Matters came to a head after a forty-day strike called by the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) during which rioting occurred. The town was virtually under siege, causing the state government to call in the Indian army to maintain law and order. The movement ended with the establishment of Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) under the Chairmanship of Subash Gishing. DGHC was given semi-autonomous powers to govern the district. Later the name of DGHC was changed to Darjeeling Gorkha Autonomous Hill Council (DGAHC). Though Darjeeling is now peaceful, the issue on a separate state still lingers.