New beginning

It is just as well that the parties to the tripartite agreement on Darjeeling’s autonomy went in with their eyes open. While the West Bengal chief minister and the leader of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha stuck to their expected margins of rhetoric, the fact that could not be missed was the awareness of reality and each other’s compulsions that they displayed. That is always a safe premise to begin on, and keeps politics within the bounds of reason and maximalist impulses at bay. Mamata Banerjee unequivocally declared that Bengal will not be divided, and that the agreement is not a precursor to division. Bimal Gurung, acknow-ledging Banerjee’s constituency in the plains, emphasised that the GJM had not given up its demand for statehood. In fact, in a concession to the GJM, that the demand stays alive was written into the memorandum of agreement. Otherwise, what the hills have gained this time round is immensely bigger than what they had acquired 23 years earlier.
Most importantly, Gurung seems to have understood the responsibility now placed on the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, running which will be distinctly different from spearheading an agitation. While Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram warmly warned the GJM about this, the GTA’s object lesson in how not to do things remains the Subash Ghising-run Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council — in particular, Ghising’s failure to account for nearly Rs 80 crore and to do any work. Moreover, the DGHC got very little compared to the sums the GTA will receive from the Centre and the state; nor did the DGHC have the power, on paper, to spend the money any which way it pleased. The much larger GTA, with executive and financial but no legislative powers, is getting 59 departments in comparison to the DGHC’s 19. That is a lot of opportunity to begin the turnaround in the hills with, although little can happen without the oversight and cooperation of Kolkata and New Delhi. 
nce the state assembly passes the bill establishing the GTA and elections to the body are held, Gurung and his colleagues will have to prove their ability to govern and deliver on the socio-economic revival the Darjeeling hills need — that includes infrastructure, commerce, the tea industry, health and education. The territorial issue is still pending and whatever happens in faraway Telangana is likely to frame politics in north Bengal. But, for now, as Chidambaram, Banerjee and Gurung noted, there is peace in Darjeeling — long sought and long denied to its people. Irrespective of the discordant notes, there is harmony enough to make a new beginning.
~IE