The indigenous Gorkha community of Assam welcomed the State Cabinet's recent decision to describe its members as 'Gorkhas', saying that identifying them as Nepalis, as they had been called for many years, had made them feel like citizens of another country.
The community also expressed satisfaction at the Cabinet decision to declare Gorkhas a 'protected class' as it will give the community members land rights, among other benefits, in tribal belts of the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR).
This 'protected class' status should also be extended to areas outside the BTR, community leaders said.
"For years we have been demanding that our community be identified as Gorkha. Referring to us as Nepali creates a sense of alienation, as if we are from Nepal and not Indians," Harka Bahadur Chetry, chairman of the Gorkha Autonomous Council Demand Committee (GACDC), told PTI.
The demand was placed before the previous government also, during a meeting between the GACDC and then chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, on September 10, 2016.
"Among the demands we had placed before the chief minister, one was that the term Nepali be substituted with the Gorkha in all existing gazette notifications," Chetry said. The move is a welcome step in that direction, he said.
The state Cabinet meeting on July 7 decided to notify Nepali Graziers and Cultivators of Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886, as Gorkha community and include it, along with some other communities, as a 'protected class' in the tribal belts and blocks in Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and Udalguri districts comprising the BTR. The community members residing there from before 2003, when the districts came under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, will get the benefits. Gorkhas had ceased to enjoy the benefits of the 'protected class' when these four districts came under the Sixth Schedule.
The Gorkhas have also been demanding the 'protected class' status in all tribal belts and blocks created post- Independence, as they currently enjoy it only in the areas thus demarcated prior to 1947.This notification of protection of Gorkhas should be extended to other existing tribal belts and blocks being reviewed by the government, and also to those which the government is proposing to create," Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh (BGP) national vice-president Yam Prasad Ghimire said.