GENIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE - A democratically elected GTA will increase political pressure

The ink was not dry on last Monday’s Darjeeling, sorry Gorkhaland, accord when Bimal Gurung reiterated that statehood remains his Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s “ultimate goal”. Despite Mamata Banerjee’s assurance that “there is nothing to fear, Bengal is not being divided”, one was reminded of Rajiv Gandhi’s warning on the eve of another acclaimed agreement, “Don’t the leaders of the CPI(M) know that regional autonomy is the stepping stone to another state?” All the areas of the old Assam state identified for autonomy under the Constitution’s sixth schedule are now separate states.

This is not necessarily to object to statehood for Darjeeling district and its environs. It is to wonder whether in their eagerness to claim a major triumph for Trinamul in its first few weeks in office, either Banerjee or Palaniappan Chidambaram thought things through before the deed was done. Or is it precisely because they are so acutely aware of the logical consequences of their action that the principals did not commit themselves by putting pen to paper? Curiously, the signatories were junior non-political representatives.

Given India’s size and diversity, decentralization may not be a bad thing. Even many subdivisions can repeat, in relation to the state capital, the old Chinese saying that the mountains are high and the emperor far away. Intimate governance can mean detailed and sustained attention to local problems. The 11 districts of Vidarbha, rich in mineral and forest wealth, yet accounting for 70 per cent of the more than 32,000 farmers who killed themselves in Maharashtra, in a decade is a glaring example. Telangana is another where the locals are convinced that a regime based in distant Hyderabad can never do them justice.

It might be said — and possibly rightly — that statehood demands are often spearheaded by venal politicians whose fingers are itching to dip into the lavish administrative and development budgets that are expected to flesh out the higher status. By that same token, those who resist change and insist on the status quo are also often impelled by no higher motive than a refusal to share the loot. Banerjee has been extraordinarily generous. Going by Rajiv Gandhi’s calculation that only 17 paise out of every development rupee reaches the target — two years ago, Montek Singh Ahluwalia reduced it by a paise — the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration bosses can expect to siphon off a handsome Rs 498 crore.

But I am not discussing the venality that has become a way of life in India. I am discussing the agreement and what strikes me as odd about it. One is the lack of historical awareness in our rulers, the ignorance both of precedents they have inherited and precedents they are setting. Then, there are the intriguing names. Pintail, where the signing took place, seems a curious name for a Bengali village unless the native pronunciation is very different from the English spelling. But nothing can explain the mystifying decision to add “land” to the ancient Nepalese principality of Gorkha whose king, Prithvi Narayan Shah, conquered other neighbouring principalities to create the kingdom of Nepal in 1769, and foist it on an Indian district.

Even if the Left Front had already sanctioned the term, Gorkhaland, its retention by Banerjee signifies her approval. That has allowed Gurung to score over Subash Ghising whose Gorkha National Liberation Front achieved only the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. But that doesn’t make Darjeeling either a district in Nepal or a Gorkha homeland. Darjeeling belonged to Sikkim (despite Nepalese invasions) until 1835 when a mix of force and trickery persuaded Chogyal Tsugphud Namgyal to lease it to the East India Company for a sanatorium for British officers. Sikkim never relinquished its title to the territory for which it was paid an annual rent, and in 1947 submitted a 10-page memorandum (drawn up by a distinguished Bengali jurist, D.M. Sen) to New Delhi arguing that Britain’s withdrawal automatically nullified the transfer and restored the status quo ante. It’s a different matter that the last thing today’s Sikkimese want is to be swamped by the Darjeeling Nepalese.

Gorkhaland implies the Nepalese are sons of the soil, like Nagas in Nagaland. That is not so. It’s like Singapore’s Chinese majority renaming the island Chineseland or Chinatown. The British imported the Nepalese to blast mountains, lay roads, build houses, plant tea and because “these hereditary enemies of Tibet” were the best guarantee of British Indian security, wrote the ethnographer and civil servant, H.H. Risley. “Hinduism will assuredly cast out Buddhism, and the praying-wheel of the lama will give place to the sacrificial implements of the Brahman. The land will follow the creed.” Darjeeling’s original inhabitants were the Lepchas; then came the Bhutiyas, also from Tibet. Some hold that even the Magar, Tamang, Rai, Limbu, Tsong and Sherpa peoples are not Nepalese. The plains have a different set of genuinely adivasi tribes; there’s also a substantial number of Bengali residents and Marwari traders. So, though the Nepalese will be the majority, the GTA will not be exclusively Nepalese. The Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association’s protest warns of other ethnic demands, especially in the Terai and Dooars regions that the GTA claims. The demographic mix calls for sensitive handling rather than dismissal with Banerjee’s Bangali-Kangali jibe.

Ghising tried to solve what he called the identity problem of the nine or 10 million ethnic Nepalese in India with an equivalent of Israel’s Law of Return for Jews worldwide. He aroused secessionist fears by also approaching the British government and more seriously trying to establish links with what was then the kingdom of Nepal. Jyoti Basu dismissed his GNLF as “divisive, anti-people, anti-national and anti-state”. Perhaps Ghising was as confused as the communists. For in criticizing the GNLF, Basu forgot that the undivided Communist Party of India sent a memorial to the Constituent Assembly asking that “the three contiguous areas of Darjeeling district, southern Sikkim and Nepal be formed into one single zone to be called ‘Gorkhastan’”. Idealists might argue the CPI was acting on Lenin’s condemnation of Tsarist Russia as “the prison-house of nationalities”. It’s more likely that with little understanding of the constitutional status of Sikkim and Nepal and no clear concept of ‘Gorkhastan’ in mind, the party was fishing in ethnic waters for revolutionary support.

Gurung seems less given to flights of fancy than Ghising. Or, he may be a cleverer strategist who has capitalized on Banerjee’s yearning for laurels. The main difference between his GTA and Ghising’s DGHC seems to be the stronger elective element. While 28 of the 42 DGHC councillors were to be elected and 14 nominated by the state government, all 45 GTA councillors are to be elected. The Central and West Bengal governments may try to ensure that fair elections are held within the stipulated six months, but the hills have suffered too much violence for coercion and intimidation to be ruled out.

The Centre’s Rs 600-crore package would have merited a more unequivocal welcome if it had been only for development and not reward for what might be an untenable political surrender. Even optimum use of 10 times the promised amount will not turn a notional Gorkhaland into Switzerland. But honest and mature handling can in time remove many of the economic grievances that partly account for political unrest. In the short term, a successful GTA might even provide a precedent for other restive regions. But democracy can only encourage the political pressures of which Gurung warns. A representative regime will be emboldened to press the claims that were first articulated in 1907 when the Hillmens’ Association of Darjeeling asked for a separate administrative unit. If the GTA is suborned and silenced as the DGHC was, it, too, will in time be overthrown in another coup. Once released, the genie of ethnic politics is not easily bottled again.

~TT