Gorkhas divided over autonomy accord

By Sudha Ramachandran/BANGALORE - A recent accord providing greater autonomy to India's Gorkha community could calm the restive Darjeeling hills in the Himalayas. While many are hoping it will bring much-awaited peace and long-overdue development to the region, others believe the the agreement sows the seeds of future discord.

The tripartite accord was signed by the Indian government, the West Bengal government and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), the main party of the Gorkhas.

It provides for a Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), an elected body, which will manage with a "greater degree of autonomy" the affairs of the Gorkhas through control of 59


 
government departments including public works, social welfare, education, water resources and health.

An ethnic group originally from Nepal, the Gorkhas migrated to India during colonial rule. They constitute 90% of the population in the Darjeeling hills. Located in the Bengali-dominated state of West Bengal, Darjeeling, which nestles in the eastern Himalayas, is known for its scenic beauty and tea gardens.

The Darjeeling hills have been ablaze with agitations for several decades. The demand for a Gorkhasthan comprising Nepal, Darjeeling and Sikkim predates Indian independence in 1947.

However, it was in the 1980s that calls for a separate state of Gorkhaland within India - which would be carved out of the state of West Bengal - gathered momentum under the leadership of the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) and its chief, Subhash Ghising.

The GNLF's other demands were inclusion of the Nepali/Gorkhali language in the Indian constitution's Eighth Schedule, the granting of citizenship to pre-1950 settlers, abrogation of Article 7 of the 1950 India-Nepal Treaty of Friendship and the creation of a separate Gorkha regiment in the Indian Army. The Gorkha agitations, which involved frequent bandhs (closures) and rasta rokos (road blockades) paralyzed Darjeeling's tourism and tea gardens. The violence left around 1,200 dead.

Then in August 1988, Ghising made peace with Delhi. He agreed to give up the demand for statehood and accepted limited autonomy under a new Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), which he then led for 20 years.

However, the limited autonomy experiment was a failure, with the DGHC and the West Bengal government locked in confrontation for the past two decades. While Ghising accused the state government of withholding funds for the hill council, the latter blamed him for not accounting for funds given. The West Bengal government's obstructionist approach and Ghising's dictatorial style of functioning, poor governance and corruption combined to undermine the DGHC's work.

By 2005, the hills resounded with calls for separation from West Bengal. This time it was Ghising's one-time deputy Bimal Gurung, who raised the banner of revolt not only against governments in Delhi and Kolkata but Ghising's leadership as well. He formed the GJM and usurped leadership of the movement for Gorkhaland.

Gurung was helped by a surge in Gorkha pride in 2007 when a local boy, a Gorkha by the name Prashant Tamang entered the finals of the television talent show, "Indian Idol". Frenzied campaigning for him contributed to heightening Gorkha identity and pride.

An unpleasant incident in this period also fueled anti-India sentiment among the Gorkhas. A radio jockey in Delhi commented on FM radio that "shopkeepers will now have to make their own security arrangements as Gorkhas have taken to singing" - a reference to Gorkhas normally working as "chowkidars" or guards in Indian cities. Perceived in Darjeeling as a slur, the derogatory comment triggered violent anti-India riots in the hills.

In the two years since, the hills have witnessed endless closures and blockades.

With West Bengal's Left Front government reluctant to give more power to the Gorkhas and the GJM and other Gorkha organizations and parties digging in their heels, the deadlock seemed unbreakable. However, the Left Front's defeat in assembly elections in May and the Trinamool Congress coming to power in the state paved the way for a compromise.

The outcome was the tripartite agreement signed on Monday.

While the Gorkhas' statehood demand remains unmet, they will get more out of the 2011 accord than they did from the 1988 agreement. The hill council that came into being in 1988 consisted of 42 members, 28 of whom were elected and 14 nominated. The 2011 agreement provides for a 50-member Territorial Authority, 45 of whom will be elected. The GTA will control 50 departments, unlike the 19 given to the hill council 22 years ago.

The federal government has promised huge funds and the new West Bengal government has identified a raft of development projects the GTA can implement.

While the people of the Darjeeling hills are hoping that the accord and the GTA will bring development to their poverty-ridden region and end the agitations that have disrupted their lives, many fear the protests have been merely put on pause and that the movement for a separate state will gather momentum again soon.

The accord has come under fire from the opposition Left Front, which sees the accord as paving the way for the Darjeeling Hills separation from the rest of West Bengal.

This has been strongly refuted by West Bengal's Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. "There will be no division of Bengal," she said at a public rally in Siliguri soon after signing the agreement. "Darjeeling is the heart of West Bengal. We will stay together."

Few are convinced. Many Gorkhas have opposed the accord and accuse Gurung of selling out. They can be expected to revive the agitation for a separate state in the coming months.

Gorkha separatists are already holding up the inclusion of the word "Gorkhaland" in the nomenclature of the new body as a victory.

"For the first time, the word Gorkhaland is in the official records," the GJM's general-secretary Roshan Giri has pointed out. "This is a step forward for us in our movement for a separate state." While admitting that his party had not achieved its goal of a separate state yet, "there is little doubt," he said, "that by adding the word to the name of the new set-up, the West Bengal government has tacitly admitted that our demand for a separate state is legitimate. It is also an admission by the government that it recognizes all that we have been saying about our separate identity."

Already Gurung has warned that if a separate Telengana state is carved out of the existing Andhra Pradesh, he would "immediately raise the statehood [for Gorkhaland] issue".

The statehood demand is driven not just by the distinct identity of the Gorkhas but by the lack of development of the region, despite the fact that the Darjeeling hills are a major source of revenue. Activists and economists have drawn attention to ‘Gorkhaland's' economic viability. Tourism, tea and timber are giant revenue earners.

There are high stakes involved in conceding the demand for Gorkhaland. Security analysts have pointed out that a separate Gorkha state within India could encourage demands for ‘Greater Nepal'. This was a demand that Ghising raised in 1992, when his credibility dipped.

The Gorkhaland agitation gives Delhi sleepless nights because of the territory involved.

According to the GJM "Gorkhaland" includes not just the Darjeeling Hills but Siliguri too, which is part of Darjeeling district, as well as other areas in the plains and the Dooars.

The region is of great strategic importance. It is contiguous to Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh and very close to India's disputed border with China. The Siliguri Corridor or Chicken's Neck as it is often referred to - the narrow sliver of land that links India to its northeastern region - falls in territory claimed as "Gorkhaland". It is through the Siliguri corridor that India's only overland links to the insurgency-wracked northeast run. National Highway 31-A, the only road link with Sikkim and thus the Sino-Indian boundary runs through Darjeeling.

An armed insurgency in the Darjeeling district is the last thing that Delhi wants.

A tribal uprising in Naxalbari in Siliguri in 1967 spread like wild fire through West Bengal, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. This was the forerunner of the powerful Maoist or Naxalite movement in India. Indian Maoists have extended support now for a separate Gorkhaland.

The signing of an accord provides Delhi with some relief. It symbolizes the triumph of the politics of compromise. While Delhi and Kolkata conceded the Gorkhaland nomenclature, they have been able to put a lid on the agitations in the hills. But non-Gorkhas in the plains that come under the GTA's writ are already up in arms.

The accord must give start delivering soon and not just for the Gorkhas. There is trouble brewing already in Darjeeling's tea gardens.

~Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore. She can be reached at sudha98@hotmail.com
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