Gorkhas In The Wilderness: A Study In North East India

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The book portrayed the fact that the Gorkhas are treated as good as immigrants, outsiders, foreigners, non-tribals etc. in North East India. Their contribution to the nation building enderavours has hardly been recognized by the mainstream communities of the country and more particularly the people of North East region including the Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. The present study conducted in Changlang and Lohit frontier region of Arunachal Pradesh-the eastern most region of the country and Sadiya frontier of Assam, has explored the fact that in spite of calling the Gorkhas as immigrants, how they are contributing lots to the agrarian and industrial economy of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam frontier wilderness. The study will be a source material for not only the laymen and students but also the scholars who are interested to study the Gorkhas of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. The policy makers of government and other developmental agencies of the country also can be benefited from this study.

Dr. Khemraj Sharma (b. 1957), B.A. (Hons), M.A. Ph.D., P.D.F., Regional Director of the Central Board for Workers Education, Ministry of Labour and Employment. Government of India, Siliguri (West Bengal) has so for eleven books to his credit being published from various publishing houses of the country. His area of specialization is Industrial Sociology, Industrial Relation. The Gorkhas of North East India, Himalayan Society and Culture, Ethnicity and Social Structure, Labour Education, Tea Plantation Workers of North East India, Chinchona Plantation Workers of India and the Labour Relations in Indian Industries. Among his publications Plantation Sociology of North East India, Sociology of Indian Tea Industry, Marginalization of Gorkhas in India, Tea Industry in India, Socio-Economic Life of Cinchona Plantation Workers in India and The Nepalis of North Eastern Frontier of India are very prominent as well as scholarly publications. Presently, Dr. Sharma has been actively engaged in an empirical study on Tea Plantation Workers of Eastern Himalayas.

The Gorkhas are the masters of wilderness in terms of two pertinent dimensions, viz., Managing and Preserving wilderness. Historically, talking about the North Eastern Frontier wilderness as named by the British, made, managed and preserved the required level of wilderness by the Gorkhas. Having wilderness background of Pahar-Parvat (hills and mountains) of the Himalayas, the Gorkhas as dispatched to North Eastern Frontier wilderness, could easily adopt, adjust and love the region permanently. Sociology of wilderness, therefore, can best be proved to be the most useful resource to the government. In this way, the theory of Social Construction to study the North Eastern wilderness appears to be the most suited approach especially for the Gorkhas. Otherwise, the whole lot of wilderness had no meaning to the then people (tribals) living in the region. The theory of Social Construction of wilderness imparts manifold modalities of development such as social, cultural, economic and political. With the penetration of Gorkhas into the North Eastern Frontier wilderness, every resource there started calling for awarding human values and progress. The approach also helps us to comprehend the North Eastern wilderness from the historical perspective. The proponent of this theory, Daniel R. Williams (1993) stated that the approach "addresses the historical, cultural and political proceses by which humans seek out, create, evaluate and contest specific place meaning". Further, he stated that 'social construction refers to social, cultural and political processes by which groups of people create shared meanings and understanding of the place and how these shared meanings in turn structured social actions in and with respect to the place'.

Today, wilderness, Gorkhas and Globalization with particular reference to North Eastern Frontier wilderness in respect of Arunachal Pradesh and frontier region of Assam (Sadiaya) proved to be the as most authenic fact that once wilderness as boon for Gorkhas has presently became bane for the local tribals that since two decades the wilderness invited contestation over the issue of ownership and non-ownership right on the land. The wilderness to the tribals was historically prior to British occupation of Upper Assam and hills of Assam (Arunachal Pradesh-known as the Prabhu Parvat in Vedic period) : neglected place with neglected discourses but the meaningful amplifications by the Gorkhas through constructionist approach comprehended the region as the complete bliss in the sense that harnessing the wilderness provided subsequent contestations with the local tribals due to the state policy of tribalism and tribal development strategy. In fact, the North Eastern wilderness to the tribals was inclusive entity to be left at wilderness for ever by the government while to the Gorkhas, it is perfectly the exclusive entity for other nationalities of the country to come to the region by carrying national mainstream mission and vision in the light of sustainable economic development. The wilderness is both the means and ends of Gorkhas association for the last five hundred long odd years in the Indian mainland. The wilderness is the consequences of Gorkha sense of Social Constructionist Approach since early 1820 in the North Eastern Frontier wilderness. For the Gorkhas, wilderness is both the means and ends of their association. Go along with wilderness is being adequately supplemented by their culture of Basai Sarnu shifting the habitation (Sharma: 2012) from one wilderness to another of the North Eastern frontiers. No other ethnic community had/has been able to translate the isolated wilderness into mainstream wilderness, from myth to reality, from tribal inclusiveness to national exclusiveness. In fact, considering the frontier situation, the wilderness is alpha and omega for the Gorkhas who love the wilderness, dear the wilderness, associate the wilderness and do manage the wilderness for common national cause. The Gorkhas are the harbinger of hill and foothill wilderness putting their benevolent efforts and positive attitude for the sustainable economic development mission of the government. The contestation brought about by the Globalization or market economy thesis between the Gorkhas and tribals over the ownership and non-ownership of landholding right, the whole sense of wilderness met with different connotations today in the North Eastern frontier wilderness that mainly includes the Arunachal Pradesh and hill region of present Assam (Sadiya). Both from the point of Enlightenment and Recreational approaches or theories of social sciences again, the Gorkhas have managed the wilderness for the national cause to prove the region as tourist destination and thereby the centre for tourist recreation with their rich Gorkha cultural etiquette and manner. The whole lot of enlightenment and recreation theories emerged after connecting the basics of wilderness under the theory of Social Construction of the Gorkhas in the North Eastern wilderness. If the Gorkhas could not have penetrated deep into the dense jungles of the frontiers and managed the wilderness in the required and meaningful direction then the whole frontiers would by now be either as an unexplored entity for none or under the Myanmar or Chinese sovereignty. If the region would have been an unexplored entity, then again the present North Eastern frontiers would not have been given the name as North Eastern Wilderness for us today; provided the Gorkhas were not there at least officially from 1820 onward. Of course, in the beginning, the Gorkhas were lured, indentured and made captives in the wilderness of the North Eastern Frontiers of India. Thus, precisely enough, the Constructionist theory of wilderness is most appropriate approach for studying the Gorkhas in the wilderness.

**Contents and Sample Pages**