The long-term lease of Sailabash, once the summer retreat of the Raja of Digapatia, which is now in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, by the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) has ignited a debate over heritage protection and the “privatisation” of the public property in Darjeeling.
Binay Tamang, the former chairman of the board of administrators that ran the GTA, has issued a written statement, saying Sailabash was handed over to a private company in Siliguri on a 66-year lease at an annual fee of ₹1.98 crore.
“Sailabash is a historic site and a public asset of Darjeeling. Handing it over to a private company for 66 years is equivalent to selling the rights of the people for pennies…. A 66-year lease is in essence privatisation,” said Tamang.
Norden Sherpa, the GTA Sabha member in charge of tourism, did not take calls from The Telegraph to elicit a response to the charge.
Sources in the GTA said a tender had been called for the lease as an earlier project to develop a hotel management institute had remained incomplete, and the property had been lying in disuse after the palace had been dismantled in 2016.
“The new lessee will develop it into a tourism property with an investment of ₹200 crore. The plot of five acres will belong to the GTA and the property will be transferred to the hill body after the lease period is over,” said a source.
Many rue the loss of a heritage structure of Darjeeling.
In his book, A Concise History of The Darjeeling District Since 1835, which was published in 1922, E.C. Dozey, a writer and historian, said the building had been set up on land that was once owned by Capt J. Masson, the superintendent of Tukvar tea estate, by the “Digapatia Rajah”.
The retreat near Jalapahar was earlier called Girivilash, and the name was changed to Sailabash after Independence.
The Late Nayan Subba, who had chronicled various buildings in the Darjeeling hills, had said Raja Pramatha Nath Rai Bahadur had founded Girivilash, whose garden was laid out by a German floriculturist and horticulturist, Morgenstern. The property had 12 gardeners.
Nobody could say exactly when the building had been constructed. But it is believed that the retreat was built in the last decade of the 19th century.
“Girivilash was a favourite place for the British governors of Bengal.... The British army took over the palace in 1942. Later on, it was acquired by the government. It also served as a Tibetan school for a while. The palace has lost the historical grandeur of Girivilash,” Subba had written.
According to Subba, the colonial building had an attic with miniature gables and a small dome, and an all-weather glazed rotunda with small square windows in classical style. There was a tennis court as well.
“Raja Pramadanath Roy occupied the front suite on the ground floor, which included the library, with its precious screens of velvet and ornate wooden pelmets,” wrote Subba.
The front suite of the upper storey with the snow view rooms was “for the rani”.
“It was beautifully furnished with a curtained brass cot and a chandelier. There was a huge grandfather clock, which indicated the days of the month and the full moon day (Ekadashi). On the ground floor were the drawing room, dining room, tash khana (card room) and the billiards room,” Subba said.
Despite being in a dilapidated state, Sailabash was still a landmark in Darjeeling and functioned as a guesthouse after Independence. Once the building was taken over by the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council in 1988, the office of the hill body’s vice-chairman was housed there. The building had been lying vacant till it was razed in 2016.
Bharat Prakash Rai, convener of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Darjeeling chapter), said: “How foolish can we be to dismantle such structures in the name of development. Could it not have been repaired? We have lost a piece of history, and that is very sad.”
The five-acre plot in which the Sailabash is located also had Annapurna and Kafal guesthouses, along with a pond built by the DGHC.