Lepchas and Their Heritage

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Lepchas or more properly Rongs are a most extra-ordinary though little known Indian tribe. Confined mainly to Sikkim and Darjeeling hills, their population is hardly eighty thousand. Sociologically, they are unique for they have eschewed aggression in their social mores. Their women are on equal footing with men in every sphere of life. Also, they possess abundantly what keats called ‘negative capability’ and can quietly shrug off adversity with a simple expression like ket ma nin, it does not matter.

General G.B. Mainwaring, then a colonel in the British army, first drew the eyes of the West to these unique aborigines in the nineteenth century. The redoubtable Dr. Joseph Hooker had also mentioned about the beauty of their music and mind in his famous Journal.

Surprisingly, such endowments have not endeared Rongs to a succession of people, who have mercilessly trodden their right and culture from age to age. Despite their gift of expression term ‘Lepcha’ (in plain English, Stupid) first used about them by Nepalis. The plight of such a people, who are strangers in their own home, connot fail to what our curiosity about them.

The book on Lepchas and their Heritage opens a new vista on them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tapan Chattopadhyay

Mr. Tapan Chattopadhyay (b. 1946) who is an M.A. in English literature from Calcutta University, is a senior member of the Indian Police Service (IPS). His job, which he describes as peripatetic and emotionally and trascreated some of their songs into Bengali. In Meghalaya and Mizoram, he knew Khasis and Mizos and shared ideas and sheltered with them. He first came to Know about Rongs, called Lepcha, in 1972 in Northern Bengal. in the 1980s he got an opportunity, which resulted in the writing of this book, after an arduous research of about four years. Mr. Chattopadhyay has written a number of article on diverse subjects which have earned him accolade. His story of Lalbazar: Its Origin and Growth, Which is the history of Calcutta and its police, has been hailed as a pioneer work by The Statesman, Ananda Bazar Patrika, Amrita Bazar Patrika, etc. He has to his credit one book of poems and the other a histroical fiction, in Bengali.