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The article discusses how the Lepcha ethnic minority group in the Darjeeling Hills in India is trying to revive their Lepcha language. The group has now been claimed as a vanishing tribe in spite of being the original inhabitants of Darjeeling Himalayas. A comparison of the Nepalis and Lepchas in Darjeeling is provided. An overview of the origin and development of the Lepcha language is also offered.

Studies of ethnic minority peoples in Asia have long focussed on the relations between ethnic minority communities and the modern state and on the role of development in shaping these relations. This paper is concerned with how ethnic minorities respond to the state-led development. While there are numerous studies focussing on the collective agency of ethnic minorities opposing development projects, few studies consider the agency of pro-development actors. Pro-development actors are usually dismissed as co-opted, manipulated, inauthentic, or elite-driven, yet they can offer crucial insights into understanding state-ethnic minority relations and particularly intra-ethnic minority relations. This paper concentrates on pro-dam actors from the Lepcha minority in the Indian state of Sikkim to make four interlinked arguments. First, examining pro-development actors breaks the homogenous view of state-ethnic minority relations and shifts the focus to intra-ethnic relationships. Second, collective agency of ethnic minorities is not fixed in a particular relationship with the state nor does it have a particular position on development. Third, the long-term experience of development is vital in understanding how ethnic minorities manoeuvre and alter their position on contentious projects. Lastly, analysis of pro-development actors creates major dilemmas for researchers which are not easily overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lepchas are the Indigenous people of Sikkim, a small Himalayan state in northeast India. They are known for their deep knowledge of botany and ecology; their close connection to their landscape has been acknowledged and admired for centuries. Their feeling for nature and reluctance to accept change to their sacred landscape, contributed to a protest movement to stop the development of several mega hydro-electric projects inside the Lepcha Dzongu Reserve in North Sikkim. The Lepcha activists' battle to stop the hydro projects started in Dzongu villages in 2003 and relocated to the capital of Sikkim, Gangtok in June 2007. Bhutia-Lepcha (BL) House, a worn out building on Tibet Road in Gangtok became the site of their flagship protest, a relay hunger strike which ran for close to two and a half years. The protest also extended to the Lepcha enclave in neighbouring West Bengal and the city of New Delhi where the activists spread their protest narrative to the wider Lepcha community, NGOs and the Indian Central government. In 2008 the Lepcha activists, aware that they needed to re-engage their community, started to shift their campaign back to the villages. This paper analyses the Lepcha protest narrative, contextualising it in terms of cultural heritage and contemporary political economy. It evaluates the protest group's strategic use of both rural and urban settings to strengthen the impact of their campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a discussion on the relation between religion, politics, and ecology in India. It offers disputations about social justice and sustainable development in the issue of dams constructed on sacred rivers. It refers to religion and mythology of the Lepchas, presenting a narrative that offers a depiction on the intimacy shared by the Lepcha activists from the context of their protest. It also offers insights on the sacred as a political narrative.

The recent comments on the gradual loss of influence of the Lepcha language on the Lepcha community trigger our attention for an intimate look at the Lepcha speech community. According to Landweer (2008), "The indicators of ethno-linguistic vitality are a collection of factors that have been documented in sociolinguistic literature … have been useful in indicating the probable direction a speech community will go relative to the maintenance of, or shift from, its traditional language. No one factor has become a leading indicator of linguistic vitality. Whether a language appears to be "maintained" or "dying" depends on the collective impact of positive or negative indicators that place the language on a continuum of stable vitality, change in process due to other-language interference, radical shift in process, and death. As such, language maintenance and shift are long-term consequences of consistent patterns of language choice throughout the speech community." This paper examines the ethno-linguistic vitality of the speech community with special reference to the Lepchas of Dzongu valley, 'the prime Lepcha reserve' in North Sikkim. In order to explore the endangered situation of the language, the probable direction of language maintenance and shift, towards which the speech community is proceeding has been studied, keeping in view the socio - political aspects of Lepcha life and its impact on the Lepcha language and culture across time in the multilingual setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lepcha is the oldest and the first tribe reported from Sikkim, India; majority of its population inhabiting in Dzongu valley, an officially demarcated reserve for Lepcha community, bordering Khangchendzonga Biosphere Reserve, in north district. Lepchas of Dzongu are known for their retention of rich cultural heritage. In view of the on-going cultural and economic changes brought in by the process of globalization, the immediate need was felt to document in details the underexplored ethnomedicinal practices of Lepchas of Dzongu valley. This paper reports 118 species, belonging to 71 families and 108 genera, under ethnomedicinal utility by the Lepchas for curing approximately 66 ailments, which could be grouped under 14 broad categories. Zingiberaceae appeared as the most used family (8 species and 5 genera). As per use pattern, maximum of 30.50% species are to cure stomach related disorders/ailments, followed by 19.49% for curing cut, wounds, inflammation, sprains and joint pains. Administration of medicine orally is recorded in 75% cases. Root and rhizome harvesting targeted 30 species. The changing scenario over time both at sociocultural front and passing traditional knowledge interests from older to younger generation and rich ethnomicinal wealth of the oldest tribe of Sikkim are discussed in the light of conservation strategies and techniques to adopt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Members of Lepcha tribe are aborigines in the Sikkim and Darjeeling Himalayan Region. Famed as born naturalists and known to be a "vanishing tribe," the ethnomedicinal traditions of these people are characterized by multiple remedies for a single ailment. The present study revealed the Lepchas use 36 species of plants belonging to 28 families as liver related ailments. Of these plants, 53 percent have not been reported earlier as hepatoprotective agents and may be used in the development of modern antihepatopathic drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]