Darjeeling BJP MP Raju Bista on Tuesday questioned in the Lok Sabha the “absurd” observation made by the Office of the Registrar General of India (ORGI), which is under the Union home ministry, against granting tribal status to 11 Gorkha communities.

Bista’s statement against the ORGI betrays his disenchantment with the Centre’s delay in granting Scheduled Tribal (ST) status to the 11 Gorkha communities, as promised by the BJP in its election manifestos in 2019.

“I questioned the absurd observations made by the RGI against granting Gorkha ST in some previous letters. They have commented that granting Gorkhas ST could potentially lead to influx. Responding to this, I questioned the RGI to provide actual statistics on if there has been any unnatural increase in the population of Limbu and Tamang communities who were granted ST in 2001,” read a written statement by the MP.

Bista was referring to the observation by the ORGI that the “inflow of Nepalese immigrants will further increase" and "almost all" permanent residents of Sikkim would become STs if these communities got the status. In that case, Lepchas and Bhutias who are more backward and enjoy the ST tag will become disadvantaged, the ORGI observed.

The Tamang and Limbu communities were the latest to be classified as STs from among Gorkhas in 2001 by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP government at the Centre.

The 11 Gorkha communities for which the tribal status has been sought are Kirat/Khambu/Rai, Gurung, Mangar, Thami, Sanyasi, Jogi, Khas (Bahun-Chhetri), Bhujel, Yakka (Dewan), Sunuwar (Mukhia) and Newar. Besides, Sikkim wants the tribal tag for the Majhi community.

Bista informed the Lok Sabha that the Gorkha community was compositely recognised as “Hill Tribes” till Independence.

“However, after Independence, their “Hill Tribes” status was taken away, without any consultation with the community. Over the course of time, out of 18 Gorkha sub-tribes, 7 – Sherpa, Bhutia, Lepcha, Dukpa, Yolmo, Tamang, and Limbu have been accorded ST status over due course of time,” said Bista in the statement.

The BJP MP also highlighted that the Darjeeling hills, the Terai and the Dooars had been classified as various administrative regimes such as the non-regulated area in 1861, the semi-regulated area from 1861 to 1870, the non-regulated area from 1870 to 1874, the scheduled district from 1874 to 1919, the backward tract from 1919 to 1935 and the partially excluded area from 1935 to 1947.

“I informed the Parliament that these distinctive administrative set ups were specifically implemented in Tribal areas across India. All the tribes that lived in the Partially Excluded Area have been re-included as Scheduled Tribes gradually. However, these 11 left-out Gorkha subtribes are still suffering,” said Bista.

Both the Bengal and Sikkim governments have supported the demand for the ST status

Recently, the Sikkim government formed a high-level committee to work on the modalities to include the 12 communities in the ST list months.

In the past, the Centre had formed three committees to look into the Bengal government’s proposal to grant tribal status to the Gorkha communities.

The final report compiled in 2019 by a team headed by M.R. Tshering, joint secretary of the ministry of tribal affairs, passed the buck to the ORGI.