Like most other hill stations in colonial India Darjeeling was originally intended as a retreat for Europeans weary o f the hot and dusty Indian plains. But what was the reason behind the rise and growth o f Darjeeling? What was its economic viability?
With minor differences o f a regional character, is it true that Darjeeling was just one o f many hill stations and European retreats such as Simla or Ootacamund, or were other factors involved in the demographic developments o f the Darjeeling hill areas?
I do not intend to argue here for just regional specificity or to claim that the establishment of hill stations in nineteenth- century India did not take any patterns.
Rather, I intend to stress that Darjeeling represented one significant example in the settlement of hill areas o f the mountains in colonial India. This was a complex story
7 Ibid.
that involved medical discourses, military strategies, and the overall context of colonial politics and economy. To be able to ‘frame’ the medical landscape of Darjeeling it is essential to accommodate all o f the above in the history o f the Darjeeling hills.8 Harrison has argued that medical topographies of the hill stations were articulated in order to locate areas suitable for the rejuvenation o f the Europeans in contemporary India. I intend to demonstrate that there were enough discrepancies and inconsistencies in the medical discourses on the efficacy of Darjeeling to contend that, while it was to sustain a value in medical terms for European constitutions, its rapid growth and symbolic value owed a good deal to spaces that were other than medical.
The area o f Darjeeling and indeed the tracts where most of the Himalayan hill stations were located had been part o f the growing Gorkha kingdom o f Nepal in the late eighteenth century. From the late eighteenth century the Gorkha kingdom, formerly a small principality in Nepal, had militarised itself and taken over the more prosperous kingdoms in the Kathmandu valley.9 It next eyed the Himalayan principalities o f Kumaon, Garhwal and Sikkim. The rapid conquest o f the hill principalities in Garhwal and o f Kumaon, as well as British ambitions in the trans- Tibetan trade which would have to pass through Nepal, put Nepal into direct conflict with the EEI Company.10 The consequence was a bloody war that took two years for the Company’s army to decisively defeat Nepal. Under the treaty o f
8 The notion o f ‘fram e’ has been borrowed from Charles R osenberg, ‘Introduction’, in F ram ing D isease: Illness, Society, a n d H istory in Charles E. Rosenberg, and Janet Golden, F ram in g D isease:
S tudies in C u ltu ral H istory, Rutgers, 1992, pp. xiii-xxvi. I have used his understanding o f frame as
“the connection between b iological event, its perception by patient and practitioner, and the collective effort to make cogn itive and policy sense o f this perception” and m odified it to situate the site o f Darjeeling in official discourses, w hich were im plicated in a grid o f im peratives not all o f w hich were medical.
9 Kumar Pradhan, The G orkha C onquests: The P ro ce ss a n d C on sequences o f the U nification o f Nepal, with p a rtic u la r referen ce to E astern N epal, Calcutta, 1991, pp. 89-105.
10 D.R. R egm i, M odern N epal: R ise a n d G row th in the E ighteenth Century, Calcutta, 1975, pp.332- 417.
Sagauli (1816) between India and Nepal, a large section o f the western Himalayan terai was taken from Nepal and annexed by the East India Company.11 This was the tract where Mussorrie and Simla were later built. The area o f Darjeeling, further, under a separate agreement (Treaty of Titalya, 1817) was given over to the king of Sikkim as part o f the ring- fence policy, to create a buffer state between Nepal and India.12
Captain G A Lloyd and J.W. Grant, the Commercial Resident at Maldah in northern Bengal visited the area to settle certain border disputes between Nepal and Sikkim.
Later they arrived at Chongtung near Darjeeling and first thought o f a sanatorium at the site in 1828.13 In 1829 Capt J. D. Herbert, Deputy Surveyor General, was sent to the site to explore possibilities for the establishment of a sanatorium for the use of European troops in India. His report was wholly favourable to the institution of a sanatorium. His first assumption was to link health with climate: ‘ The first point to be considered in the establishment o f a station of health is obviously climate’.14 Moreover, the access to the mountains had to be considered. New roads up the slopes would have to be constructed, the supply lines from the plains to the steep mountains maintained. To that end it was also essential to have permanent and settled British ruled administrative centres relatively close at hand. Herbert found Darjeeling more conveniently situated than many o f the other hill stations:
To give a better idea o f the nature of the approach to Dargeeling, I would say that it is very nearly as promising as that to Semla, it is much more so
11 John Pem ble, The Invasion o f N epal: John C om pany at War, Oxford, 1971, pp. 344-348.
12 For British policy in the princely states o f colonial India, see M ichael Fisher, In direct Rule in India: R esidents a n d the R esiden cy S yste m -1 764-1857, Oxford U niversity Press, 1998. For a brief overview o f British recruitment o f various N epali com m unities in Darjeeling, see A tis Dasgupta,
‘Ethnic Problems and M ovem ents for A utonom y in D arjeeling’, S o cia l S cientist, V ol. 27, N o .l l/1 2 .(N o v .-D e c.,1 9 9 9 ), pp. 47-68.
13 E .C .D ozey, A C on cise H isto ry o f The D a rje elin g D istrict w ith a C om plete Itin erary o f Tours In Sikkim a n d the D istrict, ( Second Edition), C alcu tta, 1922, p.2-3.
14 R eport on D argeelin g, A P la c e In the Sikkim M ountains, P ro p o se d A s a Sanitarium , o r S tation o f Health. Calcutta 1830, p. 3.
than that to Dehra, and between it and the Almorah one, there can be no comparison whatsoever, as the most unpractised eye would pronounce the latter to be dangerous 15
He suggested that maintaining supply lines would not be a difficult problem because nearby at Malda and Dinajpur, ‘Europeans reside all the year round’.16 He concluded that Darjeeling would be a convenient location for the troops in northern
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India, particularly those stationed below Allahabad. Thus his report reassured officials that the three ‘principal considerations which are to be regarded in the establishment o f a sanitarium, viz. climate, salubrity o f approaches and convenience o f situation’ were all favourable to Darjeeling.1 R
In 1835 Capt Lloyd was deputed to negotiate with the king o f Sikkim for the cession of the land on which the sanatorium of Darjeeling was to be situated. Though
‘unreasonable’ initially, the king finally gave in and leased the ceded the area in 1835 for an annual payment o f Rs 3000.19 The lease was probably forced by Lloyd who in the true tradition of the man in the field did not wait for instructions from the Governor General before pushing for and obtaining the lease.20 There were supposed to be around a hundred inhabitants at the site, who were mainly Lepchas.21 In 1839 the newly posted Army Medical Officer o f Darjeeling, J.T. Pearson, made the journey up through the Terai to Darjeeling with an entourage of fifty coolies. At that time there was one road laid out, and allotments being made for houses or
22 • • • • •
hotels. The administrative buildings were at the planning stage, as was planning
15 R eport on D argeelin g, p. 6.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid. p. 7.
18 Ibid. p.8.
19 Joseph Dalton Hooker, H im alayan Journals: N otes o f a N atu ralist in B engal Sikkim a n d N epal H im alayas E tc., N ew D elhi, ( Reprint 1999, First published 1854) V ol. 1, p. 110.
20 Fred Pinn, The R o a d o f D estiny: D a rje elin g L etters1839, Calcutta 1996, pp. 119-129.
21 L.S.S. O ’M alley, B en gal D istrict G a zettee r:D arjeelin g, Calcutta 1907, p. 22.
22 J. T. Pearson, N ote on D arjeeling, Darjeeling, 1839, p. 13.
for the Indian traders and service providers who would have to be accommodated to serve the native coolies and domestic servants, and Pearson noted that: ‘ Mr Perrie has established a moodie, who has opened a shop for grain, and other articles of native consumption but the prices are frightfully high.’
After Lloyd had successfully secured the lease and organized the labour for building the road to Darjeeling, the government replaced him with another official, Archibald Campbell.24 In 1839 Surgeon Major Campbell then serving in Nepal as the Assistant Resident, was posted to Darjeeling when the Residency in Kathmandu was abolished. He was vested with wide-ranging fiscal, civil and judicial powers. For the next twenty-two years Campbell served as the Superintendent o f Darjeeling and oversaw its settlement and steady expansion.9 ^