Banyan Tree Adventures

by Keith Forrester

  The other Indian hill station that we visited a few years later was Darjeeling, this time in the opposite side of the country, in the far north-east state of West Bengal. Catching the train from Calcutta to Siliguri and then via a combination of Jeep, bus and ‘toy train’ we finally arrived at Darjeeling, 2,200 metres up in the Himalayas and some 600 miles north of Calcutta. The narrow 0.6-gauge rail arguably was even more dramatic than the Shimla journey. It covers 82 kilometres with gradients up to 1 in 19. Its highest point is at Ghoom where it reaches a height of 2,438 metres. We didn’t manage the entire journey on the ‘toy train’ as a small section had been washed away – we had to transfer to a bus. We did, however, pass beside the damaged section and saw for ourselves the engineering skills still required to maintain the line. Similar to Shimla, Darjeeling straddles hillsides and ridges, has its Mall and is thronged with holiday visitors. Even more dramatic than Shimla, Darjeeling has its mountains – great whopping snow-covered peaks that seem to rise a hundred yards from where you’re sitting. The Gymkhana Club, the Planters’ Club, the New Elgin Hotel and St Joseph’s College with of course the numerous tea offices and stores testified to the Raj link. We were in the town for around a week and planned a short trekking tour. Unfortunately the weather was poor. Opening the curtains of the hotel every morning hoping that the hanging damp mist had disappeared tested both our nerves and patience. Visibility for most of the week in the middle of February was never much better than a couple of hundred metres. An unexpected highlight of the visit was waiting anxiously each evening for the complimentary hot water bottles that were delivered to the bedrooms at about seven o’clock each evening. Only after we were sure that the beds were warming up could we relax and venture out for the evening. And then one day, the clouds and mist lifted and there in front of us although not quite in touching distance were some of the highest peaks in the Himalayas set against a clear blue sky and wispy clouds swirling around the summits. Pride amongst the peaks was Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. At six in the morning the next day we were off (with half of India, it seemed) to Tiger Hill twelve miles from Darjeeling, to witness the sun rising up over the snow-capped peaks and to ogle at the 360-degree Himalayan panorama, including Everest. As the sun comes up, each range lights up, one at a time – magical.

  The shops and stalls along the Mall and the Chowrasta are always busy. Traders seemed to reflect the turbulent political past of the town and region – Nepalese, Tibetans and Gorkha peoples from further east and north in India. The need for warm clothing and lots of it by everyone provided a continuous fashion show for the relatively few Western tourists.

  East India and in particular the far north-eastern India is the least visited region in the country. This seems strange. West Bengal for example has so much going for it and is famous throughout the world for its cultural and literary history, its turbulent political past (and present) and the wonderful city of Calcutta. And then there is the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve, another World Heritage Site, in the south of the state with the largest mangrove swamps in the world, supposedly 300 Bengal tigers and the wonderful Ganges River and its tributary, the Hugli entering the Bay of Bengal.

  Sheila and Tony, however, had visited the Sunderbans. It was during the Gulf War and in their twenty-plus visits to India, this was the only occasion that they had been part of an unhappy experience. “It was a bit strange,” began Sheila. “People with placards and posters were supporting Saddam Hussein. And then the police accused us of being spies and stupid stuff like that. It felt dangerous. We should have taken an organised tour (through the Sundarbans). We did it ourselves – booked the boat and train and everything. And the language was a bit of a problem.”

  Mike and Janet similarly had been to West Bengal and many times to Calcutta. However, in their case, their stays in West Bengal largely were a transit experience on their way to the far reaches of north-east India – namely, Sikkim, Assam and Nagaland. Why these north-eastern states receive so few tourists is again a little puzzling. Perhaps it has something to do with the military sensitivities of the region. There are disputed borders with mighty China. It might be the bureaucracy and complexities of getting permits and visas, the complex and volatile political atmosphere resulting from secessionist groups or simply the lack of a tourist infrastructure that makes travel more difficult than elsewhere in India. The north-east does suffer from being off the main tourist routes of Delhi, the west coast and southern India, and after all, India is a big place. Perhaps the differences – culturally, historically, politically – of the north-east to the rest of India deters travellers. Which is a shame as arguably this region is seen by many as the most beautiful area in the country. Surrounded by Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Burma and Bangladesh there are landscapes ranging from the high Himalayas, deep forests through to flat low-lying agricultural valleys – rich with rice, apple and orange groves. It is a real frontier region with its ethnically and linguistically diversity resulting in one of the most culturally differentiated areas in the world. Nagaland for example is almost entirely made up of people from fifteen distinct Tibet-Burma groups but are collectively known as the Nagas. Recognised as respected warriors, the Nagas are skilled farmers growing twenty different species of rice. Although each of the fifteen ‘tribal’ groupings has its own distinct dialect, a hybrid language drawing on the various local languages has developed into a common Naga tongue. In Arunachal Pradesh, perhaps India’s most remote state lying north even of Assam and Nagaland, there are 26 tribal groupings each with its own culture, dialect, dress, social structure and traditions. One of the state’s claims to fame includes the 500 species of orchid. Another less auspicious claim is the Indian military humiliation in 1962 when the Chinese invaded Arunachal Pradesh and pushed 300 kilometres into Assam, a painful blow to Indian nationalism and military bravado. And in Assam, the ethnic origins of the people range from Mongoloid groups through to Indians found elsewhere in the country. People movements continue as ever – Muslims settlers from Bengal moving into Assam over the last hundred years, Nepalese into Sikkim and Bangladeshis into a number of the smaller north-east states. Apart from the beauty and spectacular landscapes of the region together with the cultural diversity of its people, there is as might be expected a strong spiritual history and architectural dimension to the area. Sikkim for example was an isolated independent Buddhist kingdom until hostilities between India and China in the early 1960s resulted in its annexation by India in 1975. Today Sikkim is predominantly Hindu but the state remains an important source of Buddhism and is home to a multitude of historic monasteries (over two hundred). Generally, though, there is this blend of Hindu and Buddhism in the region, as is apparent in wandering around Guwahati, the capital of Assam on the banks of the Brahmaputra River.

  It was in 2012 that Janet and Mike spent about a month in the north-eastern states. Previously, they had visited Sikkim and Assam but this year “decided to go further east. So we went to Calcutta and got the train to Guwahati, capital of Assam and went out from there,” blithely said Mike. According to maps that I have looked at, the train journey is just over 1,000 kilometres and must have involved numerous changes of train. Anyway, “we were prepared to get special visas but as it turned out, we didn’t need them. We had to get one for Itanagar (capital of Arunachal Pradesh) but not for Nagaland. The north-east is a different part of India. We found it much more Asian, oriental than Indian. It was the same as you got up into Sikkim. The women wear saris but they are different, more oriental. It’s the same in Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh) and in northern Nagaland.”

  “We like the countryside,” continued Janet. “We live in the countryside in Colorado, and we like the countryside in India. Our favourite towns here are probably those places with a population of 40,000 people or less. We don’t like to be in big cities although we’ve been in Calcutta several times to get to the north-east. And we tend to enjoy the tribal areas. We’ve been back three times to south-western Orissa.”

&
nbsp; Orissa is the large state south of West Bengal, along the eastern coast. A quarter of this economically poor state’s population are adivasi (meaning ‘first people’) or ‘tribal people’. In general, adivasi is a term for a heterogeneous set of ethnic groups claiming to be the original population of India. The term adivasi has gained popularity over the last couple of decades and has sometimes been used by ethnic groupings themselves such as in Kerala, although not by other ethnic groupings. However, adivasi is not equivalent to tribe. Recognised within the Indian Constitution as ‘Scheduled Tribes’ (together with ‘Scheduled Castes’ and ‘Other Backward Classes’), adivasi constitute just under 9% of India’s population. Legislatively, there are 744 tribes across 22 states. According to the 2011 Indian Census, Scheduled Tribes number some 104 million people. Central India (including, for example, the states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and, to a lesser extent, Andhra Pradesh on the eastern coast) has the largest concentration of tribal people – some 75% of the total tribal population. There is also a spread of tribal groupings in other parts of northern India and in particular areas in the foothills of the Himalayas such as Jammu and Kashmir and in Uttarakhand in the west.

  ‘Tribal’ groupings and ‘scheduled castes’ appear frequently in the media reports and in the tourist literature. However, substantial controversies surround definitions and use of ‘tribe’ and associated terms such as ‘Scheduled Castes’. Firstly, these are to some extent due to the discriminatory behaviour and attitudes towards these peoples by the majority, and secondly, because of the positive electoral arrangements provided for recognised ethnic groupings. Groups labelled ‘Scheduled Tribes’ are those formerly called ‘tribes’ by the British, points out Peggy Froerer, an anthropologist working in Chhattisgarh. As she notes, “The identification of ‘tribes’ thus involved a relationship between the British concept of a more ‘civilised’ Hindu society, defined by their understanding of the caste system, and the ‘primitive’, wild periphery which dotted the edges of its social and geographical domain. Groups that could not be classified into major caste or religious categories were labelled instead on the basis of the general impression about their physical and socio-cultural isolation from mainstream, caste-bound Indian society.”

  However, there is a broader social and political agenda that involves tribal peoples. Whether it is maternal or child mortality, access to drinking water, income, size of agricultural holdings or educational status, tribal communities lag far behind the general population. A flavour of this larger agenda was the report in the international press in August 2013 of the Dongria Kondh tribe rejecting overwhelmingly the plans by the British multinational mining company Vedanta Resources for an open-pit bauxite mine on their sacred lands. The struggle, supported by a number of British celebrities such as Michael Palin and Joanna Lumley, was seen as an unprecedented triumph for indigenous rights in India. During consultations ordered by the Indian Supreme Court, the Dongria Kondh people argued that the mine would destroy the forests and disrupt the rivers in the Niyamgiri Hills in the state of Orissa. Both the forests and rivers are central to the livelihood and identity of the 8,000-strong tribe. This good news, however, was preceded by the bad news in March of the same year that the central government was removing substantially the need to obtain consent from indigenous people and forest dwellers before losing their lands and forests to industry. On 15th February, the government stated that major ‘linear projects’ such as roads, railways, electricity lines, canal systems and pipelines do not need to obtain consent from affected forest populations before clearing their lands.

  India of course is not alone when reviewing indigenous people’s struggles, especially against mineral multinational companies. A quick review of the media reveals similar struggles in the Chiapas region of Mexico, the Klamath people over water rights in Oregon, USA, illegal logging companies threatening the cave dwellers and their 20,000-year-old ancient cave art in Papua New Guinea, the Maya’s struggle to maintain rights to their rainforest against oil companies, including US Capital Energy and finally, the Musqueam people’s recent victory against the British Columbia Government in Canada over the construction of apartments at a historic village and burial site in the heart of Musqueam traditional, unceded territory. The situation in India, however, seems to attract a disproportionate amount of international media attention. This attention is to be welcomed but little mention is made of the other struggles outside of India. Perhaps one of the reasons is, as a recent report from Human Rights Watch notes, that “the scale of lawlessness that prevails in India’s mining sector is hard to overstate.” Official figures apparently indicate that there were more than 82,000 instances of illegal mining in 2010 alone. The report argues that an even bigger problem than this is “the failure of key regulatory mechanisms that even legal mine operators comply with the law and respect human rights.” Mining and ancestral lands don’t mix easily as the aggressive activities of mining companies such as Vedanta and Posco indicate, and the huge dams of the Narmada and Damodar Valley projects which submerged thousands of Adivasi villages illustrate. The “Proud not Primitive” campaign established recently by Survival International is an attempt to engage with the reality of the situation confronting Adivasi people.

  Most of the tourists I talked to in India were aware to some extent of the Adivasi struggles. Occasionally, particular episodes are reported in the world’s press and contribute to maintaining the long continuing but low profile of these struggles.

  Anyway, largely missing from my discussions with the ‘regular returners’ on where they had been in India was the east coast. The three big Indian states along the eastern coast – Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and to a lesser extent Tamil Nadu – were rarely mentioned. This is reflected to some degree in the guidebooks – less attention is given to these areas, especially the north-eastern coast. In Orissa, one of India’s poorest states, there is another ‘golden triangle’ of Puri, Konark and Bhubaneswar boasting the highest concentration of historical and religious monuments in the country. A few Westerners are visible here but rarely elsewhere. Perhaps the beaches don’t compare with the west coast although Puri’s beaches pull in the crowds from Calcutta. Perhaps the remote, sparsely populated interior or densely forested hills or heat throughout the year put people off. Incidentally in June 2014, the 29th state in India was formed – Telangana. Following many decades of agitation the new state was formed from north-western Andhra Pradesh. Hyderabad is to remain as the capital for both states “for a period of ten years”.

  Further down the south-eastern coast, however, Tamil Nadu is a different proposition. Flat coastal plains give rise to the Eastern Ghats with the ‘blue mountains’ of the Nilgiris providing relief from the heat and hot, dry dusty plains. Famous tea hill stations at ‘snooty’ Ooty and Kodai high up the mountains provide a cool contrast to the coastal heat of southern east and western India. As the country’s second most industrial state – mainly textiles but increasingly mineral ores – the Tamil-speaking population (India’s oldest living language) in Tamil Nadu is the country’s Dravidian Hindu heartland. The great Tamil temples form part of a large network of sacred sites connected by ancient pilgrim routes. A strong nationalist political current is fuelled through the cities of Chennai (or Madras, as it is still commonly called), Madurai and Pondicherry. This is a state with a lot happening. Not surprisingly, it figures regularly in newspaper and media reports – too big, contrary and important to be kept quiet for long although not a major focus for Western tourists.

  Its neighbour on the west coast – Kerala – has by contrast proved a magnet for visitors over many centuries and today is experiencing somewhat of a boom for package visits from the West. All my ‘regular returners’ had been to Kerala, often a few times. It’s not difficult to see why. Stretching 550 kilometres along the coast, the state is divided between the dense forested mountains of the Western Ghats in the east through to humid, lush but narrow coastal plains. Paddy fields and coconut palms
seem to cover any spare opening down on the plains while the same is true with coffee, tea and rubber plantations up on the highlands. Scoring high on most welfare indicators and boasting an enviable literacy rate, the residents of Kerala seem at ease with its influx of foreign tourists. Known for its laid-back pace of life, its cities are smaller than elsewhere in India, and in the main, provide the amenities required by outside tourists in a relaxed and friendly manner. The famed ‘backwaters’ of Kerala, however, are what bring in the visitors from around the world. Stretching 75 kilometres north of Kollam to Cochin up the coast, the perplexing labyrinth of waterways, lakes, canals and rivers, lined thick with tropical greenery, provide the perfect ‘getaway’, as the brochures put it, aboard a houseboat or wooden barge. Local ferries or canoes provide a sample of backwater pleasures without committing to longer periods of stay. Today the ‘houseboat’ industry is a very serious business and, as such, has initiated equally serious ecological problems.