“The elements of this brand are fiery speeches, militant posturing, bloodshed and prolonged shutdowns. At the end they settle for a council, an autonomous body or a setup that is far short of a state,” says Chhetri, now in his forties, as he hurries to hitchhike a lift back home after the July 18 ceremony to sign the Darjeeling accord with the government.
The strongly built Shawan, who describes himself as a lawaris, is an unemployed man whose only occupation in those two decades has been to agitate for a separate state, first with Subash Ghising’s Gorkha National Liberation Front and then with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha's Bimal Gurung.
“I am deeply frustrated,” he says after the government’s accord with the GJM. “Is this what we have been fighting for the past 44 months? See what they have settled for, a Gorkhaland Territorial Administration. Just wait, another phase of an agitation has to begin soon,” he fumes.
It proves almost prophetic. The very next day, the GJM leadership would call an impromptu meeting at the same venue on the outskirts of Siliguri to explain in public every clause of the accord and to announce the GJM’s plans. It would be aimed at containing a surge of protests within the GJM, for Shawan’s voice is only one among several.
Plain territory
The usually gentle, smiling Bimal Gurung, GJM president, assumes a militant attitude at the June 19 meeting, reverting to the statehood demand and laying down the roadmap ahead. His deputy, Roshan Giri, translates every word of the agreement from English into Nepali, trying to convince people of the hills what it will bring them. Shrewdly, Gurung harps on the basic difference between Ghising’s DGHC and the GJM’s Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, calling it a step forward from where the movement has been all these years, because of what it says about possibly including parts of the plains.
He announces they signed the agreement only because of an assurance on inclusion of Gorkha-dominated Dooars and Terai regions under the GTA’s jurisdiction. A nine-member committee will make a recommendation within six months on the demand for inclusion of nearly 400 mouzas from the twin regions in the GTA. It is only after the recommendation, Gurung says, that the GTA will take final shape. In essence, the “new territory” is linked to the GTA’s formation through elections. Gurung exhorts every Gorkha in the Dooars and the Terai to hoist the GJM flag atop his or her house or establishment. In what can be termed the second phase of Gurung’s movement, it will serve as a visual demonstration of the community’s consolidation and numerical strength.
Roshan Giri, too, harps on this aspect of new Gorkha-dominated “territory” coming under the GTA. “The memorandum of agreement says there will be 45 elected members to the GTA. The DGHC had provisions for only 28 elected members. Where will these new members come from? They will come from the added areas in the Dooars and the Terai,” says Giri, to loud applause.
Ground zero
While Gurung and his men dissect the agreement, in the not-too-distant Dooars and Terai regions, Adivasi leaders are huddled together to devise a strategy against the looming spectre of Gorkha rule. Pesi Kerekatta, settled for long in the Terai, says, “We have no problem even if they get a separate state with the three hill subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong. But why stretch into territory that for generations have belonged to us?”
The Adivasis have decided to spurn any invitation to send a representative to the boundary demarcation committee — an eventuality the state government was already expecting — on the ground that they have no stake in the GTA. But a stronger response is likely to emerge when the committee gets down to the business of physical verification of areas and its residents. The Adivasis, originally migrant labourers brought by the British centuries ago, are said to constitute over half the population there.
Ominous signs
If one considers “territory” to be another word for “land”, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, despite her optimism, her love for the people of the hills and her search for peace, has stepped onto a potentially explosive path. No one perhaps knows better than Mamata the power and the pitfalls of a land movement, in this case a movement over “territory”. A territorial survey, post-agreement, will pose her biggest challenge if local sentiments are any indication. Intelligence inputs of the police predict volatile repercussions, a simmering within various non-Gorkha communities, should the survey begin. These fears are backed by Adivasi leaders who, pleading anonymity, say they will prevent any survey in their territory; teams will be driven out.
The threats sound menacingly identical to those heard during the Nandigram and Singur agitations. Senior officials in the administration, however, rule out major resistance on the ground that the Adivasis and other non-Gorkha communities are not consolidated. There are splintered Adivasi groups who are vulneable to the lure of money and can switch loyalties, officials say.
Other groups
Apart from the Adivasis, there are other ethnic minorities worried about what the agreement will mean to them. There are signs of an imminent backlash from these communities, even though it may not be a consolidated movement. Attempts are under way to force a new camaraderie of resistance among these groups such as Janachetana, Bangla O Bangla Bhasa Bachao Committee and Amra Bengalee.
Between granting statehood to Darjeeling with three hill subdivisions and slicing new areas out of the plains for the GTA, the latter is being seen as the larger threat. Among those who think this will be catastrophic are many civil society groups and intellectuals.
Janachetana, for example, has filed a writ of mandamus in the Calcutta High Court, demanding a scrutiny and weeding out of names of Gorkhas of Nepali origin from the voter list. Dr D P Kar, Janachetana spokesman, says: “It is unfortunate that people who have migrated from other countries are being empowered with political powers.” He cites an “abnormal growth rate” of Gorkhas: “Between 1951 and 2001, the rate of growth of Nepalis has been a phenomenal 70,075.16 per cent as compared to the average population growth rate of 184.19 per cent in the country.” Dr Kar says between 1957 and 1999, voters in Darjeeling parliamentary constituency grew by 9,41,000, compared with an increase of 3,41,000 in Cooch Behar — susceptible to infiltration from Bangladesh.
Ananda Gopal Ghosh, professor of history in North Bengal University, feels there is lack of transparency about the proposed survey. What will be the cutoff year for a population count in the region, he asks. Between the 1980s and now there has been a serious influx of Nepalese from the Northeast and from Bhutan and Nepal, most of them having settled in the Dooars, Ghosh says. "I see the signs of an earthquake in what is happening."
Gorkhaland pressure
The Bharatiya Gorkha Parishad, a pressure lobby working for statehood, pushes its demand by citing exactly the examples given by Dr Kar of Janachetana. For them, the GTA will not do. In the monsoon session of Parliament, the BGP plans to petition the Prime Minister, the UPA chairperson and other political leaders in Delhi pointing to a growing sense of alienation for Gorkhas.
“We are too often dubbed foreigners and settlers from Nepal,” he says. The movement for a separate statehood is not “Darjeeling-centric and does not concern the Gorkhas settled in Darjeeling alone. For generations, Gorkhas have been settled in different parts of the country like the Northeast, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and even in Kashmir. Quite too often their lives as Indians have been threatened. In Assam for instance, a large number of Gorkhas are classified as ‘doubtful voters’ just as ‘Bengalee Muslims’ are..."
Such groups cite also the example of a Gorkha Nagar in Jammu and Kashmir, set up after the 1947-48 war against Pakistan when Gorkhas were massacred. The families of those massacred and their widows had stayed back. They still require permanent residency certificates to stay there despite such extreme sacrifices, a BGP leader points out.
They say Gorkhas’ identity as Indians is an issue close to the hearts of Gorkhas settled all over the country, not just in Darjeeling and its surrounding areas. They say accepting the Gorkha Territorial Administration does not fulfil such aspirations and Gorkhas remain focused on the single issue of a separate state. If, with the passage of time, this turns out to be a “surrender” for an autonomous body, there will be others to take up the Gorkhaland issue, says Dil Kumari Bhaandari of the BGP, also a former MP.
Reminder
One woman closely watching the developments is Bharati Tamang, wife of Madan Tamang who was murdered in Darjeeling on May 21, 2010. “My husband was brutally murdered, precisely for exposing that the GJM leadership was ready to accept an interim setup. My husband was not in favour of such a setup. Now it is evident that they have accepted the interim setup over my husband’s coffin and thereby have betrayed the Indian Gorkhas. A year after his killing, it has been proved that what he feared was true,” she says.
The original brand
Darjeeling tea
Dating back to the British era, tea is still the hills’ most famous brand, 80 per cent of it exported, and the best varieties fetching as high as Rs 5,000-6,000 a kg and a few even Rs 12,000. The 87 gardens produce around 12 million kg and employ about 65,000. Now the industry faces competition from abroad; a switchover to bio and organic farming has reduced production though prices have risen. P T Sherpa, a leader of the GJM's trade union front, says “the tea industry has been spared prolonged bandhs and strikes that it had to undergo during Subash Ghising's agitation”. Tea tourism remains an idea that has never taken off.
Toy train
The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, symbol of tourism in the region, is a 2-ft narrow gauge line, 86 km from New Jalpaiguri at an elevation of 328 ft to Darjeeling at 7,218 ft. Built between 1879 and 1881, it is now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Four diesel locomotives handle most of the scheduled services but vintage, British-built, B-class steam engines are on the daily Kurseong-Darjeeling return service. Services have been reduced considerably at present from what they used to be. The most popular one is the joyride from Darjeeling to Batasia Loop. Partha Roy, director, Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, says they run daily services for tourists and chartered service too are also available on demand and prior booking.
Jesuit schools
Successive agitations have exacted a toll on the internationally famed boarding schools, some considering a shift and some closing down altogether. The 50-odd schools draw around 15,000 students, mostly from well-to-do families in various parts of India and countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand and South Korea. Father Kinley Tshering of North Point School, Darjeeling, acknowledges many students migrated during shutdowns in the past. This year, though, applications have risen 15-20 per cent, because of anticipated peace following the accord. Father Lawrence of St Augustine School, Kalimpong, says, “Peace in the hills will be a boon to educational institutions.”
~IndianExpress
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