Back to Gorkha identity: Decoding the politics over Darjeeling

Identity as Indian citizens and the fundamental right of the Gorkhas to represent themselves is at the heart of the 2021 elections in the five key constituencies of Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong, Matigara-Naxalbari and Phansidawa. The issues have been framed in different ways over the years, but the basics, revolving around how best to define and describe regional aspirations have remained the same.

The key to all elections in the hills, that is, in the three subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kurseong, Kalimpong since the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council Accord was signed in 1988 and the first election was held thereafter in 1989 is who has the right to represent the people. The contest in 2021 may look like a straight fight in the three constituencies between the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, but the autonomy of the people in these constituencies and their absolute right to decide on who will be candidates is manifest in the geography that is under the Gorkha Territorial Administration, the successor entity to the DGHC.

The subtext or maybe it is the text in elections in the three hill constituencies is that all parties other than local and organically grown parties are perceived as outsiders in the geography of Darjeeling, the borders of which are defined by the areas that fall within the jurisdiction of the Gorkha Territorial Administration, the successor entity to the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council set up after the Tripartite accord was signed in 1988 and the first election was held in 1989.

This is so, even for the BJP. If there is one place in West Bengal that can be unhesitatingly described as a bastion of the BJP, then it is Darjeeling, where the party has won in every parliamentary election since 2009. The parliamentary seat is currently represented by Raju Bista, an ethnic Gorkha originally from Manipur from the BJP as a Member of Parliament, but that does not entitle the party to directly contest in the three hill constituencies of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong. It is the endorsement of the once formidable, but now weak Gorkha National Liberation Front and the tiny Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists that gives the BJP the local legitimacy it must have to contest on its own symbol in this election.

 

For exactly the same reason, the Trinamool Congress has backed two factions of the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha, one led by Bimal Gurung and the other by Anit Thapa and Binoy Tamang and stayed out of the contest in the three hill constituencies though it is contesting on its own symbol in the two other constituencies — Matigara-Naxalbari and Phansidawa -- that come within the larger Darjeeling territory. Going it alone is not an option that the Trinamool Congress considered, even though the party’s hill unit is credible, well organised and politically effective, winning the Mirik municipal corporation elections on its own strength rather than as an ally of the GJM.

The sensitivity of the ethnic Gorkhas, who created the nomenclature to distinguish themselves from the “Nepali” population that migrated into India, on the outsider-insider issue is so high that the BJP has fielded its best campaigners, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, to assuage any concerns that the local political leadership may have about the fact that the party is contesting in these elections on its own symbol instead of supporting a local party, namely the Gorkha National Liberation Front and the Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists. The need to do so is also on account of the defections that the BJP engineered to rope in two candidates, Shubha Pradhan and Bishnu Prasad Bajgain (Sharma) one each from these two parties.

The effort of Amit Shah has been to allay all fears that the National Register for Citizens would be unrolled as soon as the elections in West Bengal were over. He has been very careful to declare that the Citizenship Amendment Act would be implemented in West Bengal on a priority basis post the BJP winning the 2021 election, but he has been equally careful in reassuring voters that NRC would not be implemented. In Darjeeling, the CAA is not as great a threat to the identity of the Gorkhas as Indians, because nobody would apply for citizenship under the Act, as the local population believes they are already Indians and have been citizens of the place before and after Independence.

The disenfranchisement of people of Nepali origin in Assam has disturbed the local Darjeeling population. The process of proving citizenship through papers that can trace the origins of the family is a matter of extreme anxiety in a population that set up settlements in the hills or worked on the tea and cinchona plantations without acquiring the paperwork to prove their status as citizens. It is on this account that land rights for plantation workers and settlements where the people do not possess Parja Patta (land titles or tenancy titles) have been put at the top of the list of issues that the elected representatives must deal with post the elections.

 

Land rights and the anxiety over who possesses papers have penetrated to the grassroots including remote and poorly connected hamlets in the hill area. The Trinamool Congress has labelled the BJP as anti-Gorkha and deceitful, and the BJP has had to deal with the accusation to reassure the voters in the hills that implementing NRC in West Bengal is not on the cards. Mamata Banerjee, even on the last day of the campaign for the fifth phase, that is, April 14, attacked the BJP and insisted that it would implement NRC-CAA if it came to power in West Bengal regardless of the assurances of Amit Shah and Narendra Modi.

Linked to and an intrinsic part of the status of the local population in terms of identity, citizenship, papers that prove that they are the original inhabitants of the region, are concerned about the legal as well as the constitutional position of Darjeeling in the territory defined by GTA. The 1989 DGHC Accord has outlived its utility of bringing peace to the turbulent hills. A new tripartite agreement on the long-standing demand of the local population as well as political parties for statehood is waiting to be negotiated, because the idea of autonomy is fluid and GTA is a creature that is accountable to the West Bengal government.

“BJP felt it necessary to confront this narrative,” a political activist in Darjeeling said. The effect of the intensity of attention, as Amit Shah and even Narendra Modi, have campaigned in the hills, for the first time, has created a feeling that the BJP thinks that Darjeeling is important, he added. The “due importance and significance” of Darjeeling has been recognised as the BJP has campaigned in every block and at the grassroots, with a “seriousness that is rarely seen.” For the BJP, Darjeeling is the one part of West Bengal which it has represented since 2009 in Parliament. Strengthening that connection makes political sense.

Mamata Banerjee has not travelled up to Darjeeling in this election. Her absence from campaigning in the hills has been noted, though how much it will impact the chances of the Bimal Gurung and Binoy Tamang factions of the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha, both of whom support the Trinamool Congress, is not clear. The connection between Mamata Banerjee and the hills was very strong after 2011 and it is the credibility of her leadership that allowed the Trinamool Congress to set up a hill unit and contest in municipal elections in geography where all parties with headquarters in the plains, be it Kolkata or New Delhi, are considered outsiders.

 

The factions, the odd alliances and the complicated dynamics of local politics and politicians will come into full play on April 17, when the Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong, Matigara-Naxalbari and Phansidawa go to the polls along with the 40 other constituencies in the fifth phase of the eight-phase election. The BJP is contesting on its own symbol but it has its local backers, who have also fielded their own candidates. The Trinamool is backing the two factions of the GJM, both of whom have fielded candidates against each other. This may appear confusing to outsiders, but to the voters in Darjeeling, this makes perfect sense.

 

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