Paper short abstract:

Along the recent developments in Sikkim and Darjeeling, I will unravel the contestations in the struggle for protective rights, political power, and ‘identity’ within the Lepcha community in the various administrative and national regions they inhabit.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I will compare the self-understanding as 'Lepcha,' the strategies and political affiliation of the Lepcha associations in Sikkim, Darjeeling (India) and Ilam (Nepal) and discuss the contestations among them. The Lepcha community inhabits a region in the central-eastern Himalayas which is now separated by national boundaries and has been a hub for immigration and cross-border movements since at least the past 150 years. In India and to a certain extent in Nepal, development and the local understanding of ethnic identity is closely linked together through an elaborate system of protective rights. Therefore, 'indigeneity' and 'culture' are assets central to political negotiations among the Lepcha associations themselves and with the respective local governments. The different political environments influence their understanding of Lepcha culture, space and political strategies. The Lepcha associations negotiate alternative images of 'what Lepcha is' and discourses of belonging in interaction with the policies of protective rights applicable in the respective regions and depending on their political affiliations. This has increased in the recent years, as the Lepcha community has been at the heart of political turbulences. In Sikkim some Lepcha have protested against the building of dams and opposed the ruling government, while in the Darjeeling hills the Lepcha association stood up against the Gorkhaland movement to ask for their own Council. These movements have deeply affected self-understanding and portrayal of the Lepcha, split the community into different fronts and usurped the interactions between the Lepcha associations themselves and with the respective local governments.