TO THE PROMISED LAND

Last week, a visibly excited chief minister announced before media representatives at the Writers’ Buildings, “Darjeeling matter [is] settled.” Standing next to her were smiling leaders of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha who had just signed with the state government an agreement on the interim arrangement for the administration of the hills. Any consensus leads to happiness, and in the hills, they danced with joy. Not just because they feel that peace will return and issues related to day-to-day life will be addressed but also because they see in the agreement, as assured by the GJM, the first step towards the creation of a separate Gorkhaland. The hill people know that although the state government cannot admit this in public, an important clause in the agreement assures them that Calcutta will not remain a stumbling block for too long.

That clause relates to an examination of the demand that any administrative arrangement for the hills must also hold good for the Nepalese-dominated areas of the Terai and the Dooars. That the state government has even agreed to ‘examine’ the demand marks a major shift from the earlier position that no portion of the plains can be touched. The hill people are being told that the committee to be appointed for the purpose will give a ruling in their favour.

So, like the chief minister, the hills see the issue as settled, if not fully right now then certainly on the point of being so, and in their favour. One wishes one could share their confidence. In the eagerness to have an agreement, a new area of conflict may have opened. How are the adivasis of the Dooars and the Terai going to view this development? Brought from the distant plains of Chhotanagpur by the British to work in the tea gardens centuries ago, they may now be told that they will have to come under the purview of an arrangement dominated by the Nepalese from the hills. Already their leaders have started pointing out that they constitute 75 per cent of the population in the areas being claimed by the GJM, that these areas are part of the Centre’s integrated tribal development project and so they can’t be made to come under the proposed Gorkhaland.

Waiting game

The Gorkhas have the counter argument that they have also helped develop the tea gardens and so they have a legitimate claim on the land. The local Bengalis must also have something to say but are keeping silent at the moment. The current demographic pattern would suggest that even if the GJM has its way, it may land up with some ‘enclaves’ which, as experience since 1947 shows, only create more problems.

The situation is complex and may take quite a while to settle. It may turn more complicated if the Kamtapuris and the protagonists of Greater Cooch Behar choose to surface once again. Perhaps the state government had no option but to agree to examine the demand for territorial expansion since outright rejection would have meant the GJM going back to its old ways.

As things stand, nothing really has been ‘settled’. All that has been achieved is an end — for the time being — to the days of agitation, and the promise of a better future that the GJM is interpreting in its own way. Whether the state government agrees with it is not known. The chief minister has not said anything. Perhaps she is bent on playing the waiting game, and the longer the wait the better it is, for she clearly does not want to commit the government to any position.

As for the GJM leaders, having expressed their faith in the chief minister, they will have problems singing a different tune in the future. That is what is important for the state government, the tourist and the hill resident — as long as the promise of a Gorkhaland is there, everyone is happy.

Courtesy:  TT