Lepchas
Lepcha Strike Resolved Peacefully
A sit-down strike begun in April by 46 Lepcha paraprofessional teachers protesting their treatment by Gorkha authorities in India’s West Bengal State ended peacefully last week when a face-saving compromise was announced. The strike by the teachers, called a dharna in India, had been in effect for 109 days. They were pleased to receive a […]
The Lepchas Want Teachers
The Lepchas are confronting the authorities in India’s West Bengal state over their right to have their language taught in the local schools. The controversy, covered in the Indian news media over the past month, echoes the even more serious conflicts of two years ago when the Lepchas sought to dramatize the discrimination they suffered […]
Publicity for Lepcha Cardamom Crops
India has three national holidays, one of which, Republic Day, is celebrated every year to mark the date on which the national constitution came into effect, January 26, 1950. The primary focus of the nation’s annual celebration is a Republic Day parade, held along a major avenue in New Delhi. The Prime Minister lays a […]
An Overnight Visit to the Dzongu
According to Kachyo, police officers stationed at the entrance to the Dzongu Reserve in Sikkim have hardly any work to do—there is very little crime among the Lepcha people. One of the reasons might be their ancient ceremony, called the thoursu, which is performed to keep the peace among them by appeasing the “quarrel” gods: […]
Gender Inequality among the Lepchas [journal article review]
A book by Anita Sharma published in 2013 described growing gender inequities in Lepcha society, but a current journal article gives an even more negative assessment of the situation. The differing conclusions were based on investigations of very different communities and they were conducted 10 years apart, but their contradictions need to be compared. The […]
Conflict Resolution and Gender Equality in Lepcha Society [book review]
The Lepchas, like most of the peaceful societies, are frequently stressed by changing cultural, social and economic forces, some of which affect their patterns of nonviolence. Anita Sharma published a book last year that seeks to enrich our understanding of, and appreciation for, those changes Lepcha society. A major goal of her work is to […]
The Challenges of Lepcha Identity [journal article review]
A brief journal article published last year describes the ways the Lepchas have attempted to maintain their traditions despite outside domination and internal religious divisions, issues they are beginning to overcome. The article, by Rip Roshina Gowloog, was published in the journal Studies of Tribes and Tribals and is freely available on the Internet. Gowloog […]
Storytelling Preserves Traditions of the Lepchas
According to Gorer’s book Himalayan Village, effective speech is highly prized by the Lepcha people, and storytelling is among their most valued skills. Gorer explains that “story-telling is the major Lepcha art and distraction (p.265).” Stories told around the fire in the evenings are sometimes of such length that they may take numerous days to […]
Schooling for the Lepchas
The government of Sikkim announced last week that out of the 401 school students who had taken exams last December to apply for scholarships, the top three winners were all Lepchas. Mongit Lepcha, from the Mangan Senior Secondary School, won the top score in the Chief Minister’s Special Meritorious Scholarship Scheme (CMSMSS). Pema Laden Lepcha […]
Preserving Lepcha Culture
The Digital Journal, an Internet news service based in Canada, published an opinion piece last week about a British Library project to archive in digital format the artifacts of written Lepcha culture. Fortunately, the story provides a link to the British Library website where one can find more information about the project and the actual […]
