Darjeeling, West Bengal, India

🇮🇳 Darjeeling is a city and municipality in the Eastern Himalayas in India, lying at an elevation of 2,100 metres (7,000 ft) in the northernmost region of the state of West Bengal. It is noted for its tea industry, scenic views of the world's third-highest mountain Kangchenjunga, and a narrow-gauge mountain railway, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Darjeeling is the headquarters of the Darjeeling district which has a partially autonomous status called Gorkhaland Territorial Administration within the state of West Bengal. It is also a popular tourist destination in India.

To the west of Darjeeling lies the easternmost province of Nepal, to the east the Kingdom of Bhutan, to the north the Indian state of Sikkim, and farther north the Tibet Autonomous Region region of China. Bangladesh lies to the south and south-east, and most of the state of West Bengal lies to the south and south-west, connected to the Darjeeling region by a narrow tract. Kangchenjunga, the world's third-highest mountain, rises to the north and is prominently visible on clear days.

In the early 19th century, during East India Company rule in India, Darjeeling was identified as a potential summer retreat for British officials, soldiers and their families. The narrow mountain ridge was leased from the Kingdom of Sikkim, and eventually annexed to British India. Experimentation with growing tea on the slopes below Darjeeling was highly successful. Thousands of labourers were recruited chiefly from Nepal to clear the forests, build European-style cottages and work in the tea plantations. The widespread deforestation displaced the indigenous peoples. Residential schools were established in and around Darjeeling for the education of children of the domiciled British in India. By the late-19th century, a novel narrow-gauge mountain railway, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, was bringing summer residents into the town and carrying a freight of tea out for export to the world. After India's independence in 1947, as the British left Darjeeling, its cottages were purchased by wealthy Indians from the plains and its tea plantations by out-of-town Indian business owners and conglomerates.

Darjeeling's population today is constituted largely of the descendants of the indigenous and immigrant labourers that were employed in the original development of the town. Although their common language, the Nepali language, has been given official recognition at the state and federal levels in India, the recognition has created little meaningful employment for the language's speakers nor has it increased their ability to have a significantly greater say in their political affairs. The tea industry and tourism are the mainstays of the town's economy. Deforestation in the region after India's independence has caused environmental damage, affecting the perennial springs that supply the town's water. The population of Darjeeling meanwhile has exploded over the years, and unregulated construction, traffic congestion and water shortages are common. Many young locals, educated in government schools, have taken to migrating out for the lack of jobs matching their skills. Like out-migrants from other regions of north-eastern India, they have been subjected to discrimination and racism in some Indian cities.

Darjeeling's culture is highly cosmopolitan—a result of diverse ethnic groups intermixing and evolving away from their historical roots. The region's indigenous cuisine is rich in fermented foods and beverages. Tourists have flocked to Darjeeling since the mid-19th century. In 1999, after an international campaign for its support, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. In 2005, Darjeeling tea was given geographical indication by the World Trade Organization as much for the protection of the brand as for the development of the region that produces it.

Economy A 2017 study described the Darjeeling area as entirely dependent on the production of tea and the inflow of tourists to create employment.

Tea Darjeeling tea is produced on plantations in which a few leaves on each tea bush are plucked by women. During the tea bush's dormancy period in the short winter season, it is pruned by the women to stimulate growth the following season. Unlike China, where the tea bush grew into a tree, the early British planters devised these means to monocrop tea in tightly packed hedges on vast estates. In the plantation factories, men operate machines to ferment, dry, and package the normally short-lived green tea leaves.

After India's independence in 1947, many of Darjeeling's governmental and economic arrangements remained unchanged. When British planters auctioned off their estates, they were bought by Indians from the plains or corporations from elsewhere in India. Darjeeling's labour force had long consisted of workers recruited from Nepal. Mid-19th-century British ethnologists had commended Nepalese for their step farming and other forms of settled agriculture in the Himalayan foothills. They were contrasted with Darjeeling's native population of the Lepcha at the time of British annexation, who practised "shifting agriculture". Planters believed that if allotted a house and a yard in which to grow vegetables and fruit, the Nepalis would be more inclined to stay. The arrangement, which lasted during the colonial period, was formalized in independent India's Plantations Labour Act, 1951. As of 2017, workers maintain their two or three-bedroom homes which they do not own, become attached to their upkeep, and eventually hope to retire in them when an adult child who also works on the plantation inherits the house.

In 2017, the average basic daily wage (that is, without employee benefits) of a Darjeeling tea garden worker was Rupees 144.60 (US$2.22) per day. With benefits, it was Rupees 277.10 (US$4.26) per day. Comparatively, Darjeeling's tea estate workers were paid less in 2017 than tea estate workers in several southern Indian states. The auction price of Darjeeling tea for 2017 was comparatively higher.

A 2017 study found that some 60% of the plantation labour jobs in the Darjeeling area were held by women. The protection and economic development of the tea labour force was one of the motivations for India's enactment of the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999. According to a 2017 study, "India has pursued the recognition of iconic brands, not only to create market share but also to recognise the value of the GI system to encourage development in poor, rural regions with high unemployment rates. This is consistent with the broad WTO objective to encourage trade liberalisation in developing countries to reduce poverty". Darjeeling tea was given GI recognition in Europe in spite of some European Union member nations objecting to the use of the indication for blended tea. It was recognised in US Geographical Indication mark, "DARJEELING, Registration No. 1,632,726".

Tea is produced in the Darjeeling hills and farther below in two different forms. Orthodox tea looks like the twisted and dried version of the green leaves on the bushes.[o] The Darjeeling sub-division of the Darjeeling hills had 46 tea estates in 2017, producing mostly orthodox tea. This is commonly exported and is some of the world's most expensive. In the crush, tear, curl, or CTC version, which is commonly grown in the Kurseong sub-division (with 29 tea estates), and the Kalimpong (with 6), the tea leaves are mechanically manipulated, fired, and turned into tiny hard pellets that look like instant coffee. Cheaply available, and boiled with milk and sugar, when CTC tea was introduced into the Indian market in the early 1950s, it turned India into a nation of tea drinkers.

The area of cultivation of Darjeeling tea increased from 16,569 hectares (in 1951) to a high of 20,065 (in 1990) and dropped to 17,820 (in 2014) according to a 2021 study. There were 99 tea estates in 1961; these increased until 1990 (when 102 were recorded) but dropped to 83 by 1995 and to 81 by 2014. The 20% drop from 1990 to 1995 was attributed in the study to India's economic liberalisation which came into force in the very early 1990s. A 2017 study similarly reported the Indian tea industry to have been adversely affected by price drops after India's economic liberalisation in the 1990s. Darjeeling tea garden owners invested their surpluses in more profitable industries elsewhere, causing a decline in productivity in the local tea industry. The Tea Board of India estimated 7,010,000 kilograms (15,450,000 lb) of Darjeeling tea was produced in 2021; this constitutes about 0.5% of total 1,343,060,000 kilograms (2.96094×109 lb) produced in India.

Tourist Industry Darjeeling has two peak tourism seasons, September to November and April to May. A 2014 study suggested that domestic tourism is the foundation of the town's vacation business. The Chowrasta is a popular shopping and gathering area where a tourist might get their picture taken dressed in colourful and rustic local clothes. The tea plantations below are particularly visited by foreign tourists. Old bungalows in some plantations have been converted to deluxe lodgings in which rooms rent out dearly by any global standard. Some tourists hold dear the escape to a peaceful, unspoilt, and picturesque landscape evoked in Satyajit Ray's 1962-film Kanchenjungha.

Darjeeling had become an important tourist destination as early as 1860. Since India's economic liberalisation in 1991, tourism in Darjeeling has become cheaper, and Darjeeling, once considered a luxury destination, has become accessible to mass tourism. A 2016 study recorded the tourist influx into Darjeeling town between 2009 and 2014 as ranging from a low of 243,255 individuals in the 2010–2011 season to a high of 488,675 in 2012–2013; the large majority were domestic tourists, with foreign tourists never comprising more than 35,000 annual visitors.

Darjeeling can be reached by the narrow-gauge Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR) which travels a route 88 km (55 mi) long from Siliguri. Pulled by steam locomotives, it moves at speeds of between 20 km (12 mi) and 25 km (16 mi) per hour. Although the service was begun in the 19th century to move humans and freight efficiently, its primary clients today are tourists who are availing themselves of the opportunity to experience the mobilities of travel of a bygone era. After an international and national campaign for its support, the railway was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in December 1999 at the 23rd Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee held in Morocco. In Notes on Defining the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway: World Heritage Property, Unpublished manuscript. The DHR Archive, Kurseong, 2005, K. Weise had written:

The railway begins on the plains of West Bengal and soon begins climbing through a remnant of lowland jungle, including stands of teak. As the railway climbs, so the flora changes and its upper sections are dominated by enormous Himalayan pines, which in misty weather give a surreal quality to the landscape. It frequently hugs the ages of hillsides with drops, often of thousands of feet, to the plains and valleys below. Towering over the entire scene is the perennially snow-covered bulk of Kanchenjungha. … From Kurseong the railway offers frequent views of this stupendous mountain, which by Ghoom dominates the entire landscape.

In a 1999 study, it was thought the tourist influx into Darjeeling had been adversely affected by the political instability in the region, including agitations in the 1980s. According to a 2018 study, tourism in Darjeeling is limited to a small area of the town so its effect on local employment is inadequate for alleviating Darjeeling's high unemployment rate. According to the author, "The majority of the employees and almost all of the top ranking officers in West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation are Bengalis; locals generally get employed as photographers, drivers, and guides".