What the name means
Duar means door or gateway in Bengali, Assamese and Hindi, from the same root as the Sanskrit dvara. For centuries the word described the passes where rivers break out of the Bhutan hills onto the plain, and where traders, pilgrims and armies went up and down. By the usual count there were eighteen: eleven on the Bengal side, between the Teesta and the Sankosh, and seven in Assam, east of the Sankosh. The English spelling Dooars came from British officials writing the word as they heard it.
The name stuck to the land as well as the passes. A strip of forest, grassland and river channels, roughly 30 km deep, ran along the foot of the hills below each door. Whoever held the door could tax what came through it, and whoever held the plain below could feed an army. That is the whole story of the Dooars before tea, told in a sentence.
Bhutan, Cooch Behar and the Raikats
From the 17th century Bhutan's rulers held most of the duars and the plains below them, administered by local officers and fortified at points such as Buxa, Daling and Chamurchi. To the south lay the Koch kingdom of Cooch Behar and the Raikats of Baikunthapur, a branch of the Koch royal family with their seat near present-day Jalpaiguri. The three powers raided, married, taxed and quarrelled over the same villages for more than a century.
The people who actually lived in the plain were mostly Rajbanshi farmers and the forest communities of the foothills: the Mech, the Rabha, the Toto near Totopara and the Dukpa, Bhutanese-speaking villagers who still live around Buxa. The East India Company first came into the story in 1772–73, when it sent troops to help Cooch Behar against Bhutan and briefly occupied Buxa. A peace treaty in 1774 handed the fort back, and the Company's later interest in the region was trade with Tibet.
The Duar War of 1864–65
By the 1860s British officials in Bengal were complaining of raids from the Bhutanese duars into British territory, and Bhutan was in a period of internal conflict. In 1864 a mission under Ashley Eden travelled to Bhutan to settle the frontier. It went badly: Eden later reported that he had been insulted and pressured into signing an agreement, which the government in Calcutta repudiated.
War was declared in November 1864. British and Indian columns advanced through several of the passes and took Bhutanese forts, including Buxa, Daling above present-day Gorubathan and Dewangiri in Assam. Bhutanese forces counter-attacked early in 1865 and retook Dewangiri for a time before the British recovered it. The war ended with the Treaty of Sinchula, signed on 11 November 1865. Bhutan ceded the Bengal and Assam duars and the hills east of the Teesta around present-day Kalimpong, and the British agreed to pay Bhutan an annual allowance.
In 1869 the western part of the new territory, the Western Duars, was joined to Jalpaiguri to form a district. Forest officers arrived to mark out reserves for timber: Gorumara and Chapramari were declared reserved forests in 1895. The plain that Bhutan had taxed lightly was now surveyed, mapped and leased.
A local planner turns it into a route for your dates.
Tea, the railway and the people who came
The first tea garden in the Dooars opened at Gazaldoba in 1874. Planters, many of them already working in Darjeeling and Assam, leased forest land along the foothills, cleared it and planted tea. Within a few decades gardens stretched from the Teesta to the Sankosh, and towns such as Malbazar, Nagrakata, Banarhat, Birpara and Kalchini grew around them. The Bengal Dooars Railway, built in the 1890s, carried tea chests to the river and rail networks of Bengal.
Clearing forest and plucking tea needed far more workers than the thinly populated plain could supply. Recruiters known as sardars brought families from the Chota Nagpur plateau, in what is now Jharkhand and western Odisha: Oraon, Munda, Kharia, Santal and other Adivasi peoples. Nepali families came down from the hills. The lines where they lived became villages, and their link language, Sadri, is still spoken across the gardens today.
Their descendants are the majority in many garden areas. The Karam festival, celebrated in the month of Bhadra with dancing around branches of the karam tree, came with them from Chota Nagpur. So did a long history of low wages and hard labour. In the early 2000s several gardens closed and workers' families faced hunger, a reminder that the green slopes visitors photograph are also a workplace with its own politics.
Buxa Fort: prison, then refuge
Buxa Fort, a Bhutanese stronghold rebuilt in stone by the British, stands at 867 m on the old Buxa Duar. Its remoteness made it useful as a prison. From 1930 to 1937 it was a detention camp under the Bengal Criminal Law Amendment Act, holding young revolutionaries of the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar groups without trial. In 1931 the detainees sent greetings to Rabindranath Tagore for his 70th birthday, and he replied with a poem addressed to them; the memorial at the fort records it. Buxa was used as a jail again in 1942–47 and 1949–51.
In 1959, after the Tibetan uprising, monks who had escaped through Bhutan were settled in the old camp, at a place they called Buxa Chogar. Many came from Drepung, Sera, Ganden and other monasteries of Lhasa. They studied and debated in the barracks for about a decade, in heat and damp that left many sick, before moving to Bylakuppe and Mundgod in Karnataka by 1971, where the great monasteries were re-founded. Today the fort is a ruin inside the Buxa Tiger Reserve, reached by a 5 km stone path from Santalabari.
Forests to parks: a timeline
What survived the axe of the timber reserves and the tea planters became the protected areas of today. By the early 20th century hunting and the clearing of grassland for tea and farms had pushed the one-horned rhino in north Bengal close to the edge. Jaldapara was set aside in 1941 specifically to save it, and Gorumara followed in 1949, when it covered only about 7 km². Recovery was slow and uneven, but the March 2025 count put Jaldapara's rhinos at about 330 and Gorumara's at about 60, second in India only to Assam. These dates help place what you see on a visit.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1772–74 | East India Company troops take Buxa briefly; returned to Bhutan by treaty |
| 1864 | Ashley Eden's mission to Bhutan; war declared in November |
| 11 November 1865 | Treaty of Sinchula: Bhutan cedes the duars |
| 1869 | Western Duars joined to Jalpaiguri district |
| 1874 | First Dooars tea garden at Gazaldoba |
| 1895 | Gorumara and Chapramari declared reserved forests |
| 1930–37 | Buxa Fort used as a detention camp for revolutionaries |
| 1941 | Jaldapara declared a sanctuary to protect the rhino |
| 1949 | Gorumara becomes a wildlife sanctuary |
| 1959–c.1971 | Tibetan monks live at Buxa Chogar |
| 1983 | Buxa Tiger Reserve created |
| 1992 and 2014 | Gorumara and Jaldapara become national parks |
| 2014 | Alipurduar district separated from Jalpaiguri |
Where to see this history today
Walk to Buxa Fort and read the memorial; stay a night with a Dukpa family in Buxa village. Look for the ruins of Daling fort above Gorubathan if you are in Samsing. On a Chilapata safari, ask your guide to stop at Nalraja Garh, the brick ruins of an older frontier fort. Drive along any garden road between Malbazar and Birpara at 7 am, when pluckers walk out to the bushes, and visit a haat, the weekly market, where garden families, Rajbanshi farmers and Bhutanese traders still meet. Ask before you photograph people, and before you enter garden lines or factories.
Questions people ask
Good to know
What does Dooars mean?
Dooars, or Duars, means doors or gateways. It refers to the passes from the Bengal and Assam plains into the Bhutan hills, eighteen by the usual count, and to the strip of plains and forest below them. Bhutan held this land until the British annexed it after the Duar War of 1864–65.
What was the Duar War?
A war between British India and Bhutan, declared in November 1864 after Ashley Eden's failed mission to Bhutan. British columns took Bhutanese forts such as Buxa and Daling, Bhutan counter-attacked at Dewangiri, and the war ended with the Treaty of Sinchula on 11 November 1865, under which Bhutan ceded the duars for an annual allowance.
When did tea come to the Dooars?
The first Dooars tea garden opened at Gazaldoba in 1874, nine years after the British annexed the region. Gardens spread quickly along the foothills between the Teesta and the Sankosh, and the Bengal Dooars Railway was built in the 1890s to carry the tea out. Most gardens today make CTC tea for strong, milky chai.
Who are the tea garden workers of the Dooars?
Many are descendants of Oraon, Munda, Kharia, Santal and other Adivasi families recruited from the Chota Nagpur plateau from the late 19th century, alongside Nepali families from the hills. Their shared language, Sadri, is spoken across the gardens, and festivals such as Karam came with them from Chota Nagpur.
Why is Buxa Fort famous?
Buxa Fort guarded a Bhutanese pass, was taken by the British in 1865 and then served as a detention camp for Bengal revolutionaries from 1930 to 1937, and a jail at other times until 1951. From 1959 to about 1971 it sheltered Tibetan monks who had fled through Bhutan before they moved to Karnataka.
Did Tagore write a poem for the Buxa prisoners?
Yes. In 1931 the detainees at Buxa sent Rabindranath Tagore greetings for his 70th birthday, and he replied with a poem for them. The exchange is recorded on the memorial at the fort. We have not quoted the poem here; read it at the fort itself, at the end of the 5 km walk from Santalabari.
Who lived in the Dooars before the British?
Rajbanshi farmers in the plains, forest communities such as the Mech, Rabha, Toto and Dukpa in the foothills, and officials of Bhutan, which held the duars. The Koch kings of Cooch Behar and the Raikats of Baikunthapur contested the plains with Bhutan through the 17th and 18th centuries.
Can we see Bhutanese forts in the Dooars?
Yes, as ruins. Buxa Fort, rebuilt by the British, is a 5 km walk from Santalabari in Buxa Tiger Reserve. The remains of Daling fort lie above Gorubathan, west of Samsing. The brick ruins of Nalraja Garh in the Chilapata forest are older and their builders less certain; guides show them on safaris.
When did the Dooars parks become protected?
Jaldapara became a sanctuary in 1941 to protect the one-horned rhino, Gorumara a sanctuary in 1949, and Buxa a tiger reserve in 1983. Gorumara became a national park in 1992 and Jaldapara in 2014. Both had been reserved forests since the British timber surveys of the 1890s.