Fashion Police in Darjeeling Hills

Was it mere coincidence that New York Fashion Week and Darjeeling fashion police decided to work at the same time? From different designers to varied colors, choices seemed endless in Big Apple. Unfortunately, Darjeeling hills had but one choice – ‘daura suruwal.’

In the trend spotting business of hill fashion, Bimal Gurung “insisted” that the Lepchas, Sherpas and Tamangs wear daura suruwal because being the inhabitants of this place, they are Gorkhas. [The Statesman, Sept 11, 2008]

Excuse me! But I want to stop right here and make it clear. “Lepchas are not Gorkhas. Lepchas ought not to be forced to wear daura suruwal.”

It is not sure whether BG and his posse are running out of ideas [as my professor says], or if he is just targeting the Lepchas because he can. Truth be told, Lepchas are the autochthons of the Darjeeling hills and they are the only people who have the right to say that the Gorkhas are “foreigners”, because everyone else came after the Lepchas to these parts. Yet, Lepchas have never said that. Instead, Lepchas have supported, accommodated and assimilated with all communities. They have even gone to fight for a Gorkhaland in their Lepcha land. When in reality, ‘Gorkhaland’ is something foreign to the hills and valleys that owe their names to words of Lepcha origin. From the tiny springs to the sky hugging mountains, there is no doubt about who the rightful owners of Darjeeling hills are. In that, Lepchas have never felt the right to defend what belonged to them.

But the time has come when Lepchas need to stay alert. The most recent imposition of a “daura suruwal” dress code is downright atrocious. It is culturally wrong and genocidal for a people group trying to hold on to what remains of their “vanishing” status. “It is a rape of a culture which has just stayed silent,” my brother says and there are many who would agree. Yet, the only thing that could be mustered from those imposing was a “relaxation” on the dress code for the Lepchas.

I sneer.

An apology would’ve been nice but now my generation has to wear otherwise? I don’t think so. Instead, it has only affirmed my convictions about the ethnocentric move by the Gorkhaland movement to further dilute Lepcha culture as Gorkha culture so it becomes easy for them to say that the hills belong to them.

But again, I am hopeful. I envisage a day when Lepchas from all across the hills throng the town streets attired in their colorful dumfra and gada – letting the world know the sense of fashion from Darjeeling hills.

Published in Sikkim NOW! September 15, 2008