Gorkhaland - Endless struggle to Identity. A study on the identity issues with the Nepali speaking community (Darjeeling) India

Abstract

Man being a social animal lives in society and spend most of the time doing daily chores and keep up with others in the society. In the process of society being formed, various social relations are created which makes an individual to create social ties among themselves and form social groupings. These groupings are then deeply connected with each other that provides support system to survive in the society with unique characteristics and identity of their own. This study is about the identity struggle of the Nepali-speaking community mainly residing in the hills of Darjeeling in West Bengal, India, fighting for a separate state which will help to secure their identity and get acknowledged as “Indian” by everyone. Many studies have been carried out in the particular topic of Gorkhaland movement (the name supposedly to be used as, if the bill is passed to have a new state in India covering Darjeeling area), but this study focuses on the people’s sentiments, emotions on a personal level regarding the history, social interaction with other group. The research design done for this study is a qualitative study, with one-on-one open interview as the major method to collect the data involving 15 persons who have different professional background. The study is not only limited to the responses from the people who were interviewed but it also includes the titbits of data that was collected during informal conversation with people who were not directly involved during the interview process. The findings of the study show that the people are desperately waiting for the formation of new state which has been a struggle since past century. Not only is the movement of Gorkhaland an issue of identity, but according to the study, it also relates to how the establishment of new state will positively affect the lives of the present generation to uplift socially and culturally as well as the future generations will not have to go through the same struggle the past people have gone through. But one of the major drawbacks of this particular study is that the field work was conducted for almost forty-five days only, which is quite short amount of time for a precise qualitative research, and also the outcome of the research cannot be completely generalized with the whole population. But on a larger context, it can be said that most of the Gorkhali people in India still have the light of hope that one day the new state will be formed for them.