Hills on fire

After a gap of 20 years, the Darjeeling hills are violent again. The green, white and yellow patterns of the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) flag can be seen flying from almost every rooftop in Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong.

This comes as . In the 1980s, the Darjeeling hills were witness to agitation, violence, bandhs and a complete collapse of tourism. Gorkha National Libration Front (GNLF) leader Subhash Ghising started with a demand for a separate state for the Gorkhas and later had to accept an autonomous Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC). In the intervening years, the council, under Ghising's chairmanship, did not do much for the hill people, making all sorts of whimsical expenditures instead. And the West Bengal government turned a blind eye to this.

It was quid pro quo for both sides. The West Bengal government ignored auditing council accounts and Ghising did not raise the bogey of a separate Gorkhaland. This unholy deal went on smoothly for quite some time till a new wave of agitation unseated Ghising. On June 17, in an all-party meeting on the Darjeeling crisis, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya revealed that he had ordered the auditing process to begin.

While this could be seen as a ploy to placate the agitating GJM leaders, the main problem remains unattended. Why do the Gorkhas want a separate state for themselves? Samaresh Majumdar, noted writer of Bengali fiction with his roots in the Dooars (foothills around Siliguri, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, etc), points out the abject neglect of the hill people. In the 1980s, during the peak of the Gorkhaland agitation, Left leaders in Bengal admitted that economic factors were at the root of the separatist movement. But after Ghising was mollified, nothing was done to improve
the lot of the hill people.

The initial euphoria was over within a few years as they realised that instead of a distant state government, they were now under Ghising's arbitrary direct rule, and he was very nearby. Ghising also alienated a section of people who were in the frontline in the days of the GNLF movement, such as Bimal Gurung. Expelled from the GNLF by Ghising, he was leading a relatively quiet life till he organised a campaign in favour of local talent Prashant Tamang in the ‘Indian Idol' singing contest. As Tamang won the contest, Bimal Gurung and others realised the star's iconic potential among people of Nepalese descent in Darjeeling. Bimal Gurung and his associates formed a new outfit, the GJM, and once again demanded a separate Gorkhaland
state.

This time, they wanted to include a substantial area of the Dooars, where there are a large number of Nepalis working in the tea gardens. Earlier, the state government, in connivance with Ghising, tried to bring Darjeeling under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution for tribal areas, although tribals are not the majority there. This would have given Ghising extra leverage as he was from a tribal community. Others, however, quickly saw through the game and the GJM launched a movement forcing Ghising to step down from the council.

The first public rally held at Siliguri on May 15 by GJM leaders came as a rude shock to almost everyone. The huge crowd that attended the rally came mostly from the Dooars areas. The Nepali community in the Dooars welcomed the movement since the GJM roadmap for Gorkhaland included Siliguri and part of the Dooars. After that, the ruling CPM leaders started raising the same old slogan: "We won't allow Bengal to be partitioned again." As a substantial percentage of the population in North Bengal, especially in the Dooars, is from erstwhile East Pakistan, this trick almost always worked.

However, in recent years, India has witnessed the creation of a number of new states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand. The demand for the creation of Telengana, Vidarbha and Bundelkhand are on. This has given the GJM the moral boost it needed.

This time, the CPM reacted nervously to the crisis, as heavyweight leader in Siliguri, Ashok Bhattacharya -- who is also a minister in the state government -- took a provocative approach. Chauvinistic Bengali feelings were aroused by using fanatic outfits like Aamra Bangali. Sporadic clashes between Nepalis and Bengalis took place in Siliguri and elsewhere in the Dooars. ‘Aamra Bangali' and similar outfits were formed overnight. The CPM's hand has been suspected behind this phenomena.

Leaders of Left Front partners, such as Kshiti Goswami, openly stated that CPM leaders of North Bengal who were behind this. Finally, Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi appealed for peace and the chief minister asked the CPM leaders to rein in the counter-agitation.

Congress leaders Pranab Mukherjee and Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi emphatically rejected the demand of a separate Gorkhaland as they could not afford to loose the support of the plains people. The all-party meet in Kolkata on June 17 passed a resolution for a political solution to the crisis through negotiations. GJM leaders were prepared for that. Knowing the Congress' reluctance at creating smaller states, they decided to wait till the next general elections. They hope that if the BJP wins it will not be averse to the idea of a new state as they had earlier supported similar demands.

Bimal Gurung thinks he can realise his dream in 2010. Till then, the GJM would try to keep the tempo high. Despite the CPM.