'Bangla bhag hochchhe na.... Darjeeling is the heart of West Bengal. We will stay together — Mamata Banerjee'

HEART & HEAD DEAL Development hope for hills, unity for plains

Siliguri, July 18: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today handed Darjeeling a deal far more attractive than the one sealed 23 years ago and uttered what the plains wanted to hear. “There will be no division of Bengal (Bangla bhag hochchhe na). Darjeeling is not outside West Bengal. It is the heart of West Bengal. We will stay together,” the chief minister told a meeting at Pintail in Siliguri where a tripartite agreement was signed to set up an autonomous body called the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA). She made the announcement in the presence of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha president Bimal Gurung, Union home minister P. Chidambaram and Darjeeling MP Jaswant Singh, besides a host of her own ministers. The signatories to the memorandum of agreement were Bengal home secretary G.D. Gautama, Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri and Union home ministry joint secretary K.K. Pathak. Mamata’s listeners were mostly Gorkhas but she was also reassuring a larger audience in the state that the agreement was not a precursor to another division of Bengal but a harbinger of peace for a region unsettled by renewed unrest over the past four years. The violent agitation in the 1980s had ended in 1988 after the then Jyoti Basu government signed an agreement with Gorkha leader Subash Ghisingh, who spent a lonely day today in Jalpaiguri. Chidambaram, too, strummed the unity string. “What is India if it is not a mosaic of many races, languages, religions and yet we are one? The area under the GTA, too, has a plural society. This new administration must respect the plurality of the area,” Chidambaram said. Morcha unfazed The Morcha, whose leader Gurung was also sharing the stage with Mamata, appeared to have taken the chief minister’s assertion against a separate Gorkhaland state in its stride. “The chief minister has to say these things,” a Morcha leader said. “She can’t be standing in the plains (Siliguri) and saying that she supports the demand for Gorkhaland. We are very happy with the GTA and there will now be peace in the hills.” The Morcha leader pointed out that just as his party would have to keep alive its slogan of a Gorkhaland state, the parties in the plains would continue to oppose it. In fact, the three-way pact signed today has taken care to mention twice that the Morcha has agreed to the setting up of the GTA “while not dropping their demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland”. Telangana risk The only potential flashpoint, according to the Morcha leader who preferred not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject, will be the grant of statehood to Telangana. “If Telangana gets statehood, our hands will be tied,” the Morcha leader said. “We will have no option other than to revive our statehood movement.” Such an unexpected element was injected in December 2009 when the Centre suggested that it was not averse to exploring the possibility of forming a Telangana state. The turmoil that followed scuppered a deal that was taking shape among the Centre, state and the Morcha. Chidambaram, who had made the Telangana announcement that fateful winter night two years ago, today reached out to the hills and sought to hold the Morcha accountable. “I have a word of advice for my good friends Bimal Gurung and Roshan Giri. There is a stupendous task ahead of rebuilding the area brick by brick. The state government and the Centre will hold your hand, support you. Here is the opportunity to prove that you have the capacity to govern and deliver,” Chidambaram said. The Union home minister also borrowed Mamata’s favourite slogan. “Parivartan, the word is common throughout India though pronounced differently in Bengal, Darjeeling, Delhi and Kanyakumari. It means change, a transformation for a better tomorrow,” Chidambaram said. On his way back to Delhi, Chidambaram’s flight was forced to return to Bagdogra because of inclement weather — the reason the signing ceremony was held in Pintail and not Darjeeling. However, the second attempt was successful and the home minister reached the capital this evening. Thrust on projects The Morcha leadership said it would now concentrate on bringing stability and peace to the hills to “give back” something to the people for supporting the party’s movement so far. The Centre has promised funds and Mamata listed a raft of “development projects” the new authority can implement. The projects include schemes to draw tourists, many of who were forced to look for alternative holiday spots because of the agitation. If development was the theme, politics too scripted a role. Accusing “some people” of “playing politics” with the hills, Mamata stressed that Siliguri and Darjeeling were “like sisters” and that bond should not be broken. “There are groups which create a rift between the people of the hills and the plains, between Rajbangshis and Bengalis. This will not go on. Banglar mati durjoy ghati, jene rakho durbritto (the soil of Bengal is impregnable, the villains should remember),” she said. Coinage roots in Left Without naming the CPM, she criticised the erstwhile ruling party for playing politics over the name “Gorkhaland Territorial Administration”. Mentioning a specific date, she said it was the previous Left Front government that had first agreed to the inclusion of “Gorkhaland” in the name of the new administrative body. “Some people are playing politics with the name. What is the problem? In a meeting held on August 17, 2010, between the Centre, state and the Morcha leaders, the name ‘Gorkhaland Regional Authority’ was settled. This was done about a year ago but didn’t succeed because they didn’t want it to. We have only changed the word ‘regional’ to ‘territorial’. If there is peace in the hills, the plains will also be peaceful,” Mamata said. The chief minister took a swipe at those who are “spreading the canard” that setting up a committee to look into the Morcha’s demand for inclusion of the Gorkha-populated areas of the Dooars and Terai was a step towards bifurcation of the state. “So what if a committee has been formed? Why create confusion? Those who don’t want the problem to be solved are trying to create disturbance. For 35 years you did nothing, now remain quiet. Darjeeling will become Switzerland,” she said. Gurung urged the state government to make the right decision on the demand for including the areas from the Terai and the Dooars in the GTA. “The previous government didn’t do anything. Now we expect that the committee that will look into the inclusion of areas from the Dooars and the Terai will pay attention to the demand and the government will take the right decision,” Gurung said. Morcha supporters from the hills, the Terai and the Dooars came to Siliguri. While 5,000 could make it to the venue, another 10,000 waited on the road linking the hills of Darjeeling with the plains.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY VIVEK CHHETRI