Lal Bahadur Dewan

Lal Bahadur Dewan
Born	(1931-02-20) February 20, 1931 Mirik,Darjeeling, India
Other names	President Friends of Trees Forum
Residence	Krishna Nagar, Mirik, Darjeeling
Occupation	Environmentalist/ Social Worker
Website	fotforum.com

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Lal Bahadur Dewan (hindi: लाल बहादुर देवान : born on 20/02/1931) took birth in a poor family at Murmah Tea Estate, Mirik, Darjeeling, West Bengal . He was the second youngest of the six member family consisting of his father a Supervisory staff member of the same tea state, his mother home maker, two sisters and one brother. He was admitted to the Village Primary School, Murmah Tea Estate (Scots Mission Upper Primary) in 1936 where he completed his primary education till 1944. Thereafter he was sent to Middle English School at Mirik which was run by the Church of Scotland for two years and finally completed his High School from St. Alphonsus High School, Kurseong in 1949. He could not further his education due to his low family income and joined Mirik Jr, High School, earlier known as Mirik Middle English School) as a teacher on 16th march 1951. There he worked for just 3 and a half months thereafter he resigned from the School and joined Murmah Tea Garden as clerk, from where he retired as a manager on 1st January 1993. As a social worker and environmentalist he contributed a lot to the society he initiated the first community football ground of Murmah. He established the Gram Sudhar Library at Murmah Tea estate, he initiated and motivated people for performing arts like staging drama for educational and entertainment purpose in his region. He constituted Murmah Khel Kood Samit (Murmah Sports Organisation) under which several sports events was organized. He established Murma Prem Sunder Junior High School in 1976 and played a key role in establishment of Mirik College. He constituted Friends of Trees Forum and planted more than 1.5 lakh trees on wastelands of Murmah Tea Estate and motivated people of the village and beyond to plant millions of trees on different places. He served as director of West Bengal Tea Development Corporation from 2002 to 2006 and became the only Gorkha tea planter to hold the post. He initiated research tourism in herbs, flora and fauna of Darjeeling Hills.

Biography

Early life

Family Photograph of Mr. L. B. Dewan

Lal Bahadur Dewan took birth as the third child in an economically weak family of 4 persons including 2 siblings on 20th February 1931. His father was a middle ranking staff member of Murmah Tea Garden in Mirik and his mother was a home maker. With the help of the cultivation they did on the land they lived on and the salary of his father, the family could barely fulfil their basic needs. During the Grate Bengal Famine of 1943 the family underwent extreme economic crisis. Though rice was available at the confectioner shop, but they were not capable enough to purchase it. The family had to live on American popcorn for several days. During this period Mr Dewan got fed up with the American Corn and did not have food for three days. Consequently he could not attend his school on the third day. His father was extremely grieved when he came to know about this and bought some rice on credit from the shop. It was then the family could have a good meal after several days of food crisis.

Post Marriage Life

Mr Dewan and Miss Manharsh Rai first met in the Saraswati Puja organized at Murmh Tea Estate in 1953. This was the first ever organized Saraswati Pooja event in entire Mirik region of which he was the organiser. It was nothing like Love at First sight. They kept on meeting afterwards and gradually the relationship resulted in their marriage. Their marriage was delayed for one year due to the death of Mr Dewan’s mother. Finally it took place when he was 24 years of age on 5th of June 1955. They spent a happy married life till 2005 when Mrs Manharsh Dewan expired on 3rd June 2005 just 2 days short of their 50th wedding anniversary. They had three sons namely 1. Pranay Kumar Dewan ( Retired from State Public Sector undertaking, and living at Silligudi, West Bengal) 2. Devendra Dewan (living at UAE) 3. Prativa Raj Dewan ( An executive in Tea Industry) and a daughter named Gayatri Dewan Sherpa, who is a social worker and is living at Mirik supporting Mr Dewan in his social endeavours. Mr Dewan is miraculously active still and is currently living at Mirik. He depends upon the little income from the rentals that he gets from his properties at Mirik just enough for his personal expenses and expenditures required to further the aims and objectives of Friend of Trees Forum.

Education

Mr. Dewan was admitted in Infant section of his village school i.e Murmah Tea State Scottish Mission Upper Primary school in 1936 and studied there up to 4th standard. In 1943 he joined the only middle school of Mirik which was known as Middle English School and was run by Church Of Scotland. He had to walk to his school on hill terrain through the tea gardens and villages of Mirik for around 5-6 KM every day till 1944. In 1945 he took admission in St. Alphonsus High English School, Kurseong. Mr Dewan’s family was not rich enough to bear the cost of hostel which was Rs. 20 at that time, So Father Miachel Wery, a Roman Catholic priest and the Principal of the school gave him a relief of rupees 5. This was a great relief to his parents. He finally passed his high school in 1949. At that time there were no higher secondary education board either at state or national level. His high school was under Calcutta (now Kolkata) University. He could not pursue his study further, because there were no such institution available for higher studies in the vicinity and his family could not afford the same.

Professional Life

Initially he wanted to join Indian army, but his father didn’t allow him to do so because he served British Indian Army and had faced the hardship of First World War. Two years after passing out from his high school Mr Dewan was appointed as a teacher in Mirik Junior High School (earlier Mirik Middle English School) on a monthly salary of Rs 45.00. He joined the school on 16th March 1951 and drew his first salary of Rs 22 and 8annas (not in use today). His income was a great relief to his family. He worked as a teacher for just three and a half months and resigned from the school as he had an opportunity to join Murmah Tea Garden as a clerk. The salary at Murmah Tea garden was a little less than that of school but had other perks like Ration, Tea, firewood, medicines, housing etc included, made it a better option at that time. In 1962 the Murma Tea State was undertaken by Dvenport & Co. (an Indian company) from Darjeeling Consolidated Tea Company Ltd (a British owned company) and he was promoted to supervisory grade providing him with vast opportunities for skill development in management. In 1975 he was promoted as assistant manager of Murmah Tea Estate. Mr Dewan retired as a manager from the same tea garden on 1st January 1993 with no Pension but an annuity of Rs 534.00 per month without any rivision throughout from LIC ofIndia, a central government undertaking.

Life as a Social Worker

Pre Retirement

The social life of Mr. Dewan started when he came back to his father’s house after his high school. He started staging dramas for educational, social awareness and cultural development of society. He staged his first drama in 1949. During that period Major E. C. Holmes was appointed as the Manager of Murma Tea State. Major Holmes had to visit daily and monitor the progress of construction work that was concerned with building of a hut near Mr Devan’s residence. This was to shift the family of a deceased employee of Murma Tea State due to Tuberculosis. At that time it was a custom to shift the family to a new place and abandon the old one to save other family members from the contagious infection of Tuberculosis. During this period Mr Dewan due to his communication skills and knowledge of English language came close to Major Holmes and successfully built a good rapport with him. During his school time Mr. Dewan was a good football player but when he came back to his father’s house he could not find any place to play football nearby. He anyhow managed to convince Major Holmes for building a football ground in the village. This was his first contribution to the society. He then formed Murma Khel Kood Samity (Murma Sports Organization) in 1960 and started organising sports events on the ground. Mr Basant Thulung one of his companions participated very actively in the Samity and assisted Mr Dewan in sports event organisations. Major Holmes appointed Mr. Dewan as a Clerk in his garden office in 1951. During later periods of 1951 Mr. Dewan established Murma Gram Sudhar Liberary with the permission and support of Major Holmes for the students and children of that region. Till 1970 Tea Garden Managements had good influence over the educational institutions of entire District, but gradually it was all taken over by the state government. So by the time he became the assistant manager of Murma Tea State in 1975 the powers were already shifted from their hands to the government machineries. Having no power on the available schooling facilities in Murma Tea State he decided to open a new Junior High school at Murma Tea Estate and started mobilising parents of that region and any how convinced them all for the initiative. In 1976 a Kachha House (Thatch house) was built at one corner of the football ground and the junior high school was started with 40 students in class 5th. It took around 8 years to be developed into a full-fledged government recognized junior high school. Dhanay Darzi and his wife Lwang Maya donated their 2400 sq ft land for the school and hence it was named Murma Prem Sunder Junior High School in memory of their deceased child Prem Sunder who was a student of the Murma Primary School. At the time of posting of this article Mr L. B. Dewan is the only surviving Founder member of now Murma Prem Sunder Higher Secondary School’s Managing committee. Before the affiliation of the school he collaborated with Ravindra Nath High School Soureni Bazar for the board exams of the students. In 1991 he constituted Friends of Trees Forum in Murma Tea Estate. It was later relocated to Mirik under the President ship of Father Vincent (Principal of Don Bosco School ) in 1993. The objective of the forum was to document and further his work that he kept doing since 1978. Before his retirement in 1993 he planted 1.52 lakh trees on 110 acres spanning over 49 waste lands of Murma Tea Garden . Apart from waste lands he also planted thousands of trees on tea plantation areas. Further he motivated the community and provided millions of saplings to the community during his service period of which the exact data is not available.

Post Retirement

After his retirement he had to survive on the minor income he earned from renting his properties at Mirik. Though this income was just enough for his subsistence, he kept on working for his social aspirations. He took over the responsibilities of Mirik Citizens Committee (established in 1972 By Mr B. B. Lama and Mr.Sagar B Subba) in July 1993 as secretary. The main objective of this committee was to establish a degree college as well as to establish a Girls High School in Mirik. It was the time of Hon’ble Shri Jyoti Basu as the Chief Minister of West Bengal. He was advised to form a Degree college Organising Committee by Minister of State Shri Dawa Lama. This committee was constituted in February 1996 under president-ship of Mr J P Gurung and Secretary-ship of Mr Dewan. It took them 4 long years to get just the permission for opening a degree college. On 5th March 2000 Mr Asok Bhhatacharya the MLA and state cabinet minister announced the constitution of Mirik College. The government of West Bengal did not provide any financial aid for building the college initially. Till October 2002 they had to bear the recurring expenses of the college from donations and the fees of students. An old dilapidated building of Agriculture Marketing Cooperative Society was a great relief for them provided by the District magistrate of Darjeeling for running the classes. The college was affiliated with North Bengal University Silliguri. With this announcement of the Degree College, the Organising Committee was dissolved and the Mirik College Managing Committee was formed. This committee was chaired by District Magistrate of Darjeeling (DM Anil Verma at that time) as President and Sub Divisional Officer Kurseong (SDO Rajiv Kumar IAS) as working president. Mr Dewan again was elected as secretary of the managing committee and worked there till 2004, when he himself took retirement from his duties as secretary and demit the post. He took over the duties of Friend of Trees Forum [FOT-Forum] as president after the retirement of Father Vincent 1996, but he could fully dedicate his time to FOT Forum after being relieved from Mirik College in 2004. In 2007 he again became active in college for inclusion of NCC. In 2002 he was also nominated and made the director of West Bengal Tea Development Corporation (Calcutta). He was the first Gorkha tea planter to become the director of the corporation. During his President ship FOT-Forum developed several national and international associations and worked for state and central government in the region. He started Himalayan Herbs Research Tourism in Darjeeling Hills in 2002. He is still working for promotion of scientific research on Himalayan herbs in the region .

References

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