Impact of the Colonial Government of India in Sikkim: A Brief Overview of Sikkimese Feudalism during Colonial Era

Abstract

The peasants, throughout the globe, are the basis of agricultural production and state revenues. They have always played a crucial part for the progress of human society through their hard labour and struggle by producing agricultural items. Supplementary, by paying tax and rent of the land and agricultural products they make a greater contribution for the economic prosperity of a country. Being the nucleus of human development, the peasants who are always in a larger number have never been treated at par by the feudal society. Rather they are harassed and humiliated because of their submissive manner and scaring nature. The pricks, pains and the wounds the peasants have been subjected to in the past are simply irreparable which are very much similar throughout the globe. Their service to mankind in general and their Landlords or the Kings in particular, the burden of taxation upon them, the yoke of forced labour on their shoulders share a similar nature and feature throughout the earth.

This paper highlights the transformation in agrarian structure of Sikkim after the advent of British. The interest of British did not lay in Sikkim rather they were trying to have their upper hand in the Tibetan trade. However, a shortest and easiest way to Tibet lay via Sikkim and this is how by adopting various policies they had been able to convert Sikkim into a buffer state. With the appointment of British Political Officer, the status of Sikkimese Kings was greatly reduced and they began to be treated as the Subordinates of the Political Officers. Now, having all powers in their hands the Political Officers began to rule over the country according to their tastes and choices. The British Political Officers created estates and divided them among the lessees and encouraged Nepali settlement in the Kingdom that ultimately paved its way for a hardcore feudalism in the erstwhile Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim.

For a comprehensive understanding this paper has been divided into six sections highlighting various aspects of Sikkimese feudalism. These sections basically deal with the adaptation of lessee by the British and creation of several Elakhas by uprooting the convention and usages of the Kingdom of Sikkim. It further deals with the new organism of taxation and ownership of land that was initiated by the British. The paper has also attempted to peep inside the administrative machineries of feudal Sikkim along with various forms of forced labourers adopted by the British and patronized by the Sikkimese feudal elites.