Proud to be a Sikkimese: Sikkim Travel, Culture & Local Heritage

February 17, 1976 - Mother Teresa visited Sikkim

 Can anyone add more on this....... "Gangtok was once called the city of three hills and three white women: the American wife of the Chogyal on one hill, the British wife of the resident commissioner on the other, and the Belgian wife of the chief minister on the third hill. These wives, local gossip said, ran Sikkim and made much of the history of the times."

Extracted from Pakistan Defence India’s “Chief Executive” in Gangtok wrote: “Sikkim’s merger was necessary for Indian national interest. And we worked to that end. Maybe if the Chogyal had been smarter and played his cards better, it wouldn’t have turned out the way it did.” It is also said that the real battle was not between the Chogyal and Kazi Lendup Dorji but between their wives. On one side was Queen Hope Cook, the American wife of the Chogyal and on the other was the Belgian wife of the Kazi, Elisa-Maria Standford. “This was a proxy war between the American and the Belgian,” says former chief minister BB Gurung. But there was a third woman involved: Indira Gandhi in New Delhi. Chogyal Palden met the 24-year-old New Yorker Hope Cook in Darjeeling in 1963 and married her. For Cook, this was a dream come true: to become the queen of an independent kingdom in Shangrila. She started taking the message of Sikkimese independence to the youth, and the allegations started flying thic...

Source:The Life and Times of a Plantsman in the Sikkim Himalayas

Elisa Maria, wife of the first Chief Minister of Sikkim, L D. Kazi with former Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi Photo shared by Binoy, Singtam

This article i found in a site Bhutan Times and i believe it is worth going for anyone interested to know more about Sikkim. India and Kazi Lhendup murdered Sikkim The last Prime Minister of the Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim , Kazi Lhendup Dorji, met an ignominious death. On the northern corner of West Bengal state of India , there is a hill station-- Kalimpong, which once hosted celebrities from all over the world. The hill town, where most of the settlers are of Nepali origin, no longer retains its old charm. But until a few weeks ago the last prime minister of a country—that has lost its independence—used to live here. Kazi Lhendup Dorji, who died on 28 July this year at the ripe old age of 103, had played a pivotal role in the merger of Sikkim into India . Dorji is seen as a ‘traitor’ in the contemporary history. He lived, and died, with the same ignominy. “Everybody accuses me of selling the country. Even if it is true, should I alone be blamed?” he asked me, when I met him in Kalim...