Falling Leaves

Gorkhaland supporters won’t be pleased with Jeff Koehler’s claim that while the Darjeeling tract “was not uninhabited” when the British acquired it from Sikkim, “it had no villages and only twenty to thirty houses.” They belonged to indigenous Lepchas. There was neither sight nor sound of any Gorkha—read Nepalese—until the British sponsored migration from the kingdom of Nepal because their new township needed cheap and hard working labourers.

Gorkha mythology is fervently committed to believing exactly the opposite. When I published Smash and Grab: Annexation of Sikkim or, later, when I wrote about the Gorkhaland movement, outraged Nepalese who believed they and the land went together accused me of racist exclusiveness. They had always lived in Darjeeling, they insisted. So vehement were their assertions that I began to wonder if the people hadn’t settled the land during one of the kingdom of Nepal’s periodic raids on the kingdom of Sikkim. But, as Koehler says, ‘the population jumped from less than a hundred people to ten thousand in a decade and to twenty-two thousand by 1869. Most were Gorkhas from across the border in Nepal.’

Although his Darjeeling is subtitled A History of the World’s Greatest Tea, it is much more than that. Like many educated Americans, Koehler is fascinated by the lore and legend of the British Raj. He invokes George Orwell and Somerset Maugham, Rudyard Kipling and Jan Morris without altogether neglecting Mamata Banerjee, Bimal Gurung and the twists and turns of Gorkhaland’s contorted politics. But he is best with cha-wallahs. Rajah Banerjee and his father, the legendary Pasupati Nath or PN, Sanjay Sharma who presides over Glenburn’s (“We also make tea”) lavish table, Vikram Mittal of Mittal Stores in New Delhi’s Sunder Nagar, and across town in Daryaganj, Sanjay Kapur in his Aap Ki Pasand tea boutique, and others are recreated with loving sensitivity in this evocative book.

What readers who know Darjeeling may miss is some reminder of the seamier side of colonialism, which the tea industry also reflected. There is nary a mention in Darjeeling of the old Dr Graham’s Homes in Kalimpong, which nursed many a planter’s secret. Koehler does tell us that the Planters’ Club in Darjeeling rewarded the Maharaja of Cooch Behar’s generosity in donating the land on which it was built by granting him the exclusive right to park his rickshaw under its main porch. What he doesn’t say is that His Highness was the only Indian (apart from servants) allowed to cross the portals of the all-white institution.

A gentlemanly anxiety to avoid unpleasantness might explain his reticence but it detracts from the complete picture. So does Koehler’s silence on the labour unrest that drove away many white planters, led to some being murdered, and added the word Naxalite for a revolutionary guerrilla to the language. Naxalbari was the site of a peasants uprising in 1967 that continues to this day in even more violent forms in other parts of the country. It lies in the Darjeeling parliamentary constituency.

Koehler opens his story with a 2003 auction in Calcutta’s Nilhat House—the name and its historical associations are worth remembering—when J Thomas & Co (India’s oldest firm of tea brokers and auctioneers) sold one lot of Darjeeling tea (a fine Silver Tips Imperial picked under a full moon) for the record price of $390.70 per kilogram. That, the author reminds us, is 250 times the country’s average for tea at auction. Known for its aroma and flavour, Darjeeling tea has been called the champagne of teas. Those who prefer more substance blend Darjeeling with full-bodied Assam tea.

But will Darjeeling’s pre-eminence last? There is, for instance, the admittedly theoretical dispute over possession. Sikkim never relinquished its territorial rights. When India became independent in 1947, the king of Sikkim, Sir Tashi Namgyal, sent a memorandum to New Delhi (with a copy to the International Court of Justice at The Hague) arguing that the land was given to the British for a particular purpose. Since the British had gone and that purpose no longer existed, he wanted back his territory. Some years later his American- born daughter-in-law, Hope Cooke, wife of the last king, Chogyal Palden Thondup Namgyal, wrote a learned article on Sikkim’s laws claiming the land was public property and no king could alienate it.

Since India abolished the Sikkimese monarchy and annexed the country in 1975, Koehler’s pertinent question, “Where will Darjeeling tea be in twenty years?” refers to more vital matters. Labour unrest is one problem. Political turbulence another. Indian demand is shifting. Coffee presents stiff competition. Tea is still India’s most popular beverage but not quality tea. In theory, it’s possible to grow Darjeeling for export but Indian priorities are changing. Its share of the world market has also fallen.

That’s where the Nilhat House symbolism comes in. Literally indigo mart, Nilhat House was the site of auctions where the precious blue dye was once bought and sold. It would be a tragedy for India and the world if Koehler’s impressive eulogy were to turn out to be his epitaph on the world’s finest tea.

(Sunanda K Datta-Ray is a journalist and author of several books)

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Sunanda K Datta-Ray