Identifications, State Categorizations, and Religious Changes among Sikkimese Gurungs

This chapter explores the conditions of recent religious transformations in Sikkim using the case study of Gurung village religious practices, looking in particular at how they have changed in relation to ethnic activism focusing on claims for Scheduled Tribe status. It highlights the complexity of the interactions leading to these transformations, which are not limited to a negotiation between the state and the Gurungs, but include power relations within the ethnic group, in particular between religious and political activists, and are nourished by people’s mobility between Nepal and India. These interactions give ground to the promotion of a so-called ‘pure’ form of Buddhism among Gurung, that took precedence over a more ‘eclectic’ or ‘polytropic’ religious form that arose from old Gurung religious practitioners’ mobility between Nepal and Sikkim. Ethnic activists’ endeavour to strengthen ethnic boundaries also increases the compartmentalization of religious practices and lead to the re-composition of religious hierarchies.