Kalimpong

Kalimpong district is a district in the state of West Bengal, India. Originally known as Dalingkot tehsil,[a] the region was alternatively under the control of Sikkim and Bhutan. In 1865, it was annexed from Bhutan by British India under the Treaty of Sinchula, and administered as a subdivision of the Darjeeling district from 1916 to 2017.[2][3] In 2017, it was carved out as a separate district to become the 21st district of West Bengal.[3][4]

The district is headquartered at Kalimpong, which grew to prominence as a market town for Indo-Tibetan trade during the British period. It is bounded by Pakyong district of Sikkim in the north, Bhutan in the east, Darjeeling district in the west, and Jalpaiguri district in the south. The district consists of the Kalimpong Municipality and three community development blocks: Kalimpong I, Kalimpong II and Gorubathan.

Area

Apart from the Kalimpong municipality that consists of 23 wards, the district contains rural areas of 42 gram panchayats under three community development blocks: Kalimpong I, Kalimpong II, and Gorubathan.[5]

Kalimpong district has an area of 1,053.60 km2 (406.80 sq mi), with Kalimpong I block having an area of 360.46 km2 (139.17 sq mi); Kalimpong II block an area of 241.26 km2 (93.15 sq mi); Gorubathan block an area of 442.72 km2 (170.94 sq mi); and Kalimpong Municipality an area of 9.16 km2 (3.54 sq mi).[1]

History
Katherine Graham Memorial Chapel, Dr. Graham’s Homes
The Clock Tower of Kalimpong.

What is now Kalimpong district was originally under the kingdom of Sikkim.[6][7] It was controlled through two hill forts in the region, at Damsang[b] and Daling[c] (or Dalingkot, meaning “Daling fort”). The region itself seems to have been referred to as Dalingkot.[8] In 1718, the Kingdom of Bhutan annexed this territory, and ruled it for the next 150 years.[9] The area was sparsely populated by the indigenous Lepcha community and migrant Bhutia, Limbu and Kirati tribes.

After the Anglo-Bhutan War in 1864, the Treaty of Sinchula (1865) was signed, in which certain hill territory to east of the Teesta River was ceded to the British East India Company.[6] The precise territory was unspecified but included the fort of Dalingkot. In 1866–1867 an Anglo-Bhutanese commission demarcated the area, and set the Di Chu and Ni Chu rivers as the eastern boundary.[10][11]

The ceded territory was added to the Western Duars district at first, and later transferred to the Darjeeling district in 1866.[2] It was referred to as the “tract of Dalingkot” or “tract of Damsang”, after the hill forts through it had been administered in the past.[11][12] At that time, Kalimpong was a small hamlet, with only two or three families known to reside there.[13] However the neighbourhood of Kalimpong was well-populated with several villages, as recorded by Ashley Eden during a mission to Bhutan in 1864. Eden mentioned that the people there were well-disposed to the British administration and had frequently traded with the Darjeeling area to the west of Tista in defiance of the Bhutanese authorities.[1

Languages

At the time of the 1951 census, only 24% of those now living in Kalimpong district spoke Nepali as their mother tongue. Most of the population spoke a variety of other languages such as Rai, Limbu, Lepcha and Tamang, although nearly all could speak Nepali as a second language.[30] By 1961, the proportion of people in Kalimpong returning Nepali as their mother tongue had jumped to 75%. This was accompanied by a dramatic fall in the numbers of other languages spoken by the variety of ethnic groups in the hills.[31]

At the time of the 2011 census, 87.61% of the population spoke Nepali, 3.18% Hindi, 2.67% Lepcha and 1.16% Bhojpuri as their first language.[28][29]