Imagining Darjeeling and Sikkim

Any visitor to Sikkim's capital Gangtok, with some idea about the area through which he passes, would wonder why Sikkim and Darjeeling are separate territories. That is not a politically correct issue to raise at any forum, however, not even in academic ones. If a Sikkimi raises this issue, he is identified as an ideologue pushing 'Greater Sikkim' and if a Darjeelinge does it, he will be very unwelcome in Sikkim indeed. The psychological cleavage between Darjeeling and Sikkim is deeper than the rivers that flow between them, forcing them to accept the political boundaries of 'Smaller Sikkim'. It will not be surprising if, at some point in the future, the Nepali-speakers of Darjeeling call themselves 'Gorkhas' and the Gorkhas in Sikkim call themselves 'Nepalis', just to differentiate between themselves.

What is most striking when one thinks about Darjeeling and Sikkim is the physical, social and cultural contiguity of these two regions. If someone wants to know why Darjeeling is in West Bengal and not in Sikkim, there is no clear answer available in the history of the region. One always thought that Darjeeling was a 'gift' of the Sikkim Maharaja to the British so that they could build a sanatorium for their ailing soldiers. That was until Fred Pinn published his Road to Destiny. Kalimpong, the old hub of spies and spooks working in and around the Himalaya, was too a part of Sikkim, like the rest of the district of Darjeeling, but it had to go under Bhutani rule for almost a century-and-a-half. The way it all ended, the people of Sikkim today need to cross a subdivision of Darjeeling before they can ford the Malli Bridge to go to west Sikkim, or travel along the banks of the Teesta until they arrive at Rangpo, the brewery headquarters of Sikkim.