Dhimal is an indigenous community of the Terai. They mainly reside in Morang and Jhapa districts of Nepal and Darjeeling district of West Bengal, India. Several scholars both in India and Nepal have referred to Dhimals as a 'forgotten ethnic group'. They are scions of the Kachari lineage, which includes Bodos, Dimasas, Tiprasas, Rabhas, Tiwas, Sonowals and many others.They are respected as the "First Citizen" of Damak municipality.
Colonial ethnographers of British India identified the Dhimals as an aboriginal tribe and categorized them as non-Aryan. Their facial features, language and religious practices are close to those of the Limbu people and koch of Terai and of the northern hills. They also show the characteristic habits, quick temper and aggressiveness of the Limbu, koch Rajbanshi and Kirati people. However, they have their own language, culture and customs.
Dhimals consider themselves of Kirati descent. They consider the Limbu and Koch people of the hills as their brethren.
According to Hodgson the Mech, Bodo, koch and Dhimal tribes are of the same race; however, comparison of language does not support so close a connection, he added. He stated that "… but it is difficult to suppose the Bodo and Dhimal languages other than primitive". He also stated that the Dhimals are "… nomadic cultivators of wild. For ages transcending memory or tradition, they have passed beyond the savage or hunter state, and also beyond the herdsman's state, and have advanced to the third or agricultural grade of social progress, but so as to indicate a not entirely broken connection with the precedent condition of things … They never cultivate the same field beyond the second year, or remain in the same village beyond from four to six years". He again identified the barter system for the few things which they require and do not produce themselves.
Religion and culture
Their animistic religion is very close to the Kirant religion. They worship nature and other household gods. Hodgson identified their religion as the religion of nature, or rather, the natural religion of man have neither temple nor idol; their cultivation as shifting cultivation; and "this race assure him that they once had chiefs when they dwelt as a united people in Morang".
The religion, as identified by Hodgson, is very much different from Hinduism as they have neither temples nor idols. "Altogether, their religion belongs to the same primitive era as their habits and manners", Hodgson added.
Dhimal population
According to the 2011 census in Nepal, Dhimal population was about 12 thousand. In India, they reside in 16 villages, namely Naxalbari and Hatighisha in Darjeeling district, West Bengal.
Occupation
Dhimals are cultivators, although the frequencies of labourers, including agricultural labourers or to some extent tea garden labourers, may not be overlooked. These days the Indian Dhimals are exclusively concentrated at Hatighisha and Maniram Gram Panchayat of Naxalbari Police Station under Darjeeling district of West Bengal, India. However, sporadic occurrences of Dhimal population may have seen outside the above-said areas but within Darjeeling district of West Bengal. Even this diminutive group sometimes misleads as vanishing races by some amateurs. Their counterpart of Nepal, with whom they have a 0marital relation and belongs to the same (biological) population, have better numerical strength, socio-economic and educational attainment of their own. The Dhimals of Nepal receive much importance in various writings of Nepali scholars. On the other hand, the Indian Dhimals have been neglected by the government and others in any field of development. Anthropological documents on the Indian Dhimal is yet to be received; some sporadic documents b0y amateurs and some field-based study by trained scholars in a part of Dhimal population may be available but all of them cover social-cultural-linguistics aspects only, and physical or demographic data on the entire population are literally absent.
Dhimal women are good at weaving and have their unique dress .
GARJAN KUMAR MALLICK IS FIGHTING FOR TRIBAL STATUS FOR INDIAN DHIMAL FOR SEVERAL YEARS ..... YET NOT ...
