Highly objectionable: Bista on ‘foreigner’ tag on Sikkimese Nepalis

GANGTOK: Darjeeling MP and national BJP spokesperson Raju Bista has taken “strongest exception” to the “foreigner” tag on Sikkimese Nepali community and expressed his solidarity to the people of Sikkim in seeking these offensive opinions expunged from the recent Supreme Court’s judgement.

“I stand with the people of Sikkim in seeking these offensive opinion expunged from the order. The entire Gorkha community across India stands with them. I have taken strongest exception to this, and I will be bringing up this issue in the appropriate forum. The era of Gorkhas being levelled as "foreigners" and discriminated against is long gone. We will not tolerate any such infringement and baseless assertions on our community anymore,” said Bista in a press statement on Sunday.

The Darjeeling MP maintained that the reference of Sikkimese Nepalis as ‘persons of foreign origin’ by the Supreme Court in its January 13 verdict is “highly objectionable and does great disservice to the Gorkha community of Sikkim.” It alienates them, labels them as 'foreigners', and has the potential to create widespread ethnic and communal disturbances in a sensitive border State like Sikkim, he said.

Bista shared that from ancient times to the merger of Sikkim in India in 1975, the Gorkhas have been an integral and important part of the history, polity and society of Sikkim. Out of the six Chief Ministers of Sikkim so far, five belong to the ethnically Gorkha community, including P.S Tamang (Golay), the current Chief Minister of Sikkim, he pointed out.

“Yet, the Supreme Court thought it was wise to label a whole group of people as "foreigners". It is this humiliation meted out from the highest of offices across the nation that enables the persecution Gorkhas have had to face across India. As history is our witness, the Gorkhas have had to bear the brunt of ethnic strife in many parts of India, from where they have been forced to flee after being labelled as 'foreigners'. The Bhumiputra movement in North East India between 1975-1999 saw over 100,000 Gorkhas being evicted from their ancestral lands. This persecution has continued to date, Gorkhas from Darjeeling too have being labelled as 'foreigners' every time we have demanded our constitutional rights,” said the Darjeeling MP.

I am most fearful that the careless words used by the highest court in the land, can very well be made to be the basis for further discrimination and ethnic cleansing of Gorkhas in the coming days, said Bista.