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Brief History of Kalimpong

History of Kalimpong:

Sikkimese and Bhutanese kingdoms was ruled the Kalimpong area and its environs
till the mid-19th century. Dalingkt was the name was given to the Kalimpog area
during the Sikkimese rule. This area was won over by the King of Bhutan in 1706 and
then was renamed Kalimpong. The indigenous inhabitants of this area were the
Lepcha, Bhutia and Limbu tribes.

In 1780, the Kalimpong region was conquered by the Gurkhas army, Gurkhas were
almost under control this region a century and post the Anglo-Bhutan War in 1864,
The Treaty of Sinchula was signed. According to this Treaty of 1865, the Bhutanese
territory which was on the east of Teesta River was handed to the British East India
Company.

The demarcation of the common boundaries between the British and the Bhutanese
defined the Kalimpong Subdivision and the Darjeeling District. After the Anglo-
Bhutan War, the Kalimpong region was made a subdivision of the Dooars District and
year later Kalimpong was merged with Darjeeling District.

As Kalimpong had a temperate climate, much like Darjeeling, it was also developed
by the British as a Hill Station and Summer Resort. And Kalimpong's proximity to the
'Nathu La' (a mountain pass in the Himalayas which connects Indian State Sikkim
with China's Tibet Autonomous Region and the 'Jelep La' (a mountain pass which
connects India and Tibet in Sikkim) gave it an advantage as both Nathu La and Jelep
La were on the ancient Silk Route. Soon Kalimpong became a trading point for wools,
furs and food grains between India and Tibet.
The increase in commerce and economic prosperity prompted the British to initiate
political relations with the influential Bhutanese DorjisFamily by giving them some
land in Kalimpong which later on transformed into the Bhutanese House a
Bhutanese administrative and cultural centre. Through this initiative, trade and
relations with Bhutan were flourished.

In the 1800s, the Scottish Missionaries constructed schools, Scottish University,


Kalimpong Girls' High School, Dr. Graham's Homes for the poor and other welfare
centres in Kalimpong.

Post Indian Independence in 1947, the Kalimpong was merged with the State
of West Bengal after Bengal was divided between the India and Pakistan. In 1959,
with China's annexation of Tibet, many Buddhist monks moved to Kalimpong and
brought with them the Buddhist culture and relics. And that is how Kalimpong
became a rich multi-race and multi-faith society which it still remains.

Kalimpong was ruled by the Sikkimese, the Bhutanese and the British - one after the
other right uptill Indian Independence in 1947 when Kalimpong became a part of
West Bengal under Indian Government. Kalimpong is famous for its trekking trails;
Horticulture and Tourism. Known for its flower nurseries; kalimpong has 400 different
types of Orchids; and is also the largest producer of the flower Gladioli (80%) in India
and also is a major Ginger producer in the country. Education Sector is also a major
contributor to the Kalimpong economy with several residential schools catering to
the educational needs of foreign students who come from Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal
and Thailand.

Connection Between theNathula and Jalp La

Jelap La
The meaning of Jelap La is the lovely Pass and and the Tibetan word Jalap
which means (the lonely) and La means ( Level Pass ) so, the entire meaning
of this pass is Lonely Level Pass and its length is nearly 46m in length
which is situated at on altitude of 4,267 m height above from the sea level lies
in the Dongkya range of the Eastern Himalayas with its gentle slope which
was became an important link in the main trade route from India to Tibet until
the broader was closed in 1962. It is connected by road via Gangtok ( Sikkim)
south to Darjeeling and Siliguri in West Bengal sand a road lead to the north
to Nathula Pass another important state passage through Himalaya( altitude of
4538m ) passes through Chumbi Valley which is the important link between
Sikkim and Lhasa it is the gate way of Bhutan and Tibet. the first miles are
along a broad road, at the end of which appears a bridle Path as one progress
along this track the path becomes steeper and scenery becomes wilder and
grander.

From Kalimpong this path became steeper and grander still. After a few miles
the bridle path could no longer be extended steep track lead up by the giddy
cliffs and dangerous way the only good feature of this , so to say hanging path
being a rough wooden railing Therefore the united track runs up to the Chumbi
valley in Tibet wherefrom the high table land itself is some 40 miles away
.Those two sister passes leading to Tibet are to the northwest Darjeeling and
are to the west of Gipmochian . Exceedingly conspicuous peak visible from
Darjeeling . Three mountain passes leads to the Tibetan valley imposing with
their high altitude , a magnificent view of the mountain . The Three mountain
passes lead to the Tibetan valley, commanding, with their high altitude, a magnificent view of
the mountain ranges.

Nathula Pass

Nathula 5-km to the North of Jelap La pass, on the same altitude on a range of Jalap La
that runs into Tibet, it is rarely used Nathu la pass on the Sikkim - Tibet frontier. The zigzag
track becomes steeper as it leaves Gangtok, but which the makes up in the changing
landscape, which becomes more beautiful with every inch of ascent till it reaches the calm
waters of the lake, NukTanyi in a region, From the summit, two roads, from both Jelap and
Nathu la passes unite in a track leading to the Chumbi Valley of Tibet. On the one side
stands a chain of imposing peaks dividing Sikkim from Tibet, Nathula are located three
miles away from the Jelapla Pass and it lies on the top range of the north Tibet .
Both of this path are the frontier between the Sikkim and Tibet Nathu La means
the pass of the listening ear but it seem to have some reference to the unusual
solitude and it has own character. At Nathu la, the Chinese and Indian troops face each
other almost at breathing distance. It was in the news quite a lot when skirmishes between
the two countries occurred in this pass. Jelep la was used by Younghusband to attack Tibet
in 1903 and to commemorate this the path through Jelap-La is called the Younghusband
track. Nathu la and Jelap-la passes formed a part of the trade route between India and Tibet
till 1962.It forms part of an offshoot of the ancient Silk Route an important trade
route between India and Chin It was closed after the Chinese aggression on India in
1962 but was reopened in 2006 as the governments of the two countries decided to
enhance their trade through land routes

The history offirst Chinese community in India

The first record of travel from China was Faxian ( Fa-Hien) who visited Tampralipta now
( Tamluk) in the 5th century AD.But the record of the 6 th century immigration record are
not reliable although the many word in Bengali can be attributed to chines influence for
example, chini ,the Bengali word for sugar which come from the word for China and word
like Chinamati for porcelain which was the hint at Chinese influence
The first Chine settlers in India was Tong Achew he was a trader who landed near Budge
Budge in late 18th century .Therefore he setup sugar plantation along with the sugar factory
and he brought many other Chinese work to work in his plantation and factory .This was the
first Chinese settlers in India. After Achew died and other Chinese move to Calcutta and this
place came to be name as Achipur after the Tong Achew grave were build and Chinese
temple is still seen in Achipur.

Portuguese India

Chinese children who were kidnapped by the Portuguese from China were sold them as a
slaves in Portuguese India. The Portuguese were alleged to have eaten some of the
Chinese children. In Portuguese India.the Indian Muslim KunjaliMarakkars fought against the
Portuguese and invaded their shipping. One of theKunjaliMarrakarsrescued a Chinese boy,
called Chinali, who had been enslaved on a Portuguese ship. The Kunjali was very fond of
him, and he became one of his most feared lieutenants, a fanatical Muslim and enemy of the
Portuguese, terrorizing them in battle. The Portuguese were terrorised by the Kunjali and his
Chinese right-hand man, eventually, after the Portuguese allied with Calicut's Samorin,
under Andre Furtado de Mendoa they attacked the Kunjali and Chinali's forces, and they
were handed over to the Portuguese by the Samorin after he reneged on a promise to let
them go. Diogo do Couto, a Portuguese historian, questioned the Kunjali and Chinali when
they were captured. He was present when the Kunjali surrendered to the Portuguese, and
was described: "One of these was Chinale, a Chinese, who had been a servant at Malacca,
and said to have been the imprisoned of a Portuguese, taken as a boy from a fusta, and
afterwards brought to Kunhali, who conceived such an affection for him that he trusted him
with everything. He was the greatest exponent of the Moorish superstition and enemy of the
Christians in all Malabar, and for those taken captive at sea and brought thither he invented
the most exquisite kinds of torture when he martyred them." However, de Couto's claim that
he tortured Christians was questioned, since no other source reported this, and has been
described as lacking credibility.

British India

Kolkata, then known as Calcutta, was the capital of British India from 1772 to 1911. Calcuttas
was also geographically the easiest accessible metropolitan area from China by land. The first
person of Chinese origin to arrive in Calcutta was Yang Tai Chow who arrived in 1778. He
worked in a sugar mill with the later on he start a tea trade. Many of the earliest immigrants
worked on the KhidderporedocksDuring the time of Warren Hasting the first governor-general
of British India , a businessman by the name of Tong Achi established a sugar mill, along with a
sugar plantation at Achipur, 33 km from Calcutta, on the bank of the Hoogly river near Budge
Budge A temple and the grave of Tong Achi still remain and are visited by many Chinese who
come from the city during the Chinese New Year .

One of the earliest records of immigration from China can be found in a short treatise from 1820.
This records hints that the first wave of immigration was ofHakkas but they could not elaborate
other professions of these immigrants. According to a later police census, there were 362 in
Calcutta in 1837. A common meeting place was the Temple of Guan Yu, the god of war, located
in the Chinese quarter nearDharmatolla A certain C. Alabaster mentions in 1849 that Cantonese
carpenters congregated in the Bow Bazar Street area. [3] As late as 2006, Bow Bazar is still noted
for carpentry, but few of the workers or owners are now Chinese.

Some Chinese convicts deported from the Straits settlements were sent to be jailed in Madras in
India, the "Madras district gazetteers, Volume 1" reported an incident where the Chinese convicts
escaped and killed the police sent to apprehend them: "Much of the building work was done by
Chinese convicts sent to the Madras jails from the Straits Settlements (where there was no
sufficient prison accommodation) and more than once these people escaped from the temporary
buildings' in which they were confined at Lovedale. In 186 seven of them got away and it was
several days before they were apprehended by the Tahsildar, aided by Badagas sent out in all
directions to search. On 28 July in the following year twelve others broke out during a very
stormy night and parties of armed police were sent out to search the hills for them. They were at
last arrested in Malabar a fortnight later. Some police weapons were found in their possession,
and one of the parties of police had disappearedan ominous coincidence. Search had been
done all over the country for the party, and at length, on 15 September, their four bodies were
found lying in the jungle at Walaght, half way down the Sispraght path, neatly laid out in a
row with their severed heads carefully placed on their shoulders. It turned out that the wily
Chinamen, on being overtaken, had at first pretended to surrender and had then suddenly
attacked the police and killed them with their own weapons. Other Chinese convicts in Madras
who were released from jail then settled in the Nilgirimountain near Maduyattam and married
they were marriage with Tamil Parraiyan women, having mixed Chinese-Tamil children with
them. They were documented by Edgar Thurston Paraiyan is also anglicized as "pariah".

Edgar Thurston described the colony of the Chinese men with their Tamil pariah wives and
children: "Halting in the course of a recent anthropological expedition on the western side of the
Nilgiri plateau, in the midst of the Government Cinchona plantations, I came across a small
settlement of Chinese, who have squatted for some years on the slopes of the hills between
Naduvatam and Gudalur, and developed, as the result of ' marriage with Tamil pariah women,
into a colony, earning an honest livelihood by growing vegetables, cultivating coffee on a small
scale, and adding to their income from these sources by the economic products of the cow. An
ambassador was sent to this small Chinese Court with a suggestion that the men should, in
return for duties, present themselves before me with a view to their measurements being
recorded. The reply which came back was in its way racially characteristic as between Hindus
and Chinese. In the case of the former, permission to make use of their bodies for the purposes
of research depends essentially on a pecuniary transaction, on a scale varying from two to eight
annas. The Chinese, on the other hand, though poor, sent a courteous message to the effect that
they did not require payment in money, but would be perfectly happy if I would give them, as a
souvenir, copies of their photographs. Thurston further describe a specific family: "The father was
a typical Chinaman, whose only grievance was that, in the process of conversion to Christianity,
he had been thankful to 'cut him tail off.' The mother was a typical Tamil Pariah of dark type. The
colour of the children was more closely allied to the yellowish color of the father than to the dark
tint of the mother; and the semi Mongol parentage was betrayed in the slant eyes, flat nose, and
(in one case) obviously prominent cheek-bones Thurstons description of the Chinese-Tamil
families were cited by others, one mentioned "an instance mating between a Chinese male with
a Tamil Pariah female A 1959 book described attempts made to find out what happened to the
colony of mixed Chinese and Tamils.

According to Alabaster there were lard manufacturers and shoemakers in addition to carpenters.
Running tanneries and working with leather was traditionally not considered a respectable
profession among upper caste Hindu , and work was relegated to lower
caste muchis and chamars There was a high demand, however, for high quality leather goods
in colonial India , one that the Chinese were able to fulfill. Alabaster also mentions
licensed Opium dens run by native Chinese and a Cheena Bazaar where contraband was readily
available. Opium, however, was not illegal until after India's Independence from Great Britain in
1947. Immigration continued unabated through the turn of the century and during World war 1
partly due to political upheavals in China such as the First and Second Opium war , First Sino-
Japanese war and the Boxer Rebellion . Around the time of the First World War, the first
Chinese-owned tanneries sprang up.

In Assam, local Indian women married several waves of Chinese migrants during British colonial
times, to the point where it became hard to physically differentiate Chinese in Assam from locals
during the time of their imprisonment during the 1962 war, and the majority of these Chinese in
Assam were married to Indian women.

Sino-Indian War[
Main article:

Chinese in India faced anti-national sentiment during the Sino-India war 1962. After its defeat in
the war, India passed the Defense of India Act in December 1962, permitting the "apprehension
and detention in custody of any person [suspected] of being of hostile origin." The broad
language of the act allowed for the arrest of any person simply for having a Chinese surname, a
drop of Chinese blood, or a Chinese spouse. Under the draconian law, 10,000 people of Chinese
origin were estimated to have been detained at the desert prison camp in DeoliRajasthan All of
them were accused of being spies, but not a single charge has ever been proven. In 1964, many
internees were forcibly and arbitrarily deported, resulting in the breakup of many families. The
rest were released starting in 1965. The last internees were released from Deoli in mid-1967,
after four and half years of captivity.

The Chinese population in Calcutta decreased by half, from 20,000 to 10,000. Those who
remained were seen as enemies, and most could not hold any job except in the restaurant,
tanning, and shoemaking businesses. Moreover, their movements were restricted. They were
required to report to designated police stations once a month, and until the mid-1990s, they had
to apply for special permits to travel more than a few kilometres from their homes.

The situation was alleviated when India and China resumed diplomatic relations in 1976.
However, it was not until 1998 that ethnic Chinese were allowed naturalized Indian citizenship. In
2005, the first road sign in Chinese characters was put up in Chinatown, Tangra.

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